Environment, Politics, and PovertyEnvironment, Politics, and Poverty: Lessons from a Review of PRSP...

Environment, Politics, and PovertyLessons from a Review of PRSP Stakeholder Perspectives

Lessons from a Review of PRSP Stakeholder Perspectives

SYNTHESIS REVIEW

Linda Waldman

with contributions from

A. Barrance, R.F. Benítez Ramos, A. Gadzekpo, O. Mugyenyi,Q. Nguyen, G.Tumushabe, and H. Stewart

2005

Environment,Politics, and

Poverty

© Institute of Development Studies, 2005

Catalogue No. CD4-31/2005EISBN 0-662-41667-8

Cover photo: © GTZ/Eva Hartmann

Printed in Canada

Suggested Reference

iii

Linda Waldman with contributions from A. Barrance, R.F. Benítez Ramos, A. Gadzekpo, O. Mugyenyi,Q. Nguyen, G. Tumushabe & H. Stewart. 2005. Environment, Politics, and Poverty: Lessons from a Reviewof PRSP Stakeholder Perspectives. Synthesis Review. Study initiated under the Poverty Environment Partner-ship (PEP), and jointly funded and managed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA),Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdem, and German TechnicalCooperation Agency (GTZ).

This document is also available in French, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

Other Studies in this Series: Country Reviews(Studies were initiated under PEP and jointly funded

and managed by CIDA, DFID, and GTZ.)

Ghana Country Review

A. Gadzekpo and L. Waldman. “I have heard about it, but have never seen it”: Environmental Consid-erations in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. 2005.

Honduras Country Review

R.F. Benítez Ramos, A. Barrance and H. Stewart. Have the lessons of Mitch been forgotten?: The Critical Roleof Sustainable Natural Resource Management for Poverty Reduction in Honduras. 2005.

Uganda Country Review

O. Mugyenyi, G. Tumushabe and L. Waldman. “My voice is also there”: The Integration ofEnvironmental and Natural Resources into the Uganda Poverty Eradication and Action Plan. 2005.

Vietnam Country Review

Q. Nguyen and H. Stewart. “The analysis of poverty-environment linkages is very weak…”: The PRSPProcess and Environment – the Case of Vietnam. (Also available in Vietnamese). 2005.

The above documents can be downloaded from the following websites:

www.povertyenvironment.net and www.ids.ac.uk.

Abbreviations

iv

BMUs

CIDA

CPRGS

CSOs

DAs

DFID

ENR SWG

ENRS

GPRS

GTZ

IDS

IMF

I-PRSP

NDPC

NGOs

PAF

PEAP

PEP

PPA

PRSP

PTF

SEA

SIP

SWAp

UNDP

Beach Management Units

Canadian International Development Agency

Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy

Civil Society Organizations

District Assemblies

Department for International Development (UK)

Environment and Natural Resources Sector Working Group

Environment and Natural Resources Sector

Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy

German Technical Cooperation Agency

Institute of Development Studies

International Monetary Fund

Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

National Development Planning Commission

Non-Governmental Organizations

Poverty Action Fund

Poverty Eradication Action Plan

Poverty Environment Partnership

Participatory Poverty Assessment

Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

Poverty Task Force

Strategic Environmental Assessment

Sector Investment Plan

Sector Wide Approach

United Nations Development Programme

Contents

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Section OneIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Section TwoEnvironmental stakeholder participation in PRSP processes . . . . . . . . . 4

Section ThreeEnvironmental stakeholder motivations for mainstreamingenvironment and poverty linkages in the PRSPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Section FourPRSP conceptualizations of environmental concerns as linkedto poverty reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Section FiveObstacles to mainstreaming environment and poverty linkagesin the PRSPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Section SixNew and expanded activities for environmental agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Section SevenFunding possibilities and the implementation of policy . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Section EightSectoral implementation activities with integratedenvironmental concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Section NineTo what extent has an environmental component been integratedin the monitoring system underway for the PRSP? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Section TenPRSP lessons and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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Executive Summary

This report examines the processes associated withthe incorporation of environmental issues intoPoverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) inGhana, Honduras, Uganda, and Vietnam. It arguesthat environmental resources have generally beenregarded as neutral resources that have existed sincetime immemorial. In examining the mainstreamingof environmental issues in PRSPs, the researchnoted many instances of inclusion. However, this ishighly selective: there is a tendency for PRSPs toreproduce narratives that seek technical solutionsand to exclude those that draw attention to politi-cized aspects of the environment. PRSP narrativesproject an illusion of natural resources that requirebetter management and enhanced legislation toensure that poor people benefit, while overlookinghighly political struggles over environmental controland rights to resources. In Uganda and Honduras,there is some evidence of the incorporation of more“political” narratives that begin to address questionsof resource access and the particular relationshipbetween civil society and government. This incorpo-ration reflects the nature of PRSP participation inthese countries, which has provided some, albeitlimited, opportunity for civil society organizationsto question government policy.

In all four countries, the PRSP process of main-streaming environmental issues has provided a rangeof opportunities to donors, government agencies, andcivil society. In Vietnam: the inclusion of environ-mental issues in the Comprehensive Poverty Reductionand Growth Strategy (CPRGS) appears to have beendriven by donor influence and government concern.There is only limited NGO participation related toenvironmental issues. The media has, however, playeda proactive role in creating public awareness of environ-ment and poverty linkages and placing pressure onthe government of Vietnam to address instances ofextreme environmental degradation. In addition, theprocess of developing national planning documentshas modestly increased the profile of environmentand poverty linkages in government circles. InGhana: participation for environmental NGOs andgovernment agencies was limited in the Ghana

Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) but enhancedthrough the Strategic Environmental Assessment.There has been some participation by civil society,but people who voice alternative narratives and arecritical of the state have generally been excluded. InUganda: the first Poverty Eradication Action Plan(PEAP) dealt with environmental issues in a similarmanner to Vietnam’s Interim PRSP and Ghana’sGPRS. Subsequent developments led to a strongerenvironmental component in the 2000 PEAP, withgrass-roots consultation and NGO advocacy. The2004 PEAP demonstrates strong mobilization aroundenvironmental issues but, as in Vietnam, this relies ondonor support and partnerships with government andenvironmental stakeholders. In Honduras: strongcivil society concern about environmental and resourcemanagement issues has been driven by previousenvironmental disasters, especially Hurricane Mitchin 1998. Civil society and government agenciesparticipated through the “sector commissions” andpushed environmental issues. The new government(elected in 2002) has, however, decided to close theenvironmental sector commission (and others) inorder to focus the country’s development strategy ona limited number of sector wide approaches (orSWAps). The PRSP commitment to environmentalimprovements has thus been largely overlooked.

In all four countries examined, PRSPs have alsocreated new possibilities for environmental issues tobe seriously considered by policy-makers withingovernment. In particular, “weaker” ministries andenvironmental NGOs have benefited. In mostinstances, however, donor support is required toensure that environmental issues receive continuedattention once the PRSP consultation and draftingprocesses are complete. Despite creating newpossibilities, these participatory mechanisms fordecision-making are still far from perfect. Moreneeds to be done to enhance relations across sectorsand ministries within government. In particular, afocus on decentralization and further case-by-caseexamination of what this entails is necessary forsustained implementation of PRSP policy.

All four countries’ PRSP documents do, to differentdegrees, address environmental issues. The process ofmainstreaming environmental issues has experiencedseveral constraints, such as: exclusion from draftingprocesses, exclusion from or marginalization duringfinancial processes, and changing government prior-ities. This hinders the translation of PRSP environ-mental priorities into implementation programs.Generally speaking, government spending on environ-mental issues receives low prioritization, especiallywhen evaluated against other development “priorities”such as macro-economic growth and industrialization.For this reason, the decision of donors to supportbasket funding may, in the long term, undermineefforts at environmental regeneration. Monitoringenvironmental degradation has also hindered main-streaming attempts with citizens in all four countriesexpressing doubts over government institutions’capacities and resources to monitor and implementenvironmental regulation. Government institutionalcapacity has, however, to be understood in the contextof broader political arrangements: particularly a lackof public confidence in general government capacities;political bias and corruption, the distribution ofresources as political favours, elite ownership, and themarginalization of local stakeholders.

This report thus argues that, in general, the rhetoricof participation allows PRSPs to gloss over the reasonswhy certain people are poor and why environmentalareas are being degraded. This neglect of basic polit-ical and economic fundamentals and the failure todeal with inequality undermines both economic devel-opment and poverty reduction initiatives. Openingup PRSPs to deliberation over questions concerningrights, ownership, and control suggests that PRSPsmight have to ask different questions about environ-mental resources. Rather than exploring what theenvironmental problems are (primarily in relation topoor people but not as defined by them), such anexercise would explore different definitions of environ-mental problems and would seek to mediate betweenvarious different sets of vested interest—betweenextractive industries, people who live on the land,traditional leaders, the government, and so on—seekingto find ways of working together to mutually benefitfrom and protect natural resources. Such an approachwould suggest that, ultimately, new types of participa-tion may have to be considered. These may includeforms of participation that legally enshrine citizens’opportunities to engage in PRSPs and to express theirconcerns, coupled with the formalization of govern-ments’ responsibilities to address these concerns.

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Environment, Politics, and Poverty

ix

Preface

This report is a synthesis of findings from casestudies of four countries and background research onthe integration of environmental considerations intoPoverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Thereport aims to contribute to the debate on pro-poordevelopment and environmental issues in order toimprove poor people’s livelihoods and to contributetoward the sustainable use of natural resources whilealso informing aid relationships promoted by thePRSP approach.

Experience to date had shown that while environ-mental references had been included in PRSPs, therewas little understanding of how these references hadcome to be included. Nor was there adequate discus-sion on the implementation of environmental concernsonce included in PRSPs. Research addressing theseissues was carried out in Ghana, Honduras, Vietnam,and Uganda between August and October 2004. Thisreport presents the results of this study. The researchwas aimed at reviewing the drafting and implementingprocess of each country’s Poverty Reduction Strategyto analyze if, why, and how pro-poor environmental1policies, activities, and outcomes are being integrated.The research also examined how the PRSP processhas affected environment-related policy choices,institutional changes, staffing and budgets, publicdebate, and civil society awareness and, ultimately,improved environmental outcomes.

