Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries

Payments for environmental services (PES) are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries. To date, however, few efforts have been made to systematically compare PES experiences. Drawing on the wealth of case studies in t...

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Main Authors:	Wunder, Sven, Engel, Stefanie, Pagiola, Stefano
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services Biodiversity Conservation Industrial Ecology Q570 Environmental Economics: Government Policy Q580
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5030

id	okr-10986-5030
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-50302021-04-23T14:02:20Z Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries Wunder, Sven Engel, Stefanie Pagiola, Stefano Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services Biodiversity Conservation Industrial Ecology Q570 Environmental Economics: Government Policy Q580 Payments for environmental services (PES) are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries. To date, however, few efforts have been made to systematically compare PES experiences. Drawing on the wealth of case studies in this Special Issue, we synthesize the information presented, according to case characteristics with respect to design, costs, environmental effectiveness, and other outcomes. PES programs often differ substantially one from the other. Some of the differences reflect adaptation of the basic concept to very different ecological, socioeconomic, or institutional conditions; others reflect poor design, due either to mistakes or to the need to accommodate political pressures. We find significant differences between user-financed PES programs, in which funding comes from the users of the ES being provided, and government-financed programs, in which funding comes from a third party. The user-financed programs in our sample were better targeted, more closely tailored to local conditions and needs, had better monitoring and a greater willingness to enforce conditionality, and had far fewer confounding side objectives than government-financed programs. We finish by outlining some perspectives on how both user- and government-financed PES programs could be made more effective and cost-efficient. 2012-03-30T07:30:56Z 2012-03-30T07:30:56Z 2008 Journal Article Ecological Economics 09218009 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5030 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services Biodiversity Conservation Industrial Ecology Q570 Environmental Economics: Government Policy Q580
spellingShingle	Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services Biodiversity Conservation Industrial Ecology Q570 Environmental Economics: Government Policy Q580 Wunder, Sven Engel, Stefanie Pagiola, Stefano Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	Payments for environmental services (PES) are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries. To date, however, few efforts have been made to systematically compare PES experiences. Drawing on the wealth of case studies in this Special Issue, we synthesize the information presented, according to case characteristics with respect to design, costs, environmental effectiveness, and other outcomes. PES programs often differ substantially one from the other. Some of the differences reflect adaptation of the basic concept to very different ecological, socioeconomic, or institutional conditions; others reflect poor design, due either to mistakes or to the need to accommodate political pressures. We find significant differences between user-financed PES programs, in which funding comes from the users of the ES being provided, and government-financed programs, in which funding comes from a third party. The user-financed programs in our sample were better targeted, more closely tailored to local conditions and needs, had better monitoring and a greater willingness to enforce conditionality, and had far fewer confounding side objectives than government-financed programs. We finish by outlining some perspectives on how both user- and government-financed PES programs could be made more effective and cost-efficient.
format	Journal Article
author	Wunder, Sven Engel, Stefanie Pagiola, Stefano
author_facet	Wunder, Sven Engel, Stefanie Pagiola, Stefano
author_sort	Wunder, Sven
title	Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
title_short	Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
title_full	Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
title_fullStr	Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
title_full_unstemmed	Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries
title_sort	taking stock: a comparative analysis of payments for environmental services programs in developed and developing countries
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5030
_version_	1764393666090106880

Taking Stock: A Comparative Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services Programs in Developed and Developing Countries

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