The experience of the evaluating the results of ICM initiatives sponsored by a
variety of international donors including the United States Agency for International
Development [13], the Global Environmental Facility [1], the Inter American
Development Bank [14] and the Swedish Foreign Assistance Program [15] in a wide
diversity of settings in Latin America, East Africa and Southeast Asia suggests that
the primary factor limiting progress in coastal management is not the availability of
funding or knowledge of the social and ecosystem process at work, but the capacity
of the institutions most directly involved to instigate and sustain integrated and
adaptive forms of management [15]. Matching the governance capacity that can
be created or strengthened within a given time period with given resources to
the complexity of the issues to be addressed lies at the heart of good practice.