Publication: Reducing Hunger with Payments for Ecosystem Services: Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
Loading...
Files in English
313 downloads
Published
2019-08
ISSN
Date
2019-08-16
Editor(s)
Abstract
Does financial compensation for providing environmental conservation, improve the food security of the rural poor in the drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa? This paper explores this question using data from a randomized controlled trial of a large scale reforestation implemented by the Government of Burkina Faso. Members of communities located around selected protected forests were invited to plant indigenous tree species on degraded areas, and to take care of their maintenance. The financial compensation they would receive depended on the number of trees still alive a year later. The vast majority of the community members participating in the project were farmers, and the timing of the payments coincided with the lean season, when most farmers were at risk of food insecurity. Compared with the control group, the project's participants' households reported 12 percent higher food consumption expenditures, and a reduction in moderate and severe food insecurity by 35 percent to 60 percent. The transfers received were spent mostly on cereals, meat, and pulses, with no evidence of increased consumption of temptation goods.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Adjognon, Guigonan Serge; van Soest, Daan; Guthoff, Jonas. 2019. Reducing Hunger with Payments for Ecosystem Services: Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8974. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32267 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication The Marshall Plan: Then and Now(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-14)This paper is a product of the Development Policy Team, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication It’s Not (Just) the Tariffs: Rethinking Non-Tariff Measures in a Fragmented Global Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22)As tariffs have declined, non-tariff measures (NTMs) have become central to trade policy, especially in high-income countries and regulated sectors like food and green technologies. Although NTMs may serve legitimate goals, they could also sort countries and firms into or out of markets based on compliance capacity and differences in product mix. Documenting recent advances in the estimation of ad valorem equivalents (AVEs), this paper uncovers new patterns of use and exposure of NTMs. High-income countries rely more heavily on NTMs relative to tariffs, while low- and middle-income countries face steeper AVEs on their exports. Firm-level evidence shows that NTMs disproportionately affect smaller firms, leading to market exit and concentration. Poorly designed NTMs can harm productivity and welfare, while coordinated, capacity-aware use can deliver inclusive outcomes. Policy design, transparency, and diagnostics must evolve to reflect the growing role—and risks—of NTMs in a fragmented global trade landscape.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Incentivizing Social Learning for the Diffusion of Climate-Smart Agricultural Techniques(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-05)Unsustainable land use is a key threat to both economic development and environmental conservation in developing countries. This study implemented a randomized controlled trial in arid Burkina Faso to test the effectiveness of financial incentives in stimulating the adoption of sustainable land management practices (SLMPs). It did so in the context of a so-called cascade training program, in which some farmers were trained in the implementation of sustainable land management practices, who were then asked to disseminate their newly acquired knowledge and expertise to other farmers in their social networks. The study finds that offering payments conditional on adoption improves both the transfer of information from the trained to the peer farmers, as well as the peer farmers' sustainable land management practices adoption rates. Offering financial incentives thus mitigates two of the most important barriers to the adoption of sustainable land management practices – the (perceived) lack of private benefits and insufficient diffusion of the technical implementation information from the trained farmers to their peers. Finally, the study documents that adoption of sustainable land management practices generates substantial increases in crop productivity and agricultural income already after one agricultural cycle.Publication GEF Investments on Payment for Ecosystem Services Schemes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-10)The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity study (TEEB) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provide a comprehensive and useful framework to understand human dependence on ecosystem services and how best to protect these services in perpetuity. In these three authoritative studies, payment for ecosystem services (PES) is listed as one of the mechanisms that should allow societies to pay for the maintenance of these services. Ecosystem services are receiving increased attention in the context of human development through The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study (TEEB). This is an international initiative designed to call attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, and the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. In TEEB s Report for Policymakers, PES schemes are listed as potentially useful mechanisms to compensate those who maintain the flow of ecosystem