INTEGRATED SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT PROGRAMMING:
Investment programming is one of the most important and useful components of the plan as it translates the development strategies into concrete activities on the ground.
It is also the best understood and appreciated part, being the most visible part of the Plan, as it is composed of tangible programs and projects that directly impact on the stakeholders in a given area at a given time.
An investment program can come in different forms, depending on area of implementation (e.g. Local Development Investment Program), nature of investment (e.g. Capital Investment Program), source of funds (e.g. Official Development Assistance Program), sectoral focus (e.g., Infrastructure Program) and others. A good investment program takes into account both the demand (i.e. need or desirability) for an investment, and the availability of resources to support it in the economy.
An integrated sustainable investment program (ISIP), on the other hand, goes beyond this and considers both the demand for and supply of investment resources within the ecosystem.
Under MISP, an ISIP is formulated to ensure that the plan strategies are implemented in an integrated and sustainable manner.
We discuss the activities that comprise integrated sustainable investment planning below.
The identification of projects that would operationalize the plan is best done through the determination of needs and translating these needs into project form. The situational analysis undertaken at the outset of planning, as well as the strategies spelled out in the plan, provide good bases for determining the needs of an area, a sector or the ecosystem. But since project identification requires a fair amount of accurate information beyond what the plan itself requires, it is always useful to undertake any or all of the following: further consultations, ocular survey and preliminary study. The objective is to determine gaps and weaknesses, and hence, needs. These could also help determine the relative priorities of the needs.
The investment program must address not only needs of or places; it must address the needs of the ecosystem.
It is important to emphasize that in MISP, needs identification goes beyond those of people or places: it also covers the needs of the ecosystem.
 The ecosystem itself is a stakeholder that normally does not have a “voice” in development processes. Thus, its needs must be represented and expressed by advocates participating in the planning process, or ideally, all participants therein. Examples of ecosystem needs are regeneration for overfished waters, or oxygen for polluted waterways.
Needs are translated into projects by expressing and costing the interventions that would directly address them in a project proposal. The challenge here is to formulate projects that address the multi-dimensional character of sustainable development needs. For example, an infrastructure project may be so designed as to not only support economic activity in the area, but actually enhance the social, ecological, and even cultural and spiritual well-being as well. Similarly, projects in the area of human resources development, say training for local governments, may be designed to provide more holistic capability building that not only improves quality of governance, but also strengthens the economic, social, ecological and spiritual grounding of the those who are trained.
Another challenge is to identify and formulate projects that provide a vehicle for multi-stakeholder partnerships in project development, funding, and implementation. Joint government-NGO or business-NGO projects, for example, can provide more meaningful and sustainable outcomes than those undertaken by just one stakeholder group alone. Many such partnership projects, particularly those designed to guard and protect the environment, have already been demonstrated and documented in various parts of the world.
A project proposal is necessary as it spells out the information necessary in determining whether the intervention is worthy of funding and implementation. There are as many ways of preparing a project proposal as the sources of funds. But the basic information required include objectives of the project, description of how the project would be implemented to attain the objectives, cost of implementation, responsible entity(ies), and duration.
Projects need to be carefully prioritized according to widely agreed criteria.
Needs, hence required projects, are always enormous and cover a wide range of sectors or areas. Sometimes, expressed needs are misplaced or are best addressed by different interventions. At other times, needs are parochial, or addressing them would just benefit a limited number, or the less needy. Meanwhile, the resources that could meet the needs are always limited. This reality makes prioritization of needs and projects an essential step in investment programming.
Unfortunately, prioritization is a ticklish exercise since those doing it have to exercise judgement on the relative importance of the needs and “play God” in the process. Even if properly and fairly done, such judgement is almost always questioned. Prioritization should thus be based on a set of “sustainability criteria” that has been collectively established, scrutinized and agreed upon by at least the majority of all those concerned. It should be transparent and above board. The ISIP should be able to reconcile and integrate global, national and local environmental priorities.
To the extent possible, a community-based approach, which seeks to reconcile local community concerns with the greater good of the larger overall community (national and global), may be highlighted. In cases where these concerns are not immediately reconcilable, a strategy for a “win-win” solution may be proposed. For example, flood control projects that may inundate certain local communities in order to spare larger areas and numbers of people will have to seek creative “win-win” solutions. In this manner, global environmental priorities can be translated into applicable corresponding local initiatives, thereby integrating global concerns into the national and local priorities embodied in the Plan.
Investment capital in MISP-ISIP goes beyond financial capital.
 Investment resources or capital, in the context of MISP-ISIP, are not just financial. They include natural, human and physical capital that may be invested to satisfy needs. It is important to determine how much funds and other such capital resources would be available, where these resources could come from; when or for how long they may be made available, and in what form would they be provided.
Funds traditionally come from the national or local budget, official development assistance (ODA), or private sector. National or government resources are almost always lacking in majority of the countries in the world. Hence, external assistance through ODA and private sector investments, both local and foreign, are tapped to finance required investments. In the recent past, creative and innovative sources of financing sustain-able development initiatives have emerged and continued to develop. 
The debt-for-nature swap and similar facilities and philanthropy for nature are good examples of these. Currently being successfully pursued by civil society but still in their development stages are joint venture and venture capital partnerships. These facilities extend development funds to needy communities based on sustainability criteria.
Some resources and investments may be non-monetary in nature, such as those that come in the form of equipment, experts’ services, and volunteers. Merely allowing nature to take its course is also a form of investment. Taking the above example on overfishing, nature would invest by way of regeneration and providing more fish after a period of time if the area is at least temporarily closed to fishing.
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