This research project was initiated and conceptualizedin the framework of the Poverty Environment Partner-ship (PEP), an informal network of about 30 donorand non-governmental organizations that works onstrengthening the nexus between poverty reduction

and environmental protection in development cooper-ation. Since it was founded in 2001, it has served asa forum for exchange of experiences, conceptual andanalytical work, coordination of support to partnercountries, and the development of indicators andmore effective monitoring of environmental perform-ances. Within the PEP, CIDA, DFID, and GTZfunded and managed the research process.

The research was conducted by the Institute ofDevelopment Studies (IDS), Sussex, UK, in collabora-tion with national and international consultants. Thefollowing national consultants provided invaluablelocal expertise and knowledge: Audrey Gadzekpo(in Ghana), Onesmus Mugyenyi and GodberTumushabe (in Uganda), René Benítez Ramos andAdrian Barrance (in Honduras), and Quang Nguyen(in Vietnam), working closely with internationalconsultants, Howard Stewart and Linda Waldman.

Finally, the help and generosity of the people ofGhana, Honduras, Uganda, and Vietnam is greatlyappreciated. Many people gave freely of their timeand shared their experiences, including those fromgovernment departments and donor agents whoprovided information on how environmental issueswere being addressed and on supporting literature.Representatives from civil society organizations,from environmental NGOs, and the media willinglydiscussed sensitive issues. Similarly, traditionalleaders, rural residents, people affected by environ-mental abuses, and urban citizens shared theirthoughts. Without these contributions from peopleof Ghana, Honduras, Uganda, and Vietnam, thisresearch would not have been possible.

1. The term “environment” is widely defined to cover major natural resources (water, land, forests, fisheries and coastal resourcesetc.) and environmental hazards to water, land and air (both indoor and outdoor).

This research report examines the environment andpoverty linkages in the PRSPs of four countries.Uganda, Ghana, Honduras, and Vietnam have config-urations of poverty and environments that are peculiarto each country. Nonetheless, all four countries exper-ience high levels of rural poverty and tend to rely onextractive industries such as mining and logging togenerate wealth. They have all devised PRSPs in orderto access the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative,while Vietnam is able to demonstrate greater inde-pendence from international donors.

The four countries demonstrate a range of differentgovernment structures and have different relation-ships with international donors. Uganda, Hondurasand Ghana have democracies which allow citizensdifferent degrees of involvement in policy planning.In Uganda, President Museveni’s “no party” politicalsystem aims to prevent sectarian politics and ethnicviolence, but does not allow electoral competition.Ghana, one of Africa’s success stories, establisheddemocratic governance in 1993. In December 2004,Ghana’s fourth democratic election secured PresidentKufuor’s second term of office. Honduras producedits PRSP under the governance of the Liberal PartyPresident Carlos Flores Facussé in 2001, but electionsin 2002 led to a new National Party government underPresident Ricardo Maduro. In contrast, Vietnam isruled by a communist party with strong overlapsbetween the state and the Communist Party. Econo-mic liberalization, introduced in 1986, created thecontext for a PRSP and increased government dialoguewith international donors and NGOs.

All four countries researched have high levels ofpoverty with more than 20 percent of the populationliving on less than US$1 per day (see Table 1). Vietnamhas the largest population (81.3 million) and Hondurasthe smallest population (7 million). According tothe World Bank List of Economies ( July 1994), theAfrican countries of Ghana and Uganda are bothranked as low income, with Ghana being a moderatelyindebted country and Uganda a less indebted country.The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS)

aims to address its reliance on the environment(through agriculture, logging, and mining) and toimprove the use of the environment in order to stimu-late economic growth and pro-poor development. InUganda, the country’s natural resources are seen asthe foundation for achieving national objectives ofeconomic growth and poverty eradication. Ugandahas, therefore, tried to deal with environmental issues.It was, for example, the first African country to intro-duce a national policy for wetland management.Honduras is ranked as a low middle income countrywhich is moderately indebted. It is highly dependenton primary production—especially agriculture, forestry,

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Section One: Introduction

Children draw water from an old pump in Timdongsiio, Ghana. TheGhana Poverty Reduction Strategy aims to address its reliance on theenvironment and to improve the use of the environment in order tostimulate economic growth and pro-poor development.

© CIDA/Pierre St-Jacques

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and mining—and susceptible to environmentaldamage through natural processes. The HondurasPRSP thus developed out of former poverty reductionplans, such as the Master Plan for Reconstruction andTransformation (MPRT) which was implementedafter Hurricane Mitch swept the country in 1998. TheSoutheast Asia example, Vietnam, is ranked as a lowincome and less indebted country. Since launching itsDoi Moi (renovation) policy in 1986, Vietnam hasmoved steadily from a command economy dominatedby state central planning to a more decentralized sys-tem with a transitional market economy. This economicgrowth has been accompanied by increasing deterio-ration of environmental quality and natural resources.

Uganda, Vietnam, and Honduras are considered bythe IMF and the World Bank to be “early PRSPs” inthat these strategy documents were reviewed in 2002.Ghana, having had its PRSP reviewed in 2003, is con-sidered a “recent PRSP” (IMF/WB, 2003). Ugandahas completed three PRSPs and is, therefore, moreexperienced than the other three countries examinedhere. Given the spread of the four countries reviewed—one in Latin America, two in Africa and one in south-eastern Asia—in conjunction with their experiencesof poverty, their high reliance on primary production,and the various styles of democracy, these countries arefairly representative of countries producing PRSPson these continents. Nonetheless, as further researchmay show, significant differences between African andAsian government planning processes may affect

PRSPs and implementation processes. In terms ofmainstreaming environmental links to poverty reduc-tion, these countries have progressed and their fullPRSPs tend to be considerable improvements onearlier Interim PRSPs (I-PRSPs) (Bojö and Reddy,2002; 2003). Although, certain aspects remain over-looked, including gender relation and environmentaluse, indoor pollution, urban environment, and soforth, Ghana and Honduras have produced PRSPswhich are considered to have mainstreamed someenvironmental issues. Uganda and Vietnam havebeen less successful at this process (Bojö and Reddy,2002; 2003), although this does not take their mostrecent PRSPs into consideration.

Report argument and structure

This report synthesizes the four country studies inwhich additional detail and comprehensive argumentsare available. Through qualitative research andcomparison of the four countries, this report aims todemonstrate if, and why, different stakeholders seeenvironmental issues as important to povertyreduction, to provide practice-oriented policy recom-mendations, and to present an indication of howPRSP policies have been implemented. The reportargues that, because the creation of pro-poor environ-ments should also address political and economicissues, some conventional indicators of implement-ation may be less relevant. What is significant is thechanging of power relations that govern natural

Ghana Honduras Uganda Vietnam

Population 20.4 million 7 million 25.5 million 81.3 million

Gross National Income (per capita, 2002) US$270 US$930 US$240 US$430

Population living in poverty (below US$1/day) 40% 23.8% 38% 29%

Human Development Indicator Rank 131 115 146 112

Corruption Perception Index 70 106 113 100

Table 1: Country comparison of national statistics

Source: Country Profile pages of the World Bank (2004), GNI per capita from World Bank Development Indicators 2004, HDI from UNDPHuman Development Report (2004), and Corruption Perceptions from Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (2003).

resources. This is a long, time consuming process towhich PRSPs may or may not contribute. The stylein which a PRSP is constructed can address theseeconomic and political relationships but often doesnot. This report argues that, in general, PRSPs arenot helpful in this process and the mainstreaming ofenvironment and poverty linkages often reinforcescurrent power structures rather than creating contextsin which pro-poor environments can be consideredor addressed.

The report is structured as follows: Section Twoexamines the environmental stakeholders who par-ticipated in the PRSP process while Section Threelooks at some of their motivations for participation.

Section Four explores the conceptualizations ofenvironment and poverty issues as included in therespective country PRSPs. It also contrasts this PRSPview with alternative understandings of environmentand poverty linkages. Section Five looks at the ob-stacles to mainstreaming environmental issues whileSection Six examines what new activities environ-mental agencies are undertaking. Sections Seven andEight, respectively, explore the funding possibilitieslinked to the implementation of policy and sectoralimplementation activities with environmental con-cerns. Finally, Section Nine discusses the monitoringof the environmental component of the PRSP, whileSection Ten concludes the report with an examinationof the key lessons learned for future implementation.

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In all four countries, participation primarily involvedgovernment agencies (including natural resourceministries and departments), civil society organizations(particularly environmental NGOs and environmentalstakeholders), international donors, and, to a morelimited extent, local research institutions. In Ghana,Uganda, and Honduras, the primary actors in thePRSP process were government agencies, internationaldonors, and civil society. In Vietnam, they tended tobe government agencies and international donors.

Participation of government ministries andagencies

In all four countries, governments have experimentedwith the best way to deal with environmental concernsgiven their particular contexts (and at times externalinfluences that have encouraged countries to followa particular route). This means that environmental

concerns have sometimes been ignored in PRSPs,sometimes they have been clustered under one par-ticular heading or pillar, sometimes they have beendealt with as crosscutting issues and on occasion,they have been seen as a separate sector in its ownright (see Table 2 which provides an overview of howthe different countries have dealt with environmentalconcerns). There is, without doubt, a sense in allcountries that environmental awareness, knowledge,and capacity among government ministries havegrown during these processes.

Governments’ participation in the PRSP processeshas focused on centralized arrangements. In three ofthe four countries, the PRSP process was overseen bycentralized government ministries: in Ghana, theNational Development Planning Commission; inVietnam, the Ministry of Finance; and in Uganda,by the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and conomic

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Section Two: Environmental stakeholderparticipation in PRSP processes

Air quality is sampled on a street corner in Haiphong, Vietnam. Environmental awareness, knowledge, andcapacity among government ministries have grown because of the implementation of Poverty ReductionStrategy Paper–related processes.

