**6. Concluding thoughts**

In this chapter, the issue of sustainability planning in research project proposal development has been addressed. In the process the various categories/types of

sustainability vis-à-vis the steps to sustainability planning in research project management have been identified and explored, although crisply. Through this, the question of how organizations, and for that matter research project teams, seeking funding from donors can ensure that their project proposals address sustainability issues in ways that satisfy financing criteria of the donors, while at the same time producing convincing evidence of how their project activities and programmes would have lasting impacts on communities of beneficiaries, has been exemplified. Typically, the effort and its corresponding evidence in this chapter lends support largely to Leon's [2] contention that on the threshold of the twenty-first century, faced with an increasingly competitive market, a globalized economy, and a context in which change is a constant rather than a variable, organizations and project teams seeking project funding must "think outside the box." They must, according to Leon, demonstrate the most advanced methods of income-generation they will use to achieve sustainability in all its facets and thereby ensure that their programme of activities fulfill their missions and have lasting impacts on target groups even after funding regimes for such activities elapse.

In this context, and in my candid view, therefore, the need to achieve sustainability planning in project proposals is both tangible and crucial as it enables organizations and project teams to make tremendous strides in increasing income generation internally and thereby see decline in donor dependence. While this may be the most obvious benefits of planning sustainability, organizations, higher education institutions and research project teams tend to benefit from sustainability planning additionally in the following four ways. First, having sustainability plans in place means that organizations, higher education institutions and project teams are enabled to make autonomous decisions that truly reflect local, rather than international priorities. That is, they do not dance necessarily to the whims and caprices of donors mainly because they have greater freedom and independence in deciding on their strategies and activities when they generate their own resources. Second, and following up on the first point, in the process of building sustainability strategies, higher education institutions most often routinely examine their operations and procedures which leads to internal strengthening, enhanced management and team building. Third, when a higher education institution or research project team has a clear sustainability strategy and a record of how they intend to generate internal income within its project proposal, this improves the institutional image of the organization or project team in the eyes of potential and existing donors and can enable them attract more external funding for undertaking project activities. Fourth, as higher education institutions and/or project teams demonstrate their sustainability plans and strategies in their project proposals, their relationships with partners in development programmes improve and they become recognized and incentivized to negotiate on the basis of exchange rather than as benefactor and recipient.
