We found that exit-strategies are in most cases considered quite
carefully – or at least that the exit is recognised as a problem –
although you perhaps can't do anything about it. However, the type of
strategies vary; from our data we can identify four different groups:
- There has to be a fixed exit strategy to even get started
(neighbourhood fund projects).
- The exit is part of the structure from the beginning (the green
job house and the Crown street project).
- Temporary project where exit-strategies are only discussed after
evaluation of project success (Schanzenkieker in Hamburg ).
- Projects where you are discussing the exit-strategy and anchoring
as an ongoing process but where this also depends on future finances (OTRA
??)
In all cases the exit strategies are a reaction to time-limited
funding. In the cases where the products will stay and need maintenance
after funding ends, the strategies are mandatory, in other cases which
are taken on simply because they were successful, we are not talking
about exit but anchoring/institutional change, and the debates here
happen by free will.
Key people in the exit/anchoring discussion are of course the
stakeholders in the project – and this also includes future stakeholders
of the project even though they perhaps do not participate in the
implementation. In most cases the area managers are involved as
mediators or process facilitators.
A necessity for successful anchoring is a sensitive monitoring and
evaluation system. In Hamburg it was only in the evaluation that the key
actors saw the success and decided to continue the project city-wide.
This is a key example for the mainstreaming of an innovation in public
service delivery which had only been made possible in the
extraordinary/experimental environment of an area-based programme.
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