First, each jurisdiction developed sustainable finance plans, including financing targets, strategies, and the creation of Protected Area Network (PAN) Funds. For example, Palau created a Green Fee, and FSM and RMI are working on Tuna Licensing Fee legislation and a tourism fee to support sustainable financing of the Micronesia Challenge. Pohnpei and Kosrae State are creating PAN funds and are evaluating an amendment to the airport tax law to allow some of the departure fees to go into the FSM's Micronesia Challenge Endowment Fund. Additionally, several other sustainable financing schemes have been and/or are being set up (i.e. the Yela Conservation Easement Endowment, the Awak Sustainable Community Development Revolving Fund, the Nett Water Fund). An endowment for the MC is another important component to sustainable financing. Interest income from an endowment of approximately $56 million ($17 million as of 2015) will be needed to supplement local sources for the long-term sustainability of the MC in all five jurisdictions. Although the endowment funds are invested together, each jurisdiction has their own sub-account and will develop their own dissemination mechanisms for their interest income.

The announcement of the Micronesia Challenge in 2006 was the culmination of decades of work by Micronesian people and organizations to raise awareness and strengthen the capacity across this region to conserve and sustainably manage natural resources. In early 2006, the Chief Executives of each of the jurisdictions signed the Micronesia Challenge and presented it to the international community at a high level event at the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in March 2006 in Brazil. The decades of groundwork combined with the right timing and publicity at the COP8 created a moment when political leaders challenged each other to make this ambitious commitment. They were far more ambitious than even the Aichi Targets that would follow in 2011 (17% terrestrial and 10% marine by 2020). The fact that political leaders at the highest level and across the region committed to this target catalyzes both local implementation and international finance to conservation in Micronesia. Now the Micronesia Challenge has become an established institution, mainstreamed into government priorities and surviving turnover in administrations in every one of the five participating jurisdictions.

When undertaking a planning or zoning task, rarely does a planner have access to all the information or knowledge that they would like for the entire planning area. Whether it might be more consistent ecological data across the entire planning area or a more complete understanding of the full range of social and economic information, a planner is often faced with the following choices:

1. Waiting until they have more data (with the ultimate aim of accumulating ‘perfect’ information across all the required datasets); or
2. Working with the best available scientific knowledge and accepting that while it is not perfect, it is adequate provided the deficiencies of the data are understood (by the planners and the decision-makers) and clearly explained to the public and to the decision-makers. Insufficient knowledge about marine ecosystems can impede the setting of meaningful objectives or desirable outcomes when planning. David Suzuki in 2002 questioned how can we effectively plan and manage when “… to date all we have actually identified are ... about 10–20% of all living things”, and “… we have such a poor inventory of the constituents and a virtually useless blueprint of how all the components interact?’’