Why INFFER?
Around the world, environmental organisations face a similar challenge: how to achieve the best and most needed outcomes from the limited resources available?
This is where INFFER comes in; it enables environmental manages to undertake a process that results in the establishment of clear goals, identification of priorities and development of robust and appropriate activities and projects to protect assets.
Key elements of INFFER
INFFER is unique in the current suite of approaches available to support prioritisation and project development. It has the following critical characteristics:
- It can be applied to different types of environmental assets.
- It is able to compare the cost-effectiveness of projects across different types of environmental assets and projects at different spatial and temporal scales.
- It considers both the selection of delivery mechanisms and project prioritisation in an integrated way.
- In prioritising projects, it integrates a comprehensive set of information, including biophysical,social and economic considerations.
- It is designed to be highly participatory, drawing on the knowledge of experts and local stakeholders as well as available research and literature. The process enables relevant stakeholders to be actively involved in the problem solving process.
- In providing guidance on delivery mechanisms, it uses the Public Private Benefits Framework to identify whether extension and incentives, regulation and research and technology development, or a mix of these is required to get the most cost-effective result.
- It supports the development of robust, consistent and well-costed projects where the activities are clearly linked to the project goals.
- It is as easy to use as possible, while still meeting the above requirements. It can be used by environmental managers who are not specialists in modeling, economics or technical analysis.
Benefits of INFFER
INFFER™ assists organisations that manage natural resources and the environment to attract more funds to their organisations, achieve better results on the ground and generate new levels of community cooperation on projects. Here are several ways that it can help organisations that are seeking funding:
Prioritising
Environmental problems are much larger than the budgets available for addressing them. The resulting need to be able to prioritise with confidence is vital, but very challenging. INFFER enables managers to undertake a robust and structured approach to prioritisation and its rigour provides confidence in the results.
INFFER can be used to establish priorities for implementation or to prepare proposals for funding. The process is flexible and can be undertaken annually to assist with the development of action plans, or less frequently, such as to develop an overall investment plan or strategy for the region. Government funding priorities tend to change depending on financial, political and environmental contexts. INFFER users can develop a stock of ‘ready to go’ projects, allowing rapid responses to funding opportunities with short time frames.
Using existing knowledge
Millions of dollars are invested into research each year, but decision makers often don’t make the fullest or best use of the available information. INFFER supports integration of the many different sorts of relevant information. Its structured process provides guidance on which information is needed, and how it should influence decisions. It can accommodate the best available information, whether that is from the peer-reviewed research literature, or an enthusiastic local expert.
Flexibility
INFFER is a flexible approach that can be configured in different ways to tackle environmental and natural resource management problems and challenges. That said, it ensures the key factors associated with robust, transparent and theoretically sound assessments of benefits and costs are maintained.
Demonstrating Cost-effectiveness
Increasingly environmental organisations are required to demonstrate how publicly funded projects will achieve outcomes cost effectively. INFFER helps assure investors that what they are investing in will deliver tangible results that are worth the investment; that the tools and technical capacity needed to attain those results are available to the project; and that the people who need to come on board to make it happen will be there when the time comes for action.
Getting an edge on competitors
INFFER delivers clear, robust project proposals, with ‘SMART’ goals and actions to deliver them. These proposals are more likely to be funded than others that are not so well reasoned or substantiated
Defensible decisions
INFFER gives decision makers the ability to assess one project against another, comparing aspects such as value for money, degrees of confidence in technical information and the likelihood of achieving stated goals. It takes the guess work out of resource allocation and can greatly improve the confidence in decisions made.
INFFER helps to ensure scarce resources are spent in the most effective manner.