© CIDA/Gerard Dolan

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Development. In Honduras, the Social Cabinet of theGovernment2 coordinated the production of the PRSP,establishing a National Technical Team3 to assistwith preparation. In Ghana, Uganda and Vietnam,these central ministries tend to be strong ministries

that focus on economics, finance, and planning andwhich overlooked, during the first round of PRSPs(or sometimes I-PRSPs), the involvement of govern-ment environmental agencies. In Uganda, subsequentPoverty Eradication Action Plans (PEAPs) have

Table 2: Country-specific approaches to environmental issues as contained within PRSPs

Interim PRSP

First PRSP

Additionalprocesses enhancingenvironmentalconsiderations

Second PRSP

Third PRSP

Ghana

Environmentalissues ignored

Largely overlookedenvironmentalissues, seen as“residuals”, andusing an “add-on”approach

Mainstreamed in the SEA

N/A

N/A

Honduras

Separate theme

Separate themethrough Environ-ment SectorCommission; somecivil society involve-ment through thepresentation of acounter proposal

Crosscuttingthrough thedevelopment ofSWAps

N/A

N/A

Uganda

N/A

Very little civilsociety involvement;environmentalissues largelyoverlooked or dealtwith in an ad hocmanner

PPA consideredrural people’sdefinition ofpoverty and thesignificance of theenvironment fortheir livelihood

Environmentalissues mainstreamed;PPAs contributedpoor people’sperspectives; someNGO involvement

Separate theme andmainstreamed

Vietnam

Consultation withpoor householdsthrough PPAs, butenvironmentalissues completelyoverlooked

“Add-on” only inthe infrastructuresection

Steering committeeto overseeimplementation

N/A

N/A

2. Ministry of the Presidency; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Labour and Social Security; Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock;Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Sports; Ministry of Technical Affairs and International Cooperation; National Agrarian Institute;and Honduran Social Investment Fund.

3. Ministry of Finance; Central Bank of Honduras; Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment; Family Allowance Program;Honduran Institute for Children and Families; National Women’s Institute; and the Housing Unit of the Ministry of Public Works,Transportation, and Housing.

formalized the involvement of environmental govern-ment agencies through the Environment and NaturalResources Sector (ENRS). In Honduras, the SectorCommissions initially included a specific sector to dealwith environmental issues. Environmental issues werelater converted to a crosscutting theme, challengingthe capacity of the Ministry of Natural Resources andEnvironment to affect developments in the remainingSWAp-based sector commissions. In Vietnam, issueswere further complicated by a reorganization process,aimed at improving the capacity of central environ-mental agencies but, in so doing, also marginalizingthem from the PRSP process.

Some additional ministries have been well placed tocontribute to and to take advantage of the opportu-nities offered by the PRSP process. For example, theMinistry of Food and Agriculture, was not involved inthe initial drafting of Ghana’s PRSP but, because theministry had access to specialized expertise throughits prior relations with donors, it was in a position torespond quickly and to contribute in ways that com-plemented the ministry’s own development plans. InUganda, the agriculture ministry has continued todevelop plans in much the same vein as before, whileacknowledging the importance of environment andpoverty linkages. The National Agricultural AdvisoryServices aims to increase farmers’ access to inform-ation, knowledge and technology to improve cropyields. It has been largely unaffected by the PEAP’sconcern with environmental issues but has, as a resultof the Environment and Natural Resources SectorWorking Group’s (ENR SWG’s) determination toincrease the profile of environmental and naturalresources, sought to integrate environmental issues(despite the fact that farmers do not request thisinformation). The Vietnamese Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Development was similarly involved inthe Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and GrowthStrategy (CPRGS), but focused its environmental/poverty contribution on forest management.

Ultimately, spending ministries demonstrated that theydid not need to focus on environment and povertyissues and they would integrate their work into thePRSPs without developing new approaches. None-theless, the PRSPs did also create some opportunitiesfor weaker environmental ministries or sub-sectors.In Uganda, the Department of Fisheries Resourceshas been able to expand its ambit, to relocate itselfwithin the ENRS (rather than within the Ministryof Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries),and to receive greater attention within government(discussed below). Similarly in Ghana, the GPRSand the subsequent implementation of the StrategicEnvironmental Assessment (SEA), designed to over-come the GPRS’s neglect of environment and povertylinkages, led to improved relations between theNational Development Planning Commission andenvironmental agencies such as the EnvironmentalProtection Agency, which will feed into future PRSPs.

In all four countries, the first round of PRSPsbypassed local, district, magisterial, or regionalgovernment authorities, despite the fact that theyemphasized decentralization. In principle, this shouldopen up policy spaces for rural and local people toparticipate. In Vietnam, there is little awareness ofthe CPRGS at the provincial level, most probably asa result of the limited scope for local governmentparticipation in the drafting process, while it is vir-tually unknown at the district and commune levels.Ghana’s similar oversights were rectified by the SEAwhich strengthened relations between Ministers andDistrict Assemblies and the centralized core thatproduced the GPRS. In Honduras, decentralizationhas become a source of potential conflict betweenlocal municipalities and centralized ministries. The1990 Municipalities Law provided for the decentral-ization of natural resource regulation and managementto municipal authorities while the Directorate ofEnvironmental Management in the Ministry ofNatural Resources and Environment (SERNA) is

6


responsible for overseeing the formulation andsupport of Municipal Environment Units in everymunicipality in the country. In practice, however,AFE-COHDEFOR (state forestry authority –Honduran Corporation for Forestry Development)and SERNA have been reluctant to relinquish theircontrol over environmental regulation, despite theiroften very limited capacities to fulfil this role.

Uganda’s local government agencies now have beenprovided with some autonomy. Decentralization, inthis country, has gone further than devolving powerto government ministries and has also addressed thefishing communities. It is the only example amongthe four countries examined which has transferredsome power—supported with new legislation—thatformalizes and legalizes local involvement in pro-poor development and in environmental conditions(discussed below).

Parliaments and PRSPs

Very few people made reference to the role of parlia-ments during this research. This may be partly becauseof the recognition that legislatures do not alwaysfunction efficiently. In Africa, parliaments are not seenas democratic and, as a result, are often overlookedin the PRSP process (Eberlei and Henn, 2003: 11).In both Uganda and Ghana, members of parliamentwere consulted prior to the production of the PRSPsbut seem to have had little specific input. Despitereservations about the degree to which environmentand poverty linkages were addressed in the GPRS,parliamentary participation remained limited to aworkshop “midway” through the process, which wassaid not to have changed anything. The Ugandanparliament is mandated to establish laws for thesustainable management of the environment4—aprocess which is difficult to ensure given competingdefinitions of illegal treatment of the environment(discussed in Section Five). In Ghana, international

7


donors insisted that the GPRS and the budget bepassed by parliament. Initially, opposition membersof parliament saw the CPRGS primarily as a govern-ment and World Bank initiative. From the perspectiveof one opposition member, the GPRS was “more of afunding document”, meant to secure donor supportfor Ghana. Members of parliament thus see them-selves as not involved until donors expressed concernabout parliament’s lack of involvement. The budgetwas subsequently presented to parliament forscrutiny and a small committee established withinparliament to deal with GPRS-related issues.

Fishers land their catches on the shores of Lake Victoria nearEntebbe, Uganda. The decentralization of Uganda’s fishingindustry established incentives for poor people to manage theirenvironmental resources in economically lucrative and sustainableways.

© CIDA/Peter Bennett

4. Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, Article 245

Civil society participation

Across the four countries, outcomes have variedaccording to the extent and ways in which civilsociety organizations (CSOs) have participated inPRSP production processes. Ugandan civil societyparticipation has presented a “common vision” ofenvironmental concerns and developmental plans togovernment through the ENR SWG. The environ-mental stakeholders participating in the ENR SWGhave been able to shape government policy to a limitedextent, incorporating some alternative narratives aboutenvironmental problems and solutions.

Ghanaian civil society involvement has been limitedto the endorsement of government actions. FormalGPRS consultations were made with a wide range ofpeople, but the participation of environmental actorswas circumscribed. NGO participation, alongside theinvolvement of religious bodies and traditional leaders,did not play any significant role in environmentalissues. In the urban areas, broader civil society repre-sentation was also difficult to secure. Partnershipswere thus limited to pro-government voices and havenot provided space for alternative or conflicting views.Stakeholders who were established within Ghana’spoverty/environmental field, whose work directlyaddressed environmental concerns, and/or who wereoutspoken about government’s role in perpetuatingenvironmental degradation, such as the Third WorldNetwork and the Federation for EnvironmentalJournalists, were excluded from participation.

Honduran civil society has been very aware of environ-mental issues and has been prepared to articulate itsviewpoints to government. In June 2003 and again ayear later, thousands of people marched to the nation’scapital. These “Marches for Life” protested againstthe marginalization of local people’s interests fromforestry policies and laws, the impacts of deforesta-tion, the inadequacy of agrarian reform and the

privatization of water management and supply. Thesemarches have occurred outside the formal “spaces”for participation, not only because these spaces havebeen reduced and rendered largely symbolic by thechange in government and by a subsequent move todevelop a SWAp, but also because participationwithin the formal “invited” spaces has provedunsatisfactory.

In Vietnam, Communist Party politics emphasize asocialist vision of welfare and equality (Piron andEvans, 2004). Communities and civil society do nothave avenues through which to express independentopinions in government; their representation shouldoccur through the party-state mechanism. None-theless, a small number of local agencies and NGOswere invited to participate in the CPRGS and inthe preparation of “pro-poor environmental policies”.Limited contributions from Eco-Eco (Institute ofEcological Economy) and AENRP (Association forEnvironment and Natural Resources Protection)focused on poverty reduction rather than environmentand poverty linkages because the level of awarenessand understanding of the linkages was a constrainingfactor. International NGOs pressed for the greaterinvolvement of local NGOs, despite the fact thatthese local NGOs were constrained by being few innumber, not highly regarded by the Vietnamesegovernment, and their contributions to environmentalissues were very limited. Some important mass organ-izations, such as the Women’s Union, reviewed theCRPGS drafts but were not involved in writing thedocument. Other mass organizations5 (such as theAssociation of Journalists and its affiliated VietnamForum for Environmental Journalists, the VietnamAssociation for Nature and Environment Protection,or the Vietnam Culture for the Environment) couldhave developed pro-poor environmental policies butwere not invited to participate. Participation of civilsociety in Vietnam is, therefore, particularly limitingand restrictive.

