The FAIN Management Framework of active and programmable networks is an innovative distributed policy based management framework that copes with the specific management requirements of active networks, dynamically adapting to heterogeneous network technologies and functionalities. Also, it supports a flexible delegation approach with co-existence of different management strategies allowing actors to best customise the management architecture to their business needs. This results in reduction of redundant traffic and information processing, and dynamic fine-grained management tailoring. The paper focuses on how policy-based management is applicable to the active network and how these technologies can merge in an evolutionary management framework. The concepts presented here have been developed within the framework of the FAIN project.