Measuring complex outcomes of environment and development interventions

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How do we know if development aid is spent effectively and delivering results? Aid effectiveness has become an important discussion point in international development in recent years, leading to renewed focus on how to measure the performance of development programmes, which is Theme 3 of the ESRC-DFID call. Measuring results is difficult because the results depend on what you chose to measure, when, for whom, and how it is measured. A second difficulty is attribution: how do you know that changes are due to development interventions, as opposed to other ongoing processes. Rigorous impact evaluation methodologies have been developed to address the problem of attribution by comparing intervention sites to controls. However, impact evaluation methods have tended to focus on standard economic measures of human wellbeing (e.g. income), which may not capture outcomes considered relevant by local people - such as resource tenure, education, ability to insure against shocks, or political power.This project focuses on interventions designed to counter increasing environmental resource scarcity, caused by unsustainable use of biodiversity, deforestation, and degradation of ecosystem services, arguably some of the greatest long-term threats to human wellbeing. Understanding the processes that cause resource scarcity and what are effective interventions to address resource scarcity are relevant to Theme 1 of the call. Environment-development interventions are also some of the hardest to assess, since the processes that cause environmental resource scarcity are often very complex, and potentially affect multiple aspects of human wellbeing (not just income). For this reason, credible evaluations of their medium to long-term impacts on human wellbeing are few, providing little evidence to inform decision-makers about what works, for whom, and why.The project aims to directly improve the implementation of policies in the environment-development sector through enhanced understanding of what works, based on more appropriate measurement of results. It brings together the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS, a science-based environmental organization working in over 60 countries), and two of the UK's foremost academics in the field from University College London and Imperial College, as well as local and national partners. The project has three components:(1) a methodological research component, which focuses on how to measure the development impacts of environment-development interventions on the poor(2) a field research component, which will test the different methodological approaches with developing country researchers at 3 sites (2 in Africa and 1 in Asia) that have very different social, cultural and political settings, to see how methods perform in different circumstances and to specifically evaluate 3 field interventions focused on Payments for Ecosystem Services(3) a practical component, which will use the results of the research to directly inform how environment-development projects are implemented in the field, building upon the consortium's networks of partners and programmes.The research responds directly to the growing demand for knowledge about how to measure the performance of development programmes, and the specific paucity of impact evaluations in the environment-development sector. The research will therefore be high impact: both academically, in terms of publications, and for policymakers and practitioners because it responds to already-identified needs for information. The field component focuses on incentive mechanisms, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services, which have been widely promoted over the past decade as a more equitable way to ensure poverty alleviation and sustainable environmental resource management. Through the project's networks and partners, the results will directly impact how current environment-development policies are implemented, and will inform the design of future initiatives.