8


5. Vietnam’s mass organizations are considered “grass-roots organizations” by the government. They are also closely affiliated with,and ultimately controlled by, the party-state structure.

Nonetheless, Vietnam’s media has played a significantrole outside of the CPRGS process and has highlightedenvironment and poverty awareness. Environmentalreporting, now widespread on television, radio, andin some newspapers, has argued that environmentalproblems are increasingly challenging Vietnam’s long-term development. On occasion, the Vietnamese pressraises sensitive issues about how poor communitiessuffer from environmental degradation. This drawsthe attention of people and authorities to these issuesand has also resulted in government actions of redress.

Participation of donor organizations

International donors were involved in mainstreamingenvironmental linkages to poverty issues in all fourcountries. In Ghana, donors played an important rolein assisting with the production of the SEA and, asdiscussed below, in helping to promote SWAps. InUganda, donors were instrumental to the ENRS, notonly in terms of financial and institutional supportbut also in drafting the final PEAP. This role mightotherwise have been filled by civil society whoserepresentatives were excluded from the draftingprocess and unable to defend their inputs. Similarly,in Honduras, donors were particularly significant inhelping CSOs to be heard by PRSP organizers andproviding support for civil society activities. InVietnam, it is argued that the organizations thatultimately stood to gain the most from a participatoryexperience were, ironically, the international NGOswhich had traditionally occupied a precarious posi-tion in Vietnam and have generally lacked access tothe policy-making process, particularly at the centrallevel (Pincus and Thang, 2004: 28). Their involvementin the Poverty Task Force (PTF), and their supportfor a “crosscutting” approach that jointly targetspoverty reduction and environmental protection, ledto the PTF being centrally involved with the Partici-patory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) conducted in12 provinces. It also ensured that, in the PPAs, con-sideration was given to how environmental issues canbe related to Vietnamese experiences of poverty. Thisdemonstrates a potential tension between donors’ and

civil societies’ roles: donors are placed in a difficultposition of needing to be both proactively involvedand supportive of civil society initiatives and alsobeing sensitive to how their own involvement mayprevent civil society participation.

Types of participation

Participation has been uneven in Honduras, Vietnam,Ghana, and Uganda where there has been a widerange of forms of “participation”. Widescale “partic-ipation” is primarily information dissemination. InGhana, for example, widespread participation overlooksenvironmental issues but secures a mandate for“country ownership” and consultation. Although thisis the closest PRSP participation comes to widescalenegotiation, it does not provide a forum for largenumbers of people mobilizing through grass roots toarticulate their views. As Honduras demonstrates, suchpublic protests tend to remain outside of the PRSPambit for dialogue. Consultation with the rural poor,mostly through PPAs, provides more success. InUganda, this allowed for the incorporation of alter-native environmental narratives in the PEAP,whereas in Vietnam, PPAs overlooked environmentalissues. In general, rural populations tend to haveonly indirect participation, through PPAs. In Uganda,Ghana, and Vietnam, rural poor people received onlya few opportunities to influence the PRSP processand no opportunities to discuss environmentalissues. Honduras, influenced by the experience ofHurricane Mitch, provides an exception with ruralpeople taking an active interest in environmentalissues as defined in the PRSP (discussed below).

Participation involving CSOs generally includes theopportunity to review drafts of the PRSPs. Organiza-tions in Ghana, Honduras, and Vietnam had occasionsto review (English) drafts of the respective country’sPRSP. However, in both Ghana and Honduras, limitedtime was allocated (as little as 24 hours in the case ofHonduras). This, coupled with the language barrier,had the effect of reducing the possibilities for carefulcritique, discussion, and subsequent involvement.

9


Government departments in Ghana also found theirparticipation limited to the reviewing of draft docu-ments. There is one isolated example of a stronggovernment department (the Ministry of Food andAgriculture in Ghana) being able to take advantageof this level of participation and use it to developgreater involvement in the policy-making process.

Consultation workshops were used in Vietnam,Uganda, and Ghana to facilitate participation. Theseworkshops can be relatively large (up to 1000 peoplein Uganda) or quite small (involving about 100 Viet-namese policy-makers and practitioners from govern-ment agencies, donors, and NGOs). Such stakeholderworkshops create a sense of involvement, but tend tobe used to report back information. This limits thedegree to which civil society actors and other stake-holders can participate in the actual production ofgovernment policy on environmental issues. HonduranCSOs, however, used this form of participationsuccessfully to develop a counter proposal to that

country’s PRSP. These four layers of participationcan all be seen as “invited spaces” in which delegateshave little say over the structure of their participationor the agendas.

The most effective space for civil society and govern-ment agency participation occurs when numbers arereduced sufficiently to allow a process of engagementwith coordinating government ministries and donors,but are not so limited as to exclude civil society actors.At this level, civil society engagement is also formallyrecognized, providing stakeholders with a prescribedrole in policy-making. In Honduras, sector commis-sions were utilized to encourage dialogue with CSOsduring the production of the PRSP. This providedenvironmental stakeholders with a legitimate spacein which to engage government and to attempt toinfluence environmental policy-making.6 In Uganda,Sector Working Groups provided a similar, legitimate,and formally recognized role for civil society actorsand environmental NGOs.

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6. This was not always successful, and some stakeholders withdrew from formal negotiations.

In 1998 Hurricane Mitch caused mudslides that destroyed an area of Tegucigalpa, capital ofHonduras. Strong civil society concern about environmental and resource management issues inHonduras has been driven by previous environmental disasters, especially Hurricane Mitch.

© CIDA/David Trattles

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Section Three: Environmental stakeholdermotivations for mainstreaming environment and

poverty linkages in the PRSPs

Environmental organizations, civil society, andgovernment agencies in Uganda and Honduras haveproactively lobbied for the inclusion of environmentalissues in the PRSPs. The drivers for mainstreamingenvironmental issues in each of these two countriesare different. In Honduras, it stems from a long-standing concern about environmental disaster andvulnerability, coupled with widely held beliefs thatgovernment policy is not adequately addressingenvironment and poverty linkages and is, instead,facilitating economic development that underminespro-poor environmental initiatives. In Uganda, thedrive for mainstreaming environment and povertylinkages in the PEAP stems from the realization,developed through civil society and governmentagency involvement over successive PEAPs, thatreceiving PEAP mention and prioritization isessential to secure future financial support fromboth donors and government finance departments.

In both Ghana and Vietnam, the significance of main-streaming environmental issues as a means of povertyreduction has developed alongside the developmentof the PRSP—rather than forming a strong focus ofthe PRSP—but strong drivers for its inclusion haveoperated largely outside the PRSP formulation pro-cess. In Ghana the GPRS has been supplementedwith an SEA and this will facilitate mainstreaming insuccessive PRSPs. In Vietnam, environmental issueshave been addressed through the joint government/donor/civil society PTF which supported PPAs in12 provinces and which included consideration ofenvironment and poverty linkages at communelevel. As mentioned above, donors provided strongmotivation for the inclusion of environment andpoverty linkages.

All four countries have addressed environmentalconcerns, to a greater or lesser extent, as part of theirbroader concern with poverty in their respectivePRSPs. The Ugandan, Honduran, Vietnamese, andGhanaian PRSPs all reinforce the narrative7 that poorpeople are trapped in a vicious cycle forcing them touse environmental resources beyond sustainable levels(Table 3). This leads to environmental degradationand, in turn, deepens their poverty. This narrative isa “comfortable” way of framing the debate on poverty

and environmental issues. It does not, however, addressthe relationships of resource access and control thatshape poor people’s practices, overlooks ways in whichpoor people contribute positively to the environment,including through indigenous knowledge and practice(Leach and Forsyth, 1998), and ignores the effects ofelites on the environment. Furthermore, it disregardsquestions of marginalization and while it may suitgovernments to put blame on disempowered citizens,it leads to injustice and missed opportunities.

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Section Four: PRSP conceptualizationsof environmental concerns as linked

to poverty reduction

7. PRSP views of environmental problems tend to take the form of narratives or brief “stories” that identify a problem, its causes,and possible solutions.

Table 3: Shared environmental narratives in country PRSPs

PRSP narratives

“The vicious cycle: poverty causes environmental degradationwhich in turn entrenches poverty”.

“Environmental polices and the development of a system ofstate administration will safeguard the environment andprevent deterioration while economic growth takes place”.

“Sustainable management of natural resources is compatiblewith economic profits and social equity”.

“Economic growth is more important than environmentalissues at the moment”.

“Statistical analyses, global targets and links to global processes”.

“The large scale migration of people causes rural and urbanenvironmental degradation”.

“Land intensification and rural industrialization are the onlyways to diminish the negative environmental impacts createdby existing land use practices and rural livelihoods underconditions of pro-population growth”.

“There are always trade-offs between economic growth andenvironmental protection. These must be dealt with throughrational, technical assessment and audits”.

“The environment: an asset for rural livelihoods”.

Honduras

✓

✓

✓

Vietnam

✓

✓

✓

✓

Uganda

✓

✓

✓

Ghana

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

These mainstream PRSP narratives are, in turn,challenged by counter narratives put forward by civilsociety and other stakeholders. In all four countries,alternative narratives (not included in the PRSPs)point out the role elites have played, and continue toplay, in environmental degradation (Table 4). It isstriking that only Uganda has managed to integratesome version of this alternative narrative in itsPEAP and that this has happened only in its mostrecent PRSP.

