Upgrading the Treatment of Environmental Income in PRSPs

PRSPs have become one of the most powerful vehicles for carrying forward a commitment to better ecosystem management that benefits the poor. However, the processes and content of PRSPs in many countries falls far short of the potential. Even among strategies recognized within the development community for a relatively high degree of environmental mainstreaming, PRSPs rarely go far enough in proposing measures that would empower the poor with equitable and sustainable opportunities to derive income from their environmental assets.

What can be done to ensure that PRSPs advance a propoor agenda for maximizing sustainable environmental income while maintaining the integrity of critical ecosystem functions? At least seven key issues need to be examined. (See Framework for Upgrading PRSPs.) In the discussion below, examples of good practice in crafting PRSPs are highlighted to show that adequate treatment of these issues in PRSPs is both possible and desirable.

1. Ecosystem Orientation and Importance of Environmental Income

PRSPs need to do a better job of recognizing the importance of environmental income and the role it can play in reducing poverty. The approach taken in PRSPs to enhancing rural livelihoods should be based on an awareness of the importance of ecosystems as the ultimate basis for all economic activity and a key contributor to human welfare, and should seek to ensure the long-term sustainability of ecosystem services and the livelihoods derived from them.

One of the strongest PRSPs in terms of recognizing the potential of environmental income for poverty reduction is that of Cambodia. The Cambodian PRSP identifies land, water, agriculture, forests, and fisheries as key to increasing rural incomes and sets out an 11-point program to improve rural livelihoods by increasing income from the development of small-scale aquaculture, establishing and strengthening community forestry, promoting sustainable, community-based management of fishery resources, and improving market access for small-scale farmers and rural producers (Cambodia 2002:v, 53, 61).

Similarly, Bolivia highlights the potential contribution of biodiversity to rural incomes and the economy as a whole. It cites preliminary studies indicating that within 15 years biodiversityrelated activities (such as ecotourism, mitigation of climate change, and services related to biotechnology) could increase GDP about 10 percent (Bolivia 2001:133). Biodiversity resources could provide near-term gains to disadvantaged rural populations from projects featuring sustainable use of wild animal species, including vicuna, lizard, and peccary (Bolivia 2001:133). Bolivia also proposes to formally establish non-timber forest activities (e.g., gathering of brazil nuts and cultivation of palms) within the national forest system and municipal forest reserve areas, with the aim of creating new income generation activities for impoverished local communities (Bolivia 2001:134).

However, even among PRSPs that devote significant attention to opportunities for enhancing the poor’s environmental income, few refer to the importance of ecosystems as fundamental units for managing natural resources and ensuring long-term environmental sustainability. Of the PRSPs reviewed, only Ghana mentioned the “ecosystem approach” by name and then only in the limited sense of using this approach to restore threatened habitats and ecosystems (Ghana 2003:75).

One exception is Cambodia, which has made some limited efforts to incorporate an ecosystems-based perspective or approach within specific sectors and activities. For instance, the Cambodian PRSP describes a national vision for water resources that explicitly encompasses healthy aquatic ecosystems as well as productive fisheries and provision of safe and affordable drinking water (Cambodia 2002:64). Cambodia also applies the concept of agroecosystems in agricultural development plans, including proposals to set up agricultural research centers in each of the country’s principal agroecosystems that would be oriented to small-scale farmers. These centers would conduct research and extension, emphasizing intensification of agricultural production through improved water, soil, and nutrient management, with relatively few external inputs in the form of agrichemicals or improved seeds (Cambodia 2002:56).

2. Sustainability of Income Over Time

A concentration on environmental income is not by itself sufficient if this income stream is not sustainable. Nations thus need to take care that the strategies they promote in their PRSPs for exploiting natural resources are viable over the long term. PRSPs frequently include expansions of the agriculture, forestry, or fisheries sectors, but rarely look at the implications of these activities for the future health of the resource. For example, of the 20 PRSPs reviewed, several targeted transformation of subsistence agriculture as a key means of reducing rural poverty. In many cases, however, plans for agricultural intensification, modernization, and commercialization did not explicitly address how this transformation could be achieved in ways that would ensure long-term sustainability of agricultural income and protection of the agricultural resource base. Likewise, few PRSPs described detailed plans to generate additional income and employment from forests and fisheries that were explicitly based on improved, sustainable management of these natural resources.

