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? Policy Report Card – identifying the landscape of high level strategies, policies and policy Module
goals, whether in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), regional treaties or national
programs establishes the big picture and the extent of attention that is currently being given to 5
the environmental issues. This step would also involve identifying policy perforance indicators
in the context of which targets can be identified and interpreted and that also help track
progress.

? Policy Instrument Scan – identifying the mix of specific policy instruments that are currently
influencing your environmental issue and how effective this mix has been (comparing actual versus Abu Dhabi, UAE
intended effects) provides the foundation for further policy analysis. This analysis should also
consider that most environmental issues are strongly linked to others, such as land use and water
quality for instance. Therefore, the scan could also cover those policies that are targeting a strongly
linked environmental issues and their impact is mediated due to issue interlinkages.

? Policy Gap and Coherence Analysis – identifying if a relevant policy is not implemented, if a policy
type is under-represented, and if policies are not focused on the relevant drivers or pressure, are all
part of understanding the gaps in government policy. Additionally, policy influence is complex, given
the dynamic and highly adaptive interrelationships among people, the economy and the environment.
Policies can therefore have impacts that were not intended or anticipated. Assessing the positive and
negative influence of policies on other policies is an important aspect of understanding policy coherence.
? Policy Narrative Sheet – This step develops a summary of the key insights from the analyses carried
out in Steps A through D. It is in this narrative where policy failures and successes, along with key
policy gaps and opportunities for innovation and improvement are highlighted.

The steps are described below in detail in sections 6.3 through 6.8.

6.3 Step A. Understanding the issue: What is happening to the environment and why,

and what are the impacts?
The starting point for any type of policy analysis is a thorough understanding the issue. This was the
topic of sections 4 and 5 of this module which addressed the questions: what is happening to the
environment and why? and what are the impacts on the environment and humanity?

An adequate understanding of the issue would require the following information:

? Identification of the causal chain of drivers, pressures, state and impact for a given environmental issue.

? Development of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) indicators for
the key drivers, pressures, state and impacts.
? Identification of key points in time where policy(ies) had impact. Time-bound information is
important for this, particularly for the state indicator.

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