services. The study emphasizes that PES schemes offer considerable potential to raise new funds for biodiversity or to use existing funding more efficiently, and that both the public and private sectors can play a role in establishing PES in different contexts.Publication Combatting Forest Fires in the Drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03)Forest fires are among the main drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper uses remote sensing data on forest fires and remaining tree cover to estimate the effectiveness of a project targeted at reducing fire incidences in twelve protected forests in arid Burkina Faso. The project consisted of two components that were implemented in the villages surrounding the target forests: a campaign aimed at raising community awareness about the detrimental effects of forest fires, and a program to support establishing and maintaining forest fire prevention infrastructures. Using the Synthetic Control Method the paper finds that the project resulted in a 35% reduction in forest fire occurrences in the period of the year when they tend to be most prevalent —in November, at the very end of the agricultural season. However, this impact is short-lived (as the reduction only occurred in the first four years of the program). The reduction in forest fires also did not result in a detectable increase in vegetation cover—because the reduction in November was not sufficiently large to be captured via remote sensing, or because the duration of the reduction was too short for the vegetation to recover. The paper then tries to uncover the underlying mechanisms to shed light on which of the project’s components were effective and to also learn how the program can be improved.Publication Incentivizing Conservation of de facto Community-Owned Forests(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06)Payments for environmental services are a nature conservation policy in which landowners receive financial compensation conditional on verified environmental service delivery. Contracts for payments for environmental services have been found to be effective in inducing conservation on private lands, but they may give rise to strong free-riding incentives when implemented on lands that are, de facto or de jure, commonly owned. This study implemented a randomized controlled trial in arid Burkina Faso to test the relative effectiveness of two collective payment for environmental services schemes in inducing forest conservation—a linear group payment scheme, in which group payments increase linearly with tree survival rates, and a threshold group payment scheme. The extant theory predicts that the latter incentive mechanism will (weakly) outperform the former. This paper develops a new theory that shows that the reverse may also hold—but only if the relationship between effort and tree survival rates is very uncertain. The findings show that threshold group payments increase intermediate measures of cooperation, but—consistent with Burkina Faso’s harsh conditions rendering tree survival quite stochastic—actual survival rates are higher with the linear group payments. The paper presents field experimental evidence as well as lab experimental results to explore the mechanisms giving rise to these results.Publication Evaluation of the Impact of Payments for Environmental Services on Land Use Change in Quindío, Colombia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-09)The growing use of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) for conservation has fostered a debate on its effectiveness, but the few efforts to date to assess the impact of PES programs have been hampered by lack of data, leading to very divergent results. This paper uses data from a PES mechanism implemented in Quindío, Colombia, to examine the impact of PES on land use change. Alone among all early PES initiatives, the Silvopastoral Project included a control group of nonparticipants, whose land use changes were monitored throughout the project period, as well as detailed baseline data on both PES recipients and control group members. By comparing the land use changes undertaken by PES recipients to those undertaken by control group members, we can distinguish the impact of PES from that of other factors. The results show that payments had a positive and highly significant impact on land use change, under a variety of model formulations. PES recipients converted over 40 percent of their farms to environmentally-friendly land uses over 4 years, increasing environmental service provision by almost 50 percent. In contrast, control group members converted less than 20 percent of their farms, increasing environmental service provision by only 7 percent.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Morocco Economic Update, Winter 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)Despite the drought causing a modest deceleration of overall GDP growth to 3.2 percent, the Moroccan economy has exhibited some encouraging trends in 2024. Non-agricultural growth has accelerated to an estimated 3.8 percent, driven by a revitalized industrial sector and a rebound in gross capital formation. Inflation has dropped below 1 percent, allowing Bank al-Maghrib to begin easing its monetary policy. While rural labor markets remain depressed, the economy has added close to 162,000 jobs in urban areas. Morocco’s external position remains strong overall, with a moderate current account deficit largely financed by growing foreign direct investment inflows, underpinned by solid investor confidence indicators. Despite significant spending pressures, the debt-to-GDP ratio is slowly declining.