Learning the Lessons
Dè dh’ionnsaich sinn bhon obair seo?
Sustainability | Strategic Approach | Participation | Partnership | Alignment | Capacity Building | Affordability | Transferability
Dùthchas was a Demonstration Project. The funding from the European LIFE Environment Programme was specifically aimed at ‘piloting and demonstrating new mechanisms to promote sustainable development and the integration of environmental considerations into land use development and planning’.
The fact that this was a demonstration project, has important implications for the way the Project was carried out and for the way in which it should be assessed. It is, for example, perfectly acceptable for a demonstration project to fail in some of its objectives, as long as useful lessons can be learnt from this.
Dùthchas set out bravely to enter new territory. On each of our ‘core values’ (listed below) we were breaking new ground. We set out to probe some knotty issues in relation to implementing sustainability at the community level, and to engaging and aligning the many public and other bodies whose activities have a major impact upon these communities. The aims were ambitious but very topical. At the end of the Project they are even more topical, as has been demonstrated by the amount of international interest in the Project.
Dùthchas was all about learning lessons. The work has been evaluated in several different ways:
- according to the core values of the Project through the eyes of the communities involved
- through the eyes of our many Partners
- through peer initiatives elsewhere
We have looked at the lessons for methodology and policy and for the transferability of all or parts of the Project process
