Measurement Matters

Measurement Matters, in partnership with local project coordinators Foundation Estrategias Para la Vida and research institutions including the Center for Excellence in Marine Sciences (CEMARIN), seek to conduct a participatory baseline characterization of sea turtles and seagrass pastures and their ecosystem services in La Guajira, Colombia, using the investigation results to plan and implement a results-based, community-led project consisting of environmental education, waste management, and seagrass & sea turtle conservation. If selected as a winner, we would use The Elevate Prize funding to finance this participatory baseline characterization. The results from this investigation will provide crucial information regarding the potential for carbon capture in seagrasses and the extent to which seagrass pastures support ecosystem services related to animal conservation, erosion, and sustainable tourism. In addition, the results will be used to design a results-based sustainable impact bond, community-led education and conservation project in La Guajira that will positively impact the livelihoods of the local community and sustainability of important ecosystems. 

Measurement Matters was founded to solve the social impact information gap and make social impact more effective through effective impact measurement, management and advanced analytics. 

We realized that measurement is not only for funds that already existed for social impact, but can be used to channel funding towards high impact projects. For this reason, we use measurement not as a means to an end, but as a pathway to create innovative finance tools that channel funding from the private sector towards important impacts - like the impacts created in La Guajira through the “Suma tus Manos” project. We are motivated by tough questions, designing new projects that unite unlikely actors around a common goal to improve people's lives and protect the environment. Our goals for the future are to create a culture of impact measurement and mainstream innovative finance tools to integrate both social and private sectors for impact across the globe.

The department of La Guajira is  located in the northwest corner Colombia with a population of 880,560, of which approximately 1500 are indigenous Wayúu. The current community condition of La Guajira is characterized by:

Unsustainable tourism.

Unsustainable Fishing methods.

Illegal hunting of threatened species.

Deterioration of seagrasses.

The community also lacks an effective waste management system, and waste pollutes the nearby coastal waters and threatens the seagrasses and species that inhabit them. This condition is characterized by:

• On average, 288 tons of waste are produced per day in Guajira. 

• Only 0.6% of waste is recycled

• It is estimated that only 60% of the waste from the municipalities reaches the department's five landfills.

• The remaining 40% of waste is disposed of in makeshift dumps or is burned and buried

Measurement Matters is a Colombian-American consulting company specialized in impact measurement and management, econometrics, social and environmental finance, and project management. We have extensive experience working with rural communities, specifically in the development of sustainable social and environmental projects. After conducting initial investigation into the environmental and social factors, a strength-based, community led project will be implemented with local project implementers, Fundación Estrategias para la vida.

The project is innovative and unique in many aspects, since we are working in a social cooperation model with the Wayúu community, using their cosmovision, knowledge and lifestyle in favor of the project. Wayúu´s reglamentation is considered UNESCO world heritage, allowing this to be adapted to a new climatic context, ensuring an improvement in people´s quality life, in addition, the project will be carried out through a co-creation of alliances to:

• Implement a Sustainable Impact Bond, which is an innovative pay-for-results financial model. In this model, environmental and social outcome targets are monetised and funding is tied to the projects ability to achieve determined outcomes. This model helps ensure accountability, transparency, and scalability of the project implementation. 

• Participatory community involvement of the Cabo de La Vela community in the research, monitoring, and implementation of all project activities, compensating the community for their work and installing local capacity 

• Create a solid waste management system supported by local businesses and the community at large.

The following activities will be used to achieve the planned impact:

1. Determine the current status of sea turtle populations.

2. Determine the current status of the seagrass extent, structure, diversity, and health.

3. Estimate the organic carbon biomass content of seagrasses and determine its blue carbon sequestration potential.

4. Create public reports related to the information collected through the investigation.

5. Train 20 Wayúu community members in sea turtle monitoring techniques, coastal erosion monitoring and seagrass restoration.

6. Model current, and future, trajectories of coastal erosion.

7. Implement participatory community workshops to collect data and create a community education curriculum  that seeks to promote environmental awareness.

8. Establish baseline characterization of the amount of waste that is generated and disposed of in landfills.

These activities will allow for an increase of scientific knowledge about carbon sequestration potential of seagrasses, increase the understanding of the most efficient ways to restore seagrass pastures, and better understand the influence that seagrass pastures have on ecosystem services, among others. All of this information will be used to create a community conservation project that will restore seagrass pastures, maintain the sea turtle population, establish an effective waste management system, and implement a community environmental education program.