PRSPs might do a better job of incorporating the concepts of sustainability if they were more closely linked to existing environmental planning processes such as a national strategy for sustainability, or a national plan to meet the terms of the Convention on Biological Diversity. For instance, Nicaragua’s PRSP highlights its National Strategy for Sustainable Development, which focuses on the implementation of policies and public investments to ensure more rational use of the country’s natural resources. The strategy contains elements addressing several economic sectors and activities, including the Environmental Policy and Action Plan, the Forestry and Development Law, the Fisheries Law, and the Biodiversity Law (Nicaragua 2001:22, 25).

Sri Lanka’s PRSP refers to the various environmental strategies and plans it has developed, including a national environmental action plan and a national strategy for sustainable development, as well as planning under international environmental agreements on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification (Sri Lanka 2002:97, 129). The PRSP also mentions revision of other environmental plans, including the national Rain Forest Law, coastal zone management plan, and regional plans for integrated forestry resource management (Sri Lanka 2002:19, 90).

3. Tenure and Access to Resources

Security of tenure, access, and user rights are central to achieving sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor, particularly in providing them with appropriate incentives to manage environmental assets for long-term productivity and income growth. Most PRSPs mention tenure and access to land and other productive resources; however, some treat the subject in only a cursory manner, while others present detailed discussions of tenure-related problems or plans for reform.

PRSPs should clearly identify the role of property and user rights as important factors shaping investments in agricultural productivity and the prospects for expanding rural incomes. More importantly, PRSPs must then indicate how they plan to deal with the nation’s particular tenure challenges.

Zambia’s PRSP points out that nearly 97 percent of Zambian farmers have no title to the land they cultivate, reducing incentives to invest in land improvements and agriculture- related infrastructure, preventing farmers from having access to credit, and depressing land productivity within a system where smallholders contribute about 60 percent of agricultural output (Zambia 2002:44). The PRSP also links the lack of secure title to disincentives for development of infrastructure for expanded tourism and eco-tourism opportunities (Zambia 2002:67). However, Zambia acknowledges that it has made little progress to date in setting up a land administration system, titling communally owned or state lands, or developing a market for land. The proposed remedy—a review of existing land law and tenure arrangements as well as discussions with traditional communities regarding incentives to open unused land for investment—may be realistic given political and budgetary constraints, but seems unlikely to bring about substantial progress in the foreseeable future (Zambia 2002:58).

On the other hand, Sri Lanka’s PRSP presents detailed proposals for far-reaching land reform to provide the poor with greater access to land. The government plans to test a new land titling program, designed to be fairer and more efficient, which is expected to reduce the cost of titling a parcel of land from US$110 to under $40. Proposed legal reforms would consolidate 25 different laws that directly affect land titling, and alternative dispute mechanisms will be used to resolve issues that prevent titling. Advanced information technologies, including digital mapping and integrated data management, will be used to accelerate land titling and registration and make the land-management system more transparent and accessible (Sri Lanka 2002:62).

Honduras outlines very specific actions, with associated budgets and deadlines, that will be carried out to improve equity and security in the poor’s access to land. Key elements include completing a nationwide cadastre (survey) of forest and agricultural lands to strengthen the legal basis for land ownership, modernizing the rural property registry to provide a modern tool for guaranteeing the accuracy of land tenure arrangements and land transactions, and an expanded program for titling rural properties for small farmers, ethnic groups, and independent campesinos (Honduras 2001:70).

Bolivia plans to regularize the titles to all rural land by 2006, including measures to simplify the procedures for registering land titles and property rights by merging the systems for physical and legal registration of property (Bolivia 2001:110).

4. Decentralization and Community-Based Natural Resource Management

Almost all PRSPs refer to decentralization and its importance for improving governance and reducing poverty. Often the discussion is rather general, however, and mentions only one or two sectors—usually education and health. PRSPs should incorporate analysis of important aspects of decentralization issues that are directly related to natural resources management and opportunities to enhance environmental income for the poor.

Among the current crop of PRSPs, a few contain welldeveloped discussions of decentralization for the management of environmental resources. A few also outline ways in which the government proposes to work with local people to increase rural income through community-based management of forests, fisheries, and other environmental assets.

