[Editor's Note: Conservation Trust Funds quickly became the darling of the international environmental movement in the 1990's because they appeared to offer a viable solution to a troubling downward trend in financial and institutional support from other more conventional sources. The number of funds grew rapidly.

Below is an excerpt from a longer presentation delivered on 26 April 1995 by Dan M. Martin, Director, World Environment and Resources Program, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, at an international meeting to discuss trust funds.]

1. They can respond to the growth of NGO's and the decentralization of government. They can work with commercial enterprises and reinforce the growth of civil societies. The traditional methods of development assistance just were not designed to work in that environment.
2. They can distribute funds on a more appropriate scale (smaller than is practical for foreign agencies to manage) - over a longer time frame, spending money when needed - and respond more quickly to new circumstances.
3. They elevate the potential for coordinated, mutually reinforcing effects of foreign aid funds - reducing the potential for the current pattern of uncoordinated -- often conflicting -- programs supported by various donor agencies.
4. They can improve the efficiency of donor agencies by enlisting the positive energy and creativity of developing-country leadership.
5. They build capacity in developing countries to plan, manage, and sustain their own development programs. Appropriateness and local commitment are bound to increase.
6. They can diminish the debilitating gap that exists between macro-level policy and successful local-community-based projects.
7. They can reduce reliance on expatriate experts and sectoral thinking, allowing growth of more comprehensive, systemic programs.
8. They can support trans-boundary programs (as in the Eastern Carpathians Muntains), regional programs (as in Central America or the insular Caribbean), and sub-state programs (as in Bwindi National Park Fund in Uganda).
9. They can provide models of transparency for governing agencies, building experience in open, more democratic decision-making, and avoiding some of the official corruption that has not been avoided by established modes of development assistance.
10. They offer a reasonably safe and orderly way for donor agencies to experiment with reducing control of official development assistance (ODA) funds to appropriate levels.