”Mainstreaming“ the Environment in PRSPs: The Unfulfilled Promise

Another important criticism of PRSPs has been their failure to adequately “mainstream” environmental issues, that is, to account for the role of resource access and environmental management in the lives of the poor, and their potential contribution to poverty reduction programs. Several studies have assessed the extent to which PRSPs integrate poverty-environment relationships—in general or in specific sectors, such as forestry, biodiversity, and water. In most of these assessments, the texts of PRSPs were analyzed and scores were assigned to indicate whether key issues were mentioned in the PRSP text and how fully these issues were analyzed or discussed.

• Within the Environment Department of the World Bank, a team of analysts has conducted several studies of environmental mainstreaming in PRSPs (Bojö and Reddy 2002, 2003a, 2003b; Bojö et al. 2004). Based on textual analysis of all available PRSPs, the authors found that the extent of environmental mainstreaming varies widely, with final versions of PRSPs tending to reflect better mainstreaming than initial (socalled interim) versions. They also concluded that issues related to the environmental health targets of the MDGs (safe drinking water and sanitation) receive more attention in PRSPs than do issues of natural resources management.
  
  
• A separate study of forest-related issues in 36 PRSPs (full and interim) found that treatment of forest issues was generally weak. Especially lacking was analysis of causal links between poverty and forest resources, as well as the role of natural resources and ecosystem services in determining human well-being. Given these shortcomings, the PRSPs analyzed included surprisingly many forest-related policies and programs in their agendas for action, most of which were apparently drawn from pre-existing national forest strategies and plans. For example, the PRSPs of Malawi and Mozambique were particularly strong in integrating forest-sector activities based on national forest planning processes (Oksanen and Mersmann 2003:123,136-7). (See Figure 2.)
  
  
• Assessment of the mainstreaming of biodiversity-related themes in 15 PRSPs found that while declines in biodiversity were analyzed in 12 of the strategies, only one PRSP (Zambia) developed a policy prescription that integrated biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction. Most of the PRSPs analyzed called for efforts to diversify agricultural species, but only two PRSPs (Ethiopia and Mozambique) mentioned using different varieties of agricultural crops (Bindraban et al. 2004:19, 21). This is an important distinction, since using diverse varieties of the same crop species is a key strategy for reducing agricultural risk by improving disease resistance and enhancing tolerance of harsh environmental conditions.
  
  
• A study of water issues in 10 PRSPs concluded that these issues were inadequately and inconsistently incorporated in PRSPs, especially with respect to integrating the need for close links between strategies for developing additional watersupply and sanitation infrastructure and strategies for managing water resources for productive uses by the poor, including agriculture, small-scale fishing, and small industry (Slaymaker and Newborne 2004:1-2).

Such weaknesses in integrating environmental issues into PRSPs seem to be more often a genuine oversight rather than the result of conscious priority-setting. In a study by the World Bank Environment Department, many PRSPs that scored low for attention to environmental issues were produced by countries where the poverty-environment linkage is strong—places with heavy dependence on natural resources for rural livelihoods, high levels of traditional fuel use, or low levels of access to safe water and sanitation (Bojö and Reddy 2003b:14).

This finding is supported by experiences from the field. For example, reports from Nigeria indicate that environmental concerns were barely mentioned in initial drafts of its “homegrown” version of the PRSP (known as the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, or NEEDS), and efforts were made to incorporate environmental issues only after the draft was distributed to stakeholders, “more or less [as] an afterthought” (Oladipo 2004).

Most assessments concluded that the degree of environmental mainstreaming in PRSPs is strongly influenced by the nature of civil-society participation in their preparation. For example, the top-scoring cluster of PRSPs in the World Bank studies of environmental mainstreaming also scored high on public participation in PRSP development (Bojö et al. 2004:15).

Many studies also note that inclusion of environmental issues in PRSPs sometimes appears to be driven more by donor concerns rather than domestic political priorities. In several cases, donors have pressed reluctant governments to provide opportunities for significant engagement of civil society in PRSP processes. Indeed, closer relationships between civil society and donors has been an outgrowth of the evolution of PRSP processes in several countries (PRSP Monitoring and Synthesis Project 2002:5).

In the PRSPs of many countries, poverty diagnosis and analysis emphasize technical solutions to poverty-environment issues. Less frequently do PRSPs address more controversial, politically charged issues of access, ownership, control, and rights to environmental resources and how these impact the poor’s capacity to derive environmental income from productive assets. However, in a few instances, participation by activist NGOs has begun to shape the content of poverty analysis in PRSPs; for example, the PRSPs of Uganda and Honduras have begun to address issues of access to and control of natural resources in response to concerns expressed in consultations with civil society (Waldman et al. 2005:32).

Another oversight in many PRSPs is the failure to assess the potential impacts of proposed growth policies on environmental sustainability, maintenance of critical ecosystem functioning, and key natural resources relied on by the poor for their livelihoods (Oksanen and Mersmann 2003:137). For example, PRSPs frequently propose incentives to encourage high-input, exportoriented agriculture to stimulate economic growth, yet rarely do they analyze the risks of this approach for harming small-scale rural farmers and weakening their ability to manage local natural resources (Tharakan and MacDonald 2004:25).

The PRSP of Nicaragua refers to intensive production of cash crops, including coffee, for export, but this discussion does not include measures to improve food security or to diversify rural incomes through nonfarm activities (Tharakan and MacDonald 2004:32). The PRSP of Sri Lanka presents goals for rapid economic growth through expansion of cash-crop agriculture, plantation activity, and fisheries, but provides no analysis of the implications of such growth on natural-resource depletion or waste generation (Tharakan and MacDonald 2004:38-9).

Several countries have begun to carry out their PRSPs and thus have been required to submit annual progress reports on PRSP implementation. In general, these annual reports give even less attention to environmental sustainability than the PRSPs themselves. In many cases, policies and programs proposed in a country’s PRSP are absent entirely from discussions in its progress reports. Studies by the World Bank found that several countries whose PRSP was very highly rated for environmental mainstreaming submitted annual reports that reflected little progress in implementing environment-related measures (Bojö et al. 2004:19).