Bolivia’s PRSP explicitly addresses the implications of decentralization for environmental management. The strategy refers to institution-strengthening initiatives aimed at ensuring that municipal governments will have the capacity to carry out new responsibilities to implement environmental policies and standards. It also highlights the ongoing role of Bolivia’s central government in important environment-related planning functions, including the development of diagnostic assessments,resource inventories, and soil and water-use plans, that will influence environmental investments (Bolivia 2001:131-2). Some innovative mechanisms are proposed for financing the environmental activities of local governments, including sharing revenues from a special hydrocarbon tax (Bolivia 2001:149).

Zambia designates development of a decentralization policy a matter of top priority to ensure citizen participation in their own affairs (Zambia 2002:35). The PRSP outlines decentralization measures that will enable communities to benefit from the commercial use of their lands, including shareholding arrangements with investors and tax-sharing arrangements (Zambia 2002:51).

Concerning community-based natural resource management, PRSPs should spell out in detail how the government proposes to work with local people to increase rural incomes through community-based management of forests, fisheries, and other environmental assets. For example, Cambodia notes that it is transitioning from state control to co-management of fisheries with local communities. In response to rising incidence of conflict between commercial fishing operators and subsistence and small-scale family fishers, Cambodia is releasing more than half of the country’s fishing lots to local fishing communities. The PRSP notes that this change will empower local people to participate in conservation and management of the fishery resource, giving them an incentive to refrain from illegal fishing practices that have been degrading the aquatic environment (Cambodia 2002:59).

Also outlined in Cambodia’s PRSP are initiatives related to community forestry to enhance local community participation in decision-making for forest management. In consultation with local user groups, the government will review the system of fees and permits on NTFPs and work toward removing barriers to marketing NTFPs, especially resin, that can be harvested without damaging the forest (Cambodia 2002:60).

Sri Lanka details several initiatives for community-driven development through sustainable management of natural resources. Community-based reef management projects will be undertaken as part of a 5-year public investment program to minimize coastal erosion, already affecting an estimated 55 percent of the Sri Lankan coast prior to the December 2004 tsunami. Community organizations will prepare coastal management plans, undertake reef stabilization and habitat conservation, implement measures to improve water exchange in affected lagoons, and help develop community fish hatcheries (Sri Lanka 2002:64, 89-90).

The PRSP also highlights plans to involve poor communities in decision-making for protected forests, providing funding to communities to replant degraded forest areas, manage buffer zones, and develop timber farms using conservation- oriented cultivation practices, with a goal of halving the rate of deforestation due to encroachment and illegal forest use (Sri Lanka 2002:90–91). The poor will be encouraged to participate in the development of Sri Lanka’s ecotourism industry by forming community-based organizations in the buffer zones adjacent to national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, which will receive a share of ecotourism earnings and training to assist in wildlife conservation activities (Sri Lanka 2002:91).

Kenya also plans to promote pro-poor tourism by fostering community-based ecotourism in the northern and western areas of the country. The PRSP outlines efforts to strengthen community involvement in wildlife conservation, implement measures to reduce human-wildlife conflict, provide small and medium enterprises with access to credit, review the structure of park tariffs to expand tourism in less-visited parks, and establish certification schemes for environmentally friendly resorts (Kenya 2004:49).

5. Participation, Procedural Rights, and Gender Equality

Guidelines for preparing PRSPs require that these strategies be prepared with extensive input from a broad range of stakeholders and that countries provide detailed explanations of processes used to secure such participation. Evidence to date indicates that PRSP mechanisms to promote participation often emphasize stakeholders that are urban-based, with relatively sophisticated analytical capabilities, and exclude organizations representing largely rural constituents, especially indigenous peoples.

Governments have sometimes barred stakeholders critical of their policies from participating in PRSP consultations (Waldman et al. 2005). Moreover, governments, NGOs, and international donors often have very different ideas of what constitutes “participation.” Some governments have sought to limit participation merely to dissemination of information to NGOs and other stakeholders, rather than substantive input. NGOs and some donors have pressed for more authentically democratic exercises in which civil society has opportunities to shape the agenda and contribute meaningfully to the design of PRSPs (PRSP Monitoring and Synthesis Project 2002:2-6). The PRSPs reviewed here varied considerably with respect to the efforts made to involve environmental stakeholders and to incorporate input from civil society.

