Lessons The Mid-Term Evaluation provides an opportunity to identify aspects of the project which have exemplified good or poor practice, and which may be useful as lessons for the future AEC project or other similar initiatives in Maldives and elsewhere. Project inception process A well-organized inception phase is essential for projects with characteristics similar to the Maldives AECP - complex, with a policy reform component, designed over a lengthy period, by people not responsible for the project's subsequent implementation or performance, in an administrative environment with acknowledged limited capacity for implementation. The AEC project was formulated over several years using two phases of Project Development Facility grants from the GEF, thorough expert analyses and an extensive in-country consultative process. The project brief was approved by the GEF in 2002; formal execution arrangements and funds, including significant co-financing as an integral part of the overall package, were organised by UNDP in early 2004; and mobilisation was starting in the months before the December 2004 tsunami that caused much damage and disruption in the country. The project launch and an inception workshop were held in July 2005. With this background, a more substantial project inception was warranted. Four objectives for inception can be identified: 1) It is important for the range of key stakeholders in the country to develop a shared understanding and "ownership" of the initiative - what the project is and is trying to achieve; its innovative nature; the changes it is aiming to facilitate; and the roles and inputs to be provided by each participant. The AEC project is introducing an innovative approach to conservation and sustainable development, which require significant changes in institutional arrangements among national and atoll-level institutions. All this should be made clear and any queries or doubts resolved as far as possible through the inc