Narratives in the PRSPs for Ghana and Honduras haveemphasized the importance of technology, modern-ization, and sustainable management of natural

resources as a means of addressing environmentaldegradation. In Vietnam, a more extreme form ofthis narrative is that development activities necessarilylead to negative environmental effects. Short-termenvironmental sustainability must therefore be sacri-ficed for economic growth and poverty reduction tooccur. When Vietnam is economically developedand wealthy, it will be able to address sustainableenvironmental management. These narratives havebeen countered by a number of alternative narrativesemphasizing multiple resource use and environmentaldependence as crucial components of poor people’slivelihoods. These alternative narratives have generallynot been articulated in the PRSPs although Vietnam’s

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Table 4: Cross-country comparison of alternative narratives

Alternative narratives

“Economic growth enables the elites to do more damage tothe environment”.

“Economic growth places pressure on the environment andintroduces new costs which are borne by poor people”.

“State-led economic policy is putting pressure on theenvironment for the promotion / lack of regulation ofextractive industry”.

“Multiple resource use is a means of securing rural people’slivelihoods while increasing their earning potential”.

“It is inequality, rather than poverty, that leads toenvironmental degradation”.

“Nationalization is not an effective means of managingenvironmental resources. Local, municipal and regionalapproaches to managing poverty and the environment shouldplay a greater role in environmental management andpoverty reduction”.

“A cost-benefit analysis also requires local deliberation ontrade-offs, control, and access”.

“Land as equity will disenfranchise poor people. It is,therefore, necessary to have some local rights which allow forsecurity and effective compensation mechanisms”.

Honduras

✓

✓

✓

Vietnam

✓

✓

✓

Uganda

✓

✓

Ghana

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

CPRGS makes a brief reference to poor communitiesand Honduras’s PRSP does incorporate some aspectsof civil society’s counter proposal. Again, Uganda is anexception, having stressed the importance of Uganda’srural livelihoods being environmentally based in the2000 PEAP. This drew on the PPAs widely conductedin rural Uganda and which framed the poor as the“new experts” on poverty.

Uganda’s attempts to address environmental issuesin relation to its poverty reduction strategy are morecomplex than those of Ghana, Vietnam, andHonduras. The introduction of some alternativenarratives into the PEAP is a positive sign whichreflects both the PPA and the work of civil societyactors and environmental activists. Nevertheless, theincorporation of alternative narratives has beeninconsistent over time, with different narratives

appearing in different PEAPs. Environmentalactivists have been unable to sustain alternativenarratives. Most activism has focused on contri-buting to and deepening the core narrative throughstatistical analyses and through the complementaryanalysis of global environmental processes.

The research noted many instances of inclusion ofenvironmental issues in PRSPs. However, this ishighly selective: there is a tendency for PRSPs toreproduce narratives that seek technical solutions,and to exclude those that draw attention to thehighly politicized aspects of environmental controland rights to resources. Although environmentalresources form the basis of material wealth in allfour countries, and issues of poverty and inequalityare intimately bound up with control of environmental

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Ugandan farmers participate in a workshop in Kiboga. Participatory Poverty Assessments framed the poor as the “new experts” on poverty,resulting in a Poverty Eradication Action Plan stressing the importance of Uganda’s rural livelihoods being environmentally based.


resources, the narratives in the PRSPs contradict thisview and project an illusion of natural resources beinga public good that requires better management andenhanced legislation to ensure that all people benefit.

PRSPs do not generally aim to increase poor people’scontrol or management capacity over environmentalresources (cf. Reed, 2004). Although attempts toreduce poverty—while simultaneously addressingenvironmental issues—should examine the complexdynamics between the rural poor, other powerfulactors, and the environment in specific localities,PRSPs seldom undertake such initiatives. Generallyspeaking, PRSPs do not focus on questions ofimproved management or on poor people’s access tonatural resources. The reproduction of conventionalnarratives about environmental problems and thenature of “participation”—in which governmentsdecide who participates and on what terms—militateagainst understanding the environment in politicaland economic terms. This “non-political” approachis reinforced by the production of technical environ-mental reports (such as the SEA in Ghana and thereport on the Role of Environment in Increasing Growthand Reducing Poverty in Uganda). In Ghana, Uganda,Honduras, and Vietnam, the cumulative effect of thePRSP process has been to reinforce a “crisis narrative”suggesting that the environment is in a state of seriousdegradation and to attempt to resolve this crisis byaddressing poor people’s behaviour and lifestyles.Nowhere in these PRSP processes has there beensustained discussion of issues of power, or of howpolicy and power interrelate.

As articulated in the alternative narratives, the per-petuation of environmental abuses by elites—ofteninvolved in or closely linked to governments—is afeature in all four of the countries studied. In

Honduras, new draft legislation for the forestrysector was heavily criticized by civil society actorswho believed that it favoured private sector industryand made inadequate provision for the interests andparticipation of local communities. In Uganda, pro-tection of wetlands did not prevent industries frompolluting these areas with chemicals or developingshopping complexes there. The Vietnamese approach,which emphasizes that economic development mayhave to be detrimental to the environment, at leastin the short term, may however, prove to have long-term consequences for environment and povertylinkages. The challenge facing the Ghanaiangovernment is to find a way of promoting extractiveindustries (timber and mining) while sustaininggood environment and poverty practices. The solu-tion has been to promote a “win-win” approach inwhich gold mines rehabilitate and reforest landsdecimated through mining. The challenge is to useextractive industries to enhance the livelihoods ofthe majority of Ghanaians rather than benefitingelite interests. To achieve this, however, it is necessaryto address the political and economic interests involved.This requires a recognition and understanding ofthe relationships within and between forestry andlocal agriculture; and of illegal gold mining, illegallumbering, and formalized mining and forestry. Itfurther requires an appreciation how these economicinterests intersect with the state structures that definecertain activities as illegal and encourage others, andan understanding of how state policy is shaped in“informal non-political spaces”.

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Obstacles associated with the nature of participation,the language in which policy documents are produced,and the length of time available for consultancy havealready been mentioned in Section Two. This sectionalso pointed to how environmental ministries andagencies tend to have weak institutional links, bothwith other government departments (and in particularwith those coordinating the PRSP process) andwith donors, which can also inhibit their ability toparticipate.

Exclusion from the drafting process

A primary obstacle in all four countries examinedconcerns the drafting process of the PRSP docu-ments. In all four countries, this process was highlyrestricted with government planning departments,sometimes working closely with international donors,taking control. In none of the four countries are civilsociety or grass-roots organizations involved in thedrafting process. In Vietnam, rather late in the draftingprocess of the CPRGS, the National EnvironmentalAgency developed a high-level task force (influencedprimarily by government and donors) to make recom-mendations on the integration of environmentalconcerns. However, community and grass-rootsorganizations played no role in this task force. Inboth Honduras and Uganda, CSOs complained thattheir submissions were altered in the drafting processor not taken up at all.

Financial exclusions

A second obstacle concerns financial arrangements.The final innermost area of PRSP decision-makingis budget allocations, where civil society stakeholdersare excluded. It is here that the PRSP priorities areturned into projects with financial backing for theirimplementation. This is, therefore, where significantdecisions are made and where civil society has theleast opportunity for participation. These decisionsare also affected by the financial arrangements therespective governments have with donors. The use of

SWAps, for example, has significant ramifications onwhat takes place in budget meetings. In Ghana, envi-ronmental ministries are institutionally weak and aredisadvantaged both in the budget planning processesand in their ability to initiate SWAps. In Uganda, theENRS has found that, despite the strong coalitionpresented by environmental stakeholders and donors,it has also experienced difficulty in developing thenecessary financial frameworks and participation inbudget allocations remains exclusionary. Some sectorcommissions in Honduras prepared proposals for thefinancing of their activities as part of their PRSPplanning exercise. It is not clear, however, how muchthis was integrated into subsequent activities. InVietnam, because the CPRGS has practically nolinks with the government’s Public Investment Planor with the government’s budget lines (IMF-IDA,2004: 3), it is difficult for central and local govern-ments and their donor partners to discuss and todefine concrete programs emerging from the CPRGS.

Electoral processes and governments

Governments, democratic processes, and internalpolitics can also hinder the mainstreaming of environ-mental linkages to poverty reduction. The way inwhich the Honduran PRSP was conceptualized byPresident Facussé allowed for widescale participationand for stakeholders to voice alternative environmentalnarratives. Following the 2001 elections, the MaduroGovernment reconceptualized the PRSP. New govern-ments have a tendency to reshape former governments’policies and to impose new agendas. Ghana under-went a similar experience when, after the drafting ofits I-PRSP, a new government elected in 2001 ignoredthe I-PRSP. Processes such as these reinforcegovernments’ roles in PRSPs rather than countryownership. These policy documents come to beperceived as a ruling-government document, ratherthan a national vision on how poverty can be reducedin the country. In contrast, Uganda, the country thathas had the most “success” at integrating environ-mental issues has also had the greatest continuity with

16

Section Five: Obstacles to mainstreamingenvironment and poverty linkages in the PRSPs

Museveni and the National Resistance Movementoverseeing all three PEAPs produced. The lack ofelectoral candidates in Uganda has provided a degreeof continuity for the development of the PEAP andfor the networks that surround this policy process.The inclusive nature of the Movement and politicalcontinuity has allowed the PEAP to become the“dominant policy planning document” and has createdan accommodation between planning cycles for inter-national aid and the Ugandan government (Pironand Evans, 2004: 15). Currently, Uganda is underdonor pressure to introduce competitive elections.Should donors be successful, they may find that theimpetus created by the PEAP, and its current statusas the main process directing policy, is underminedwhen a new government comes into power.

