Measuring complex outcomes of environment and development interventions

我们如何知道发展援助是否得到有效使用并取得成果？近年来，援助实效已成为国际发展中的一个重要讨论焦点，导致人们重新关注如何衡量发展方案的执行情况，这是ESRC-国际发展部呼吁的主题3。测量结果是困难的，因为结果取决于您选择测量什么、何时测量、为谁测量以及如何测量。第二个困难是归因：你如何知道变化是由于发展干预，而不是其他正在进行的过程。已经制定了严格的影响评估方法，通过将干预地点与对照进行比较来解决归属问题。然而，影响评估方法往往侧重于衡量人类福祉的标准经济指标(例如收入)，可能不包括当地人认为相关的结果--如资源保有权、教育、抵御冲击的能力或政治权力。该项目侧重于旨在应对因生物多样性不可持续利用、森林砍伐和生态系统服务退化而日益严重的环境资源稀缺的干预措施，这些可以说是对人类福祉的一些最大的长期威胁。了解造成资源稀缺的过程以及解决资源稀缺问题的有效干预措施与会议主题1相关。环境发展干预措施也是最难评估的，因为造成环境资源稀缺的过程往往非常复杂，可能会影响人类福祉的多个方面(不仅仅是收入)。因此，对它们对人类福祉的中长期影响的可信评估很少，几乎没有证据告诉决策者什么管用、对谁管用以及为什么管用。该项目旨在通过在更适当的成果衡量基础上加强对什么管用的理解，直接改进环境发展部门的政策执行。它汇集了野生动物保护协会(WCS，一个在60多个国家开展工作的以科学为基础的环境组织)，来自伦敦大学学院和帝国学院的两位英国该领域最顶尖的学者，以及当地和国家合作伙伴。该项目由三个部分组成：(1)方法研究部分，侧重于如何衡量环境发展干预措施对穷人的发展影响；(2)实地研究部分，将与3个社会、文化和政治环境截然不同的地点(非洲2个和亚洲1个)的发展中国家研究人员一起测试不同的方法方法，以了解各种方法在不同情况下的执行情况，并具体评估侧重于支付生态系统服务费用的3项实地干预措施；(3)实用部分，将利用研究结果直接告知实地环境发展项目是如何实施的，这项研究以该联盟的伙伴和方案网络为基础，直接回应了对如何衡量发展方案执行情况的知识日益增长的需求，以及环境发展部门影响评估的具体匮乏。因此，这项研究将产生很大的影响：无论是在学术上，还是在出版方面，以及对政策制定者和实践者来说，因为它回应了已经确定的信息需求。外地构成部分的重点是奖励机制，如生态系统服务付费，过去十年来广泛推广，认为这是确保减贫和可持续环境资源管理的一种更公平的方式。通过该项目的网络和合作伙伴，结果将直接影响当前环境发展政策的执行情况，并将为未来倡议的设计提供信息。

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.