One of the stronger efforts was that of Cambodia, which devotes an entire chapter of its PRSP to describing its participatory processes, including four national workshops. The chapter also describes consultations held by sector and line ministries, provincial consultations, a forum on monitoring and evaluation aspects, an NGO forum, meetings with the private sector, donor involvement, meetings with parliamentarians, and consultations with trade unions. It also acknowledges the need for ongoing consultations as it prepares subsequent versions of the plan (Cambodia 2002:8-12, 164).

Ghana presents an appendix that lists specific comments offered on various drafts of the PRSP and indicates how these comments were addressed. For instance, environment-related issues that were addressed in response to outside input include: the need for greater mainstreaming of environment in the PRSP, the imperative to improve natural resources management as a prerequisite to sustainable production, the role of tenure insecurity as a cause of poverty, the importance of small-scale irrigation and access to land to support farmers, and the need to develop alternative sources of energy (Ghana 2003:216-225).

In Rwanda and Vietnam, dissemination of key documents in local languages helped improve awareness of the PRSP process (Bojö and Reddy 2003b:26).

Addressing disparities in women’s rights and access to land and other productive assets has been shown to be a fundamental aspect of effective poverty reduction strategies. A few of the PRSPs reviewed presented detailed analysis of the impacts of gender on environmental income opportunities as well as detailed proposals for remedying gender-based inequities in countries where women traditionally have not been accorded equal rights and access to ecosystems.

Cambodia notes that, with women accounting for 65 percent of agricultural labor and 75 percent of fisheries production, poverty reduction cannot succeed unless it addresses the roles and needs of women (Cambodia 2002:127). The PRSP sets an explicit goal of ensuring that women and girls receive full legal protection and education about their legal rights to access to land and natural resources. Equal numbers of women and men are to be included in all consultative processes and on all monitoring and evaluation teams (Cambodia 2002:vii). Cambodia sets a goal of ensuring that women, the primary collectors and users of water, ultimately make up half of all members of wateruser associations, and at least 20 percent of such members within three years (Cambodia 2002:113, 128). The government also pledges to address gender disparities through budget allocations as well as policies and programs (Cambodia 2002:136).

Sri Lanka highlights plans for legal reforms to ensure women’s equal rights to inherit land and proposes to encourage women’s self-employment in small-scale fishing through training and extension activities (Sri Lanka 2002:200,213).

Zambia proposes to mainstream gender in its land policies, including the introduction of legal reforms to provide equal land rights for women and ensure women’s access to natural resources. Women’s traditional knowledge of sustainable resource use and management will be integrated into the development of environmental management and extension programs, and 30 percent of all land allocations will be reserved for women applicants (Zambia 2002:54, 114).

6. and 7. Environmental Monitoring, Targets, Indicators, and Assessments

PRSPs are notoriously weak in their provisions for monitoring and evaluating the impacts of the policies and programs they propose. In many cases, provisions for monitoring and evaluating environment-related impacts are particularly inadequate.The World Bank’s review of environmental mainstreaming in PRSPs found that few were structured for effective monitoring of progress towards proposed outcomes; that is, few contained realistic, quantified, time-bound, costed targets coupled with a sufficient suite of specific, relevant, quantitative indicators for measuring progress towards these targets (Bojö and Reddy 2003b:25).

Among the PRSPs reviewed, a few clearly identified targets and indicators that will be used to gauge the impact of proposed interventions related to environment and natural resources management. Bolivia presents several targets and indicators related to enhancing environmental income for the poor, including increases in the extent of land brought under secure title. The PRSP proposes to complete the process of securing clear title to rural property in Bolivia by 2006, which would involve regularizing the ownership of more than 7 million ha per year from 2001 to 2006 (Bolivia 2001:183). Other indicators established by Bolivia include annual increases in resources allocated to local communities from the revenues of protected areas, as well as increases in income from sustainable wildlife management programs (Bolivia 2001:186).

Cambodia’s PRSP presents an action-plan matrix with numerous strategic objectives, actionable measures, estimated costs, targets and indicators, and the responsible implementing agency. Among the targets and indicators related to environmental income opportunities are increases in the number of land titles issued (including the number of titles held by women) and establishing specific numbers of community forest, fisheries, and small-scale aquaculture projects in various provinces. Quantitative goals are also set for the numbers of women receiving agricultural training on such topics as soil fertility and management, prevention of soil degradation, and safe pesticide use, as well as the percentage of women members in farmers associations (Cambodia 2002:172-80, 229).