International Financial Institutions’restrictions

Governments’ activities are influenced by internationaldonors who consider certain aspects of PRSPs to bemore rigid than others. For example, literature pointsto the unquestioning acceptance of strategies formacro-economic development in PRSPs (Possing,2003, Hickey, 2003, Wilks and Lefrançois, 2002and Wood, 2004). Environmental issues are, however,relatively low on both governments’ and internationaldonors’ agendas (Goodland and Daly, 1996), despiteconsiderable commitment and dedication of personsworking in environmental departments in both govern-ment and in donor agencies. Thus, environmentalissues become a “space” which governments use todevelop manoeuvrability and flexibility for themselvesin relation to PRSP priorities. As demonstrated in theHonduran example, the low status of environmentalissues and the lack of commitment to civil societyparticipation make these ideal places to initiate cut-backs or to implement new government strategieswithout unduly challenging donors. The dynamicsthough which governments associate with, or reject,their previous governments’ attempts to initiatepoverty reduction strategies will become more pro-minent as countries increasingly generate second- andthird-generation PRSPs.

Vested interests

Although not adequately addressed in the PRSPs, allfour countries have powerful economic and politicalinterests tied to natural resources. The case ofextractive industries in Ghana and the PRSP questfor a “win-win” solution provides one example of hownatural resource management for poverty reductioncan be undermined by powerful, political and eliteinterests. Gold mining and timber production, andthe implementation of pro-poor environmentalpolicies in relation to these industries, are affectedby who owns the land, who receives the timberconcessions, and who benefits from the status quo.Such interpretations of environmental problems areclearly articulated in the alternative narratives ofenvironmental problems, which are excluded fromthe GPRS. These alternative narratives emphasizethe importance of multiple resource use for poorpeople, an awareness of trade-offs, control, and accessin relation to natural resource use and sustainabilityand the fact that land as equity will disenfranchisepoor people. In addition, alternative narratives pointto state-led economic policy and elite politicalinterests creating pressure on the environment andundermining sustainability in order to promoteextractive industries. For example, until two yearsago, timber concessions were free and were distributedby the Ghanaian government to facilitate socialrelationships with powerful political players and toreward political loyalty. The degradation of theforests is thus not simply the result of poor peopleexploiting their environment or chainsaw gangsusing illegal means to generate wealth; it is also theresult of important political players—operating atthe highest levels of government—and other eliteshaving vested economic interests in timber productionand in lax monitoring procedures. Over the years,timber concessions have created powerful politicalallies. The indiscriminate harvesting of timber, whilerife with political patronage and kickbacks, was jus-tified in terms of high export earnings. Governmentattempts to implement change is, therefore, a difficultand sensitive task which, to date, has avoided orfrowned upon attempts to address these power rela-

17


tions. Other, additional considerations mean thatforest rangers have not been successful in their policingefforts. These include illegal chainsaw gangs workingin collaboration with corrupt policemen, districtassemblies (DAs), and local communities, and thecontradictory policies applied at the local level. Forexample, while DAs are meant to protect the forests,they also have vested interests in allowing trees to befelled, as they levy a tax on trees cut for charcoal.Although intended to discourage charcoal burning,this turns DAs into “their own policemen”.

If PRSPs were to address these questions, the explo-ration of environmental issues would look substantiallydifferent. Rather than exploring what the environ-mental problems are (primarily in relation to poorpeople but not as defined by them), such an exercisewould explore different definitions of environmentalproblems. Instead of addressing pro-poor environ-mental management through poor people’s behaviouror seeking to find a win-win approach between twopowerful extractive industries, such an approach wouldseek to mediate between vested interests which mayinclude extractive industries, people who live on theland, traditional leaders, the government, DAs, cen-tralized ministries, environmental NGOs, and CSOs.It would seek ways of bringing these diverse intereststogether to mutually benefit from and protect naturalresources. Such an approach would require an upfrontexamination of who currently benefits from environ-mental resources.

Corruption

The vested interests described above also raise ques-tions about government institutions’ capacities andresources to monitor and implement environmentalregulation in all four countries. In all four countries,non-state actors have pointed to corruption withingovernments and to the states’ “inability” to policeenvironmental resources. This concern is characterizedby weaknesses in the Vietnamese and Honduranregulatory authorities’ implementation capacity.Honduran government departments suffer from

inefficiency and a lack of regulatory capacity, leadingto the delayed decentralization of natural resourceregulation and management to municipal authorities(despite the passing of the 1990 municipalities law).Although conceived in a context of indebtedness,poverty, and corruption within government, this PRSPhas overlooked government corruption in relation toenvironmental resources and poverty. In Vietnam,local governments do not place environmentalmanagement issues high on their development andinvestment agendas and have little or no capacity toaddress these issues. This is reinforced by the conven-tional narrative which suggests that the environmentmay have to be sacrificed, in the short term, in orderto facilitate economic growth and development.Similarly, in Uganda where corruption is rampant(Ireland and Tumushabe, 2004), the challenge toattract investment means that local authorities arelikely to sacrifice environmental resources to secureinvestment deals and economic growth. Variousattempts have been made to tackle this including acommitment in the 2000 PEAP to minimize corrup-tion. Despite some high–profile, environment-relatedcorruption cases implicating the police, army, andrevenue authority (Bainomugisha and Tumushabe,2004), the government has been slow to act on thesefindings. Many other instances, labelled environ-mental corruption by many non-state actors, remainunrecognised by the government. It is here, in thedefinition of which issues are to be defined as corrup-tion, that the Ugandan government creates flexibilityand manoeuvrability for itself. Although corruptionis of major concern to international financial institu-tions, environmental issues are not as prominent. Thus“politics”, informed by the need to balance internalprocesses of generating support (through the protec-tion of elite environmental interests) against externaldonors’ concerns (over corruption), plays a major rolein determining which environmental activities willbe targeted by the government’s anti-corruption drive.This “informal” practice of “politics” has increasinglybeen cited as an obstacle to poverty reduction inUganda (Hickey, 2003: 10).

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In all four countries, environmental agencies haveattempted to engage in the PRSP process. This hasled to some new developments and to new ways ofworking. One level of expansion has concerned re-search, involving detailed conceptualizations of howenvironment and poverty linkages operate in eachcountry. In Vietnam, the CPRGS was the first officialdocument to address environmental sustainabilityand poverty reduction as part of a single planningprocess. In addition, 12 provinces were involved inparticipatory and regional poverty assessments, thatexamined environment and poverty linkages. ThePPA’s examination of environment and poverty link-ages will facilitate integration of these issues intolocal-level development agendas, particularly giventhe government of Vietnam’s decision to delegate toprovincial governments the authority to conductenvironmental impact assessments for public invest-ment projects. The government has also moved toimplement a “polluter pays” system of fees to becharged on all industrial and municipal waste waterdischarges. Although these moves were not coordi-

nated with the CPRGS process, its production hashelped to focus concerns on these issues.

In both Uganda and Ghana, research has sought tobetter understand environment and poverty linkagesand to facilitate improved PRSP mainstreaming. InGhana, the SEA has provided a means for strategi-cally evaluating environmental issues and has ensuredthat environmental issues are reintroduced to govern-ment planning and policy-making. Its primary focus,however, was to “identify ministries, departments,and agencies that should be consulted during sectorstudies” and to “identify those that would be respon-sible for refining policies that would mainstreamenvironment within the Poverty Reduction Strategy”(NDPC/EPA, 2004: 4). The results of the SEA willfeed into the next GPRS, placing greater emphasison decentralization and on the role of DAs. In thissense, it has the potential to significantly impact thepolicy agenda, although this has yet to be demon-strated. The SEA has, however, played a significantrole in awareness-raising among policy-makers.

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Section Six: New and expanded activitiesfor environmental agencies

Boys collect garbage floating down the Saigon River in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The Government of Vietnam has moved to implement a“polluter pays” system of fees to be charged on all industrial and municipal wastewater discharges.

© CIDA/Cindy Andrew

In all four countries, the implementation of PRSPpolicy has been hindered by changes in government(Honduras), discrepancies between PRSP policy andhow governance actually occurs at a local level(Vietnam), a lack of financial investment inenvironment and poverty projects (Uganda, Ghana,and Vietnam), and a lack of agreement on whatPRSP policy means when it comes to the practice ofimplementation (Honduras and Vietnam). Moreimportantly, the governments of Uganda, Honduras,Vietnam, and Ghana are constrained both in theirability to raise internal revenue and in the resourcesthey can draw on for public expenditure. Theproblem is that while PRSPs list country prioritiesfor poverty reduction, these priorities are not rankedin importance. When it comes to implementation,and particularly to the financial considerations thataccompany implementation, environmental consider-ations are sidelined as governments focus on economicmodernization and investment-procuring activities,and spend money on pressing social and health con-cerns. Thus, there is a danger that environmentalissues will not be identified as a development priorityand will not receive adequate financial support fromthese governments. People interviewed in Vietnamcommented, for example, that the central governmenthad not allocated funds to environmental ministriesand, therefore, no “project/program in the nationalenvironmental strategy has been started”. As Bojöand Reddy (2002, 2003) point out, the capacity tomonitor progress is also lacking in many countriesand there is an essential need to define targets andindicators appropriate for measuring environmentand poverty implementation.

These limiting factors, in conjunction with the shortperiod since the production of the country PRSPs anda limited research program, meant that it was onlypossible to examine a few examples of implementation.Ghana’s intention is to begin to implement the SEArecommendations in 2005 and to use the SEA to feedinto the production of the next GPRS. Nonetheless,

the SEA is already having important downstreameffects. Influenced by the SEA and struggling toreduce pressure on natural forest resources, the Ministryof Lands and Forestry has adopted a novel plan ofmarketing rattan and bamboo. As the SEA has alsoled to improved cross-ministry relationships and links,both the Ministry of Lands and Forestry and theEnvironmental Protection Agency have collaboratedon the marketing of rattan and bamboo while alsoprotecting the natural growth of bamboo along Ghana’sriver banks. Similarly, in Vietnam, the CPRGS hasresulted in plans for future implementation, with manydonors supporting pilot programs that will integratethe CPRGS process into local planning in selectedprovinces. Provincial pilot programs aim to helpthese provinces develop pro-poor socio-economicdevelopment plans in which budget allocation andmanagement will be geared toward achieving CPRGS-prioritized targets and policies. The province-level“rolling out” of CPRGS programs includes: the settingof a vision, the identification of the correspondingtargets, the formulation of policies, the alignment ofresources, the monitoring and evaluation of results,and the systematic use of popular consultation. How-ever, because this process is in its initial phases and isonly expected to be completed in 2008, it is difficultto assess how successful implementation will be. Thereare, nonetheless, examples of local activities which,although bypassed by the CPRGS, have sought tocreate eco-villages, to create innovative agriculturalproduction techniques, and to utilize renewable energy.Vietnamese community groups have also sought toenhance productivity and socio-economic developmentthrough implementing green productivity programs.Documentation of these best practices and learningthrough replication provides additional opportunitiesfor implementation.

