Economic Valuation as a Tool to Bridge the Science-Policy Gap
1. [ Slide Title ]
7th Biennial GEF International
Waters Conference
Bridgetown, Barbados
Targeted Workshops
Economic Valuation as a Tool to
Bridge the Science-Policy Gap
Session II: Reporting back from breakout session
Edi Interwies, InterSus
2. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
1. What are the main uses of economic valuation of ecosystem
services for decision-making?
⢠Awareness (e.g. transboundary impacts) & communication
⢠Supporting improved decision making:
⢠Recognizing different ES service values (esp. for certain
ones, e.g. future generations)
⢠Show choices of management, incl. trade-offs
⢠Influence policy & regulatory frameworks
⢠Influence allocation of financial resources/investments by
internalizing externalities into CBA
⢠Short and long-term planning for sustainability â leverage
resources
⢠Integrating TEV into decision making
⢠Information for mitigation and litigation/compensation
⢠Better governance (consensus, conflict resolution)
3. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
1. main uses:
⢠Fears:
⢠âscaryâ
⢠broader perspective needed â sometimes other issues more
important
⢠Limited & expensive: narrow it down to specific context
⢠âshould not be the sole driving force for future (GEF)
projects
OVERALL:
⢠For fixing the problems: should be one method/tool out of
many
⢠Socio-economic assessments needed â valuation only part of
it
⢠Chose the scale of valuation depending on the scale of
question you re addressing
4. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
2. What methods seem most appropriate/usable?
â˘
â˘
Be clear on what you what to answer first!
âQuickâ and rough for overall scale, more detailed for
specific issue
⢠Very case specific â depends on available resources, data and
political environment
⢠Ensure that human wellbeing is adequately covered
⢠Issues of replicability - comparability
⢠Difficult to quantify, e.g. religious/aestetic: qualitative
elements, too
ď Method selection should be âpurpose driven, objective
specificâ: what stakeholder/sector, policy, scale, timeline relevant
5. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
3. What
are the main difficulties in increasing the use of economic
valuation of ES for decision making?
â˘
Lack of:
⢠Capacity/resources (data gaps, costly, limited
long-term/robust data) â in the projects but also
in managing institutions
⢠Awareness/understanding (inability to
communicate results in a non-technical manner)
& appreciation (of ES required by others) &
visualisation
⢠Integration (e.g. inter-agency dialogue)
6. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
3. Main difficulties in increasing the use:
â˘
Lack of:
⢠Political will (Gov will not always chose the
most appropriate policy intervention) â vested
interests (competing world views â bias through
strong lobby groups)
⢠Ownership (by involvement of decision makers
â key stakeholders); not demand driven
⢠Trust in the approach (human centered) &
results (âwe don t believe the answersâ)
⢠Historical: GEF does not focus on socio-economic
componentsâŚ
7. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
4. and 5. How to overcome them? GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
â˘
Identify possible policy decisions â target evaluation to answering specific
question; explore PPP
â˘
Reasonable simplification of EV to minimize costs
â˘
Improve data availability/accessability of information for EV (âdo it quicker and
easierâ)
â˘
Increasing buy-in for EV:
â˘
Conduct overall LME/RB ES-valuation studies (âquick and dirtyâ) for initial
awareness raising
â˘
Success stories (case studies â evidence of advocacy of approach)
â˘
Improve decision maker and stakeholder dialogue & their incorporation in
the EV-process (also inter-agency)
â˘
Show short/long term benefits
â˘
Use language decision makers understand
â˘
Inclusion in GEF and national planning processes (use their own methods â
challenge back)
8. 4&5: GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
â˘
Capacity building - improving capacity (at early stage: GEF-projects, but also
users/authorities) â create a critical mass of expertise â professionalization â
community of practice
â˘
GEF: Develop Guidance/guidelines/practical manual: show EV-need & success
stories (being flexible, not all aspects to be suited to all projects), lessons learned
Inclusion of EV in TDA âSAP framework & documents: NEEDS TO BE INTEGRAL
PART OF ALL STEPS!
â˘
Ecosystem diagnostic analysis (including valuation): for each member country
(communication issues, collecting information/data) undertake individual
evaluation and then bring together in TDA or SAP â deliverable of PCU, then get
financing
â˘
Causal chain analysis (between TDA and SAP: assessment of options) to see
if/what kind of ES valuation is necessary â when identifying the problems (to see
what you need to focus on)
â˘
Include in TDA-SAP national action plans
9. 4&5: GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
â˘
Include values of large ecosystem assets - add information on
economic impacts of options - use CBA (total economic costs) of
options - for strategic action development
⢠Pilot projects - Demonstration projects: Hot-spot and small
demonstration projects in SAP formulation (feedback loop: go back
from CS to TDA)
⢠Better links to indicators: Include socio-economic indicators (but
linked to data access and availability) & baseline/trends in GEF-SAP
results framework
Broad(er) approach: incorporate all relevant aspects of social, economic
data/analysis in TDA-SAP â incorporate into effective governance
(âaddressing the problems should remain the focus of GEF-projects)â
[Fear: GEF assessors need to be pragmatic in terms of project design &
timing â âjust too many hoops to jump throughâ]