The Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems (PLACE) IQC

The ARD Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems (PLACE) Consortium provides technical assistance to USAID missions wishing to integrate natural resources management and biodiversity conservation into their portfolios of investments in transformational development assistance. In transformational development terms, the role of PLACE is to link natural resources and biodiversity with good governance and sustainable economic growth in order to help countries move forward along the transformational development continuum. The ARD PLACE Consortium has collectively adopted a vision, a set of principles, and an overarching integrated landscape management approach that will characterize its work in service to USAID PLACE programming. Six principles guide our overall approach for working in this context.

1. Addressing the causes of threats to natural resources and biodiversity provides many of the best opportunities for USAID investment in transformational development.
   
2. Taking a systems view integrates biological, economic, and socio-political dimensions of development, and points to landscape-level strategies and interventions for alleviating poverty, improving livelihoods, promoting economic growth, strengthening democracies, improving human health and well-being, and preventing conflict, and at the same time conserving biodiversity, natural resources, and irreplaceable ecosystem services.
   
3. Facilitating broad-based stakeholder participation and engagement is the only way to catalyze changes in individuals and institutions needed to bring about transformational development that conserves natural capital and protects valuable ecosystem services.
   
4. Involving the private sector as partners in producing, marketing, and trading ecologically sustainable agricultural products and sustainably harvested natural products is a key to linking broad-based economic development with conservation and NRM.
   
5. Decentralizing governance of natural resources and biodiversity is a key to success and sustainability.
   
6. Managing adaptively is the only way to create developmental transformations in complex social and ecological systems; piloting, testing, and adapting interventions, monitoring and evaluating, learning from failures as well as successes, and continuously improving performance is the key to long-term success.

ARD-PLACE IQC Services is funded by USAID
through IQC Contract No. EPP-I-00-06-00008-00