In Uganda, attempts to address poverty reductionthrough the PRSP has led to the development ofenvironmental policies, legislation, and regulations.In addition, the SWAp has been developed to insti-

20

Section Seven: Funding possibilitiesand the implementation of policy

tutionalize sector-related implementation. Althoughthe ENRS has experienced problems developingthese financial instruments, decentralization hasfacilitated further implementation of PEAP policy.Some NGOs, such as Environmental Alert, havesought to mainstream environment into DistrictDevelopment Plans. Their ability to do so has beenhampered by limited funds and by the fact thatenvironmental development plans often remainunfunded (even if they are good plans). Ultimately,despite their attempts at environmental awarenessraising, people are not able to put this into practiceand most local level funding is spent on developmentplans such as pit latrines and garbage disposal. Theyhave, however, had limited success with individualfarmers, persuading them to leave land fallow andstop cutting down the forest. These farmers haveinstead planted species that both supply their timberneeds and have allowed them to raise some additionalcash by selling surpluses.

The intertwined possibility of economic growth andsustainable environmental growth in Uganda’s fishingindustry has resulted in positive implementations.Legislation has secured the decentralization ofnatural resources in conjunction with the transfer ofnecessary powers to local authorities. Decentralizationof the fishing industry has been supported throughthe creation of community-based property rightswhich establish incentives for poor people to managetheir environmental resources in economically lucra-tive and sustainable ways. Positive feedback, both interms of reducing poverty and of enhancing environ-mental management, has been reported. The BeachManagement Units (BMUs), pioneered in Uganda,represent a situation in which a combination ofupstream processes and bottom-up mobilization hasled to the incorporation of environmental concerns inpoverty reduction. Previously marginalized environ-mental actors have been able to express ideas and,

21


Young Hondurans walk along a road in the area of Toncontin. The coordinated and equitable management of water, land, and relatedresources contributes to maximizing socio-economic well-being.

© CIDA/Brian Atkinson

through the process of developing the PEAP, shapeagendas. BMUs appear to be a success story, both interms of decentralization and in terms of communityempowerment. They reflect the positive aspects ofintegrating environmental concerns into the PEAPsand demonstrate how NGO involvement, particularlythat of the Uganda Fisheries and Fish ConservationAssociation, has been able to mobilize in relation toPEAP priorities. These institutional arrangementsdemonstrate the importance of grass-roots participa-tion, ownership, and responsibility in the implement-ation process. The BMUs should be replicated assuccessful examples of implementing sustainableenvironment and poverty reduction projects at thelocal level.

In Uganda, the most secure form of governmentfunding comes from the Poverty Action Fund (PAF)that, once allocated, cannot be reallocated to otherpriorities. PAF funding is earmarked for povertyreduction and targets rural feeder roads, agriculturalextension, rural water and sanitation, and primaryhealth care (PEAP, 2001: 155). The ENRS has notbeen particularly successful in securing PAF funding.Despite the concerted involvement of civil societyactors, government agencies, and development part-ners, only 0.64 percent of all ENRS estimated fundscome from the PAF and this is specifically allocatedfor expenditure on wetlands and their preservation.

Implementation in Honduras has been hampered bydiffering interpretations of what PRSP policy means.This has resulted in an impasse where PRSP recom-mendations for new legislation have stalled in the faceof civil society opposition. There are, nonetheless,examples of well functioning sector commissionsthat have managed to make some progress in main-streaming and implementing environment andpoverty issues. In 2003, a national Water Platformwas established to promote integrated water resourcemanagement in Honduras—the coordinated andequitable management and development of water,land, and related resources in order to maximizesocio-economic well-being and to retain sustainableecosystems. The Water Platform has played an impor-tant role in reviving discussion of the proposed WaterLaw and has managed to avoid succumbing to thepolarization that typically affects debate related toenvironmental issues in Honduras. As a well-balancedand well-functioning commission, its permanentworking basis should be assured.

22


As mentioned above, strong sectors have tended tocontinue “business as usual” and ministries concernedwith agriculture, health, or forestry, for example, havenot fully engaged in environment and poverty debates.They have participated in the respective PRSPs, oftenwith more success than the weaker environmentalministries, and have been influenced by these environ-mental ministries to include, albeit tangentially totheir main focus, some environment and povertyconsiderations. In the four countries examined, themost successful approach to mainstreaming environ-ment and poverty issues has been to formalize theinvolvement of environmental stakeholders in a sepa-rate sector or commission. This has had the advantage,in both Uganda and Honduras, of putting environ-ment and poverty issues on the PRSP agenda. It hasalso had downstream effects and has led other govern-ment departments and sectors to recognize that, atthe very least, they should be aware of these issues.

One means of mainstreaming environmental issueswithin sectoral activities and focusing on implemen-tation concerns the use of the sector-wide approachas an organizing financial tool. Ghana, Uganda, andHonduras have all used the SWAp to assist with themainstreaming of environment and poverty linkagesinto the PRSPs.8 These SWAps are, however, usedin remarkably different ways and have significantramifications for environmental issues. Uganda andHonduras are unusual in that they have both hadSWAps specifically linked to environmental sectors

and ministries. In Uganda the ENRS needs to developa SWAp and a Sector Investment Plan (SIP) as ameans of securing government financial assistance.This involves setting a single poverty-focused vision,grounded in clear policy objectives, shared strategicgoals and a jointly implemented expenditure programalong with a detailed expenditure plan. The ENRShas experienced difficulties in developing these finan-cial instruments. The SWAp has been delayed becauseof decisions about the ENRS composition, problemsof leadership, and “committee overload”; the SIPbecause certain institutional budgetary implicationsmay be detrimental to the ENRS. Currently, most ofthe sector’s funding is in the form of donor supportfor specific projects. Once developed, the SIP willbe synthesised into the MFPED’s three-year budgetplan, or Medium-term Expenditure Framework, andthe ENRS will then be subject to “basket funding” andto an integrated ceiling, which is controlled by theMinistry.9 At present, however, the relatively smallproportion of government funding is seen by manyenvironmental actors as evidence of the government’slack of commitment to environmental issues and themove toward government-controlled funding is viewedwith suspicion. As the ENRS increasingly movestoward project support in terms of basket funding,many small projects that are independently funded bydonors will close and weak sectors, or sub-sectors, arelikely to suffer. Ultimately, the SWAp is intended toenable the ENRS to approach donors for substantialsums of money and it will, in conjunction with the

23

Section Eight: Sectoral implementation activitieswith integrated environmental concerns

8. This broad planning framework sets out the common sector vision and shared priorities to planning. (Vietnam has adopted amore partial version of this approach.) Underlying this approach is the idea that the use of the state’s financial systems allows fora shift from external donor decision-making to domestic accountability (although donors still retain the power to limit or stopbudget support funding). Budget support is further justified as it avoids the creation of parallel donor structures which tend toundermine state capacity. Archarya, de Lima and Moore (2004) argue that donors’ decisions to pool their resources and supportone area of activity or one particular sector forms the defining feature of SWAps. Nonetheless, they point out that the costs ofimplementing SWAps have undermined their potential and have offset actual returns as the process of creating a SWAp can takeconsiderable time.

9. The underlying intention is that, for growth to be pro-poor, public expenditure should also be pro-poor. Basket funding allowsthe government to “focus money properly using the PEAP targets”, as opposed to simply continue “business as usual”.

SIP, orient the ENRS within the government’s broaderaim of decreasing poverty. Although this may indeedbe the case, “weaker” sectors, such as the ENRS, whichrely on donor funding for specific project funding,face the risk of decreased funding during this transi-tion and no guarantee that funding will increase afterthe transition.

In Ghana, the SWAp is used as a means of “toppingup” government funding for a sector. Environmentalissues are not given a very high profile in the GPRSand are not prioritized in the closed budget meetingswhere funding is closely aligned to the GPRS. Indirect contrast to the Ugandan model, the GhanaianSWAp could be used to bring environmental issuesto the fore and to reduce reliance on governmentfunding, although this has not yet happened. Throughcompleting a SWAp, Ghana’s ministries, department,and agencies can generate additional income for theirsector and for projects which are not identified in theGPRS and, therefore, not funded by the Ministry ofFinance budget allocations. Ministers draw attentionto a particular project by developing a sectoral strate-gic plan that is presented to select donors with alignedinterests. This enables donors to recommend addi-tional allocations to a certain ministry to allow for asector-wide approach which will benefit from addi-tional funding and which is outside the GPRS ambit.This approach provides a way to overcome the problemof government spending priorities (on issues of healthor infrastructure) and the government’s low priori-tization of environmental issues.

In Honduras, it appears that SWAps have resulted inthe closing up of spaces for participation and in cen-tralizing policy-making within the inner core. Aninitial justification for the establishment of sectorcommissions (Mesas Sectoriales) was the strengtheningdiscussions between government, civil society, anddonors. Ironically, “strengthening coordination withinternational cooperation agencies and civil society”

was also the rationale for reducing the number ofsector commissions from 14 to 6. The move towardSWAps allows the Honduran government to securefinancial resources for its interests which lie more ininfrastructure development than in environment andpoverty concerns. It is too early to say what the effectof Honduras’ transition to a sector-wide approachwill be, but early indications point to the closing upof spaces for participation and decreasing importanceof environmental issues.

