Reducing Hunger with Payments for Ecosystem Services : Experimental Evidence from Burkina Faso
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 scal...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/234661565613345896/Reducing-Hunger-with-Payments-for-Ecosystem-Services-PES-Experimental-Evidence-from-Burkina-Faso http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32267 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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