An early evaluation of NOAA's Habitat Matrix Program a report by a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Report by a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

"This still-young program continues to be administered primarily as a collection of individual programs rather than as a unified program with clear priorities and performance targets. Within this context, the individual programs appear to be effective in producing essential program outputs. Nevertheless, the Habitat Matrix Program as a whole cannot yet demonstrate progress toward achieving the outcome goals set forth for it by NOAA's Ecosystem Goal Team -- healthy habitats for living marine resources that contribute to (1) healthy and productive coastal and marine ecosystems that benefit society, and (2) a well-informed public that acts as a steward of coastal and marine ecosystems. The Academy Panel's recommendations for strengthening the Habitat's ability to demonstrate progress toward outcome goals include immediate actions to improve the program's existing logic models and performance measures -- working with other federal agencies, NOAA's regional offices, and non-federal partners to relate the current programs more directly to commonly agreed-on outcomes. The Panel also recommends a longterm strategy to establish new performance measures that can more directly document progress toward reaching explicit habitat improvement goals required to achieve larger ecosystem, fish population, and socio-economic goals"--Executive summary. F. Stevens Redburn, Daniel Fiorino, Jeff Benoit, Emily Woglom. "January 2009." Mode of access: World Wide Web. System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. 2009 1650