This variation across countries suggests that, asfinancial instruments which provide a frameworkfor government planning and guide donor support,SWAps are not neutral. With regard to environmentalmanagement and poverty reduction, they have thepotential to generate either positive or negativeconsequences. On the positive side, SWAps can beused to align government and donor spending andto facilitate the mainstreaming of environment andpoverty linkages across different sectors. SWAps can,therefore, provide a means of nurturing spendingsectoral ministries and encouraging sector-wideintegration of poverty and environmental issues. Itcan also assist the development of core plans to inte-grate environment and poverty reduction concerns,rather than the support of isolated projects. However,as illustrated, SWAps can also be used as a means ofclosing down possibilities. This is often the case giventhe limitations that weaker environmental ministriesexperience. As such, it is necessary for donors to notethat supporting basket funding and SWAps haveimplications which may, or may not, advance environ-ment and poverty linkages in PRSPs and in futureimplementation. The move away from specific projectsupport may also prove detrimental to the environ-mental NGOs and CSOs that have participated inthese country PRSPs and which have been instru-mental in making sure that environment and povertylinkages appear, and remain, on the political agenda.

24


environment as a capital resource for development.This has involved assessing the financial contributionthat natural resources make to poverty reductionand producing statistics to place a monetary valueon environment and poverty linkages. Although thisapproach was fed into the 2000 and 2004 PEAPs,the production of economic indicators is a newdevelopment, with ENRS stakeholders currently innegotiation with the Ugandan Bureau of Statisticsabout how to develop appropriate statistics.

25

Uganda, Ghana and Vietnam have, in the process ofproducing a PRSP, focused on numeric indicators asa means of quantifying environmental conditions andassessing how poor people are affected. In Vietnam,an emphasis on using numeric indicators to documentforest cover, housing in slums, clean water, and wastewater ignored other issues closely linked to povertyreduction such as improved management of soils,watersheds, and coastal zones. There remains a needfor improved monitoring of environment and povertyindicators in Vietnam. In Ghana, significant emphasishas been placed on quantifying the area of degradedand, as a sign of improvement, of rehabilitated forestland for the GPRS matrices. This process has beencriticized by environmental actors who were largelyexcluded from the PRSP process and who argue thatenvironmental quantification does not recognize thequality of environmental resources and, hence, itscontribution to poverty reduction. They point out,for example, that Ghana’s natural forests offer a widerange of resources to poor people, but rehabilitatedmining plantations, while also a forested landscape,have far less usable resources. Uganda has, however,taken this process of quantification further than theother three countries and has sought to focus on the

Section Nine: To what extent has an environmentalcomponent been integrated in the monitoring

system underway for the PRSP?

A child sells fruit and dried fish in Kalungu, Uganda. The countryis focusing on the environment as a capital resource for development,and has assessed the financial contribution that natural resourcesmake to poverty reduction.


Civil society stakeholders and other participants are“invited” into various “spaces” from which they attemptto influence government policy. The responsibilityof producing the PRSP falls, inevitably, to a govern-ment task force or ministry. Civil society actors may

be deeply committed to these issues, but they do nothave the responsibility to see the project through.When excluded from certain processes, or when theirsubmissions are not taken seriously, there is little theycan do to alter the situation. There are no formalarrangements governing participation. In some coun-tries, civil society actors can try to lobby members ofparliament but, in the end, they have no formalsystems of recourse that could force governmentpolicy-makers and planners to engage seriously withthem. The limits of civil society participation, NGOinvolvement, and stakeholder contributions are ulti-mately defined by governments which are “obliged”to demonstrate country ownership, participation, andpartnerships with civil society and international donorsin order to receive donor funding and, in particular,Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative support.

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Section Ten: PRSP lessons and recommendations

A polling station in La Ceiba, Honduras, set up for voters in the 1997 presidential elections. Legislators facilitate a linkbetween poor voters and high levels of policy-making, and their capacity to articulate the interests of their electorate inenvironment-poverty agendas must be developed.

© CIDA/Brian Atkinson

LESSON

The nature of PRSP participation isgenerally not one of equal responsibility

RECOMMENDATION

Strengthen the role of parliaments inrelation to PRSPs

1

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Environmental priorities in the PRSPs do notautomatically translate into programs for addressingenvironmental issues. Instead, although environmentalissues and actors receive attention in PRSPs wherethey may be identified as a “priority”, they are excludedfrom other processes such as budgetary decision-making. When it comes to implementation, environ-mental planning issues tend to suffer when evaluatedagainst other development “priorities”. Foreign invest-ment, extractive industries, and industrialization arefrequently seen as more important, at least in the shortterm, than environmental considerations. Similarly,government expenditure is generally directed towardmore pressing concerns, leaving the implementationof environmental issues to specific donor-supportedprojects. For this reason, the decision of donors tosupport basket funding may, in the long term, under-mine efforts at environmental regeneration. Onemeans of addressing this is to enhance responsibilitybetween governments and civil society. In conjunctionwith Recommendation 1, this calls for exploring waysof developing responsibility between governments andcivil society, moving from a partnership of participa-tion to one of accountability.

Consequently, the manner in which NGOs and civilsociety interact with government should be restructuredto enhance government accountability (to showwhat happens to PRSP submissions) and to createopportunities for non-state actors to participate inassessing budget priorities. As demonstrated in thecase of Uganda’s BMUs, one means of doing this isto encourage increased decentralization of naturalresources in conjunction with formalized communityresponsibility for the management of natural resourcesand formalized access to the benefits accrued.

Because legislators facilitate a link between poorvoters in their constituencies and the high levels ofpolicy-making in government, it is important thattheir capacity to articulate their electorates’ interestsin environment and poverty agendas be developed.In Ghana, traditional leaders expressed dissatisfactionwith parliamentarians’ role in the GPRS. As theythemselves are barred from participating in politicsand cannot attend parliamentary sessions, the onlyway to exercise political power is through membersof parliament. However, these members of parliamenthave not mobilized around the GPRS or aroundenvironment and poverty linkages. In Uganda, thereare demands that the PEAP should be tabled inparliament for endorsement.

Therefore, opportunities for effective representationshould be explored, possibly through increased legis-lation which may assist members of parliament tochallenge unfair deprivations. Because of the infra-structural limitations experienced by parliaments,strengthening their role in the PRSP process willinvolve institutional and financial support, in additionto finding ways of increasing parliamentarians’ aware-ness and knowledge of environment and povertylinkages.

LESSON

PRSP prioritization of environmentalissues does not prevent exclusions atother stages of government policyprocess

RECOMMENDATION

Explore ways of moving from civilsociety “participation” to civil societypartnerships with government

2

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Mainstreaming environmental issues throughencouraging participatory mechanisms for decision-making has created some possibilities for increasedparticipation in government policy-making. This isa significant advance in all four countries, which hasfacilitated more effective partnerships between envi-ronmental ministries or agencies and the centralizedministry responsible for producing the PRSP. PRSPshave also created new possibilities for environmentalissues to be seriously considered by policy–makers,with the Environmental Protection Agency in Ghana,Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment inHonduras, and the ENRS in Uganda benefiting.Despite creating new possibilities, these participatorymechanisms for decision-making are still far fromperfect. In most instances donor support is requiredto ensure that environmental issues receive continuedattention once the PRSP consultation and draftingprocesses are complete.

In addition, participatory mechanisms have creatednew opportunities for spending ministries, whichhave been able to draw on donors’ assistance andspecialist technical knowledge in aligning sector plansto PRSP priorities. This facilitates better access togovernment financial allocations, assists in ministries’strategic planning, and may be reinforced by the useof SWAps. However, it also means that, althoughPRSPs have had downstream effects alerting spendingministries to the importance of environment andpoverty linkages, these ministries tend to continueimplementing development plans in much the samefashion as before the production of PRSPs. Participa-tion and SWAps, combined with donor support forspending ministries may thus exonerate these minis-tries from addressing environmental concerns in theirpoverty reduction plans and may lead instead to atoken reference to environmental issues.

Environmental ministries tend to lack strong insti-tutional links to which organizations such as theagricultural or forestry ministries have access. Donor’sfinancial and institutional support of governmentenvironmental ministries should, therefore, be viewedas long-term projects which extend not only to thePRSP participation phase, but also before and afterformal participation. In providing environmentalministries with strong financial and technical support,donors can strengthen these ministries in relation toother ministries, and reinforce their ability to informPRSP policy processes.

Mainstreaming environmental issues into povertyreduction will also benefit from encouraging spendingministries to develop strategies deliberately aimed atusing the environment to reduce poverty. It is, there-fore, necessary to explore ways in which environmentalministries can develop better institutional links withspending ministries. It is also vital to examine howthese various ministries are using SWAps to facilitatetheir planning and integration of their plans intoPRSPs. Further knowledge of, and better connectionswith, these spending ministries will assist in changingthese ministries’ perspective on environment and

LESSON

Participatory mechanisms create(limited) opportunities for weakgovernment ministries, but exoneratespending ministries from environmentand poverty issues and responsibilities

RECOMMENDATION AExplore ways in which donors canenhance environmental ministries’ rolein PRSPs

RECOMMENDATION BExplore ways of establishing strongerlinks with spending ministries in orderto encourage cross-communicationon environmental links to povertyreduction

3

Mainstreaming environment and poverty linkages hasto be accompanied by the regulation of resource man-agement. In all these countries, there are doubts aboutgovernment institutions’ capacities and resources tomonitor and implement environmental regulation andto stop degradation. Governments’ abilities to monitor

29


environmental regulations are constrained by theirbureaucratic environments, lack of capacity, and theneed to facilitate economic growth. This means thatgovernments often find themselves in a position inwhich they, in effect, have to monitor themselves. This,coupled with corruption, political bias, and the dis-tribution of environmental resources to secure politicalsupport, suggests that governments are not, generally,in the best position to monitor environmental pro-cesses. Generally, it is only in isolated incidents thatcivil society and media have been able to force govern-ments to address the environmental consequences offoreign investment or of widespread corruption. How-ever, experience from Vietnam shows that the media,although excluded from the PRSP process, can mobi-lize to generate widespread awareness of these issuesand to hold the government accountable.

As civil society and rural communities are generallyaware of