Incentives for climate mitigation in the land use sector – the effects of payment for environmental services (PES) on environmental and socio-economic outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: a mixed-method systematic review

Abstract

Although interventions to improve governance via the "short route" between service users and service providers are often effective in engaging citizens in service delivery and improving access to and quality of services, citizen engagement interventions alone are not likely to improve key well-being outcomes for citizens. Interventions that work through local civil society and stimulate capacity for collective action, particularly amongst vulnerable groups, may be more effective than those that rely on engaging unorganized citizens. This is particularly critical for services wherein citizens do not engage regularly with the providers while using the service, such as infrastructure, and thus pose weaker social sanction threats. Citizen-service provider engagement is more effective when implemented through phased, facilitated processes that are framed collaboratively, as opposed to one-off accountability meetings that are interpreted as confrontational. Interventions that do not incorporate specific measures to facilitate the inclusion of vulnerable groups may not realize equitable outcomes for those groups in the short-term. Barriers to vulnerable groups' inclusion varies widely by context, and inclusion components should be adapted in response to local contexts and needs. 1 Killias et al. (2016) are registering a review on the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures.

Mechanisms and impacts of an incentive‐based conservation program with evidence from a randomized control trial

“…Given the importance of improving the effectiveness of conservation interventions, especially those that aim to deliver better social outcomes alongside environmental benefits (Sims & Alix‐Garcia 2017), more robust evaluations are sorely needed (Snilsveit et al. 2019). Although RCTs are not practical or desirable in every situation and have well‐understood limitations (Deaton & Cartwright 2018), our results show that the criticism that RCTs are inherently reductionist and cannot give insights into mechanisms is unjustified.…”

Strengthening women's empowerment and gender equality in fragile contexts towards peaceful and inclusive societies: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…We assessed the quality of included qualitative studies, process evaluations, and descriptive quantitative studies using a mixed‐methods appraisal tool developed by Langer and colleagues (2017) and applied in Snilstveit and colleagues (2019). This tool builds on the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist (Brice, 2006) and Pluye and colleagues' (2011) mixed‐methods appraisal tool and is provided in Supporting Information Appendix .…”

“…We included studies in two stages, in a similar approach to Snilstveit et al (2015, 2019). In the first stage, we included studies that assessed the effects of interventions using experimental designs or quasi‐experimental designs (QEDs) with nonrandom assignment that allow for causal inference (to address primary research objectives 1 and 2).…”

Estimate the Impact of Payments for Environmental Services on Local Livelihoods and Environment: An Application of Propensity Scores

“…Almost the recent researches point to the positive outcomes on the environment in terms of nature conservation (To & Dressler, 2019), biodiversity (McElwee et al, 2020), avoided soil loss (McElwee et al, 2020), and reduced forest burning and improved indigenous land rights (Duong & De Groot, 2020; Tuijnman et al, 2020). In addition, PES schemes generally positively affect the environment in some specific contexts, for example, an enhancement in erosion rates and forest coverage rate (Samii et al, 2014; Snilstveit et al, 2019). In detail, PES projects have impacts on deforestation with standardized mean differences (SMDs) of −0.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] = [–0.19, –0.05]), meaning that there is a decrease in clear-cutting rates in areas where the subject to a PES program when compared with an untreated area does not receive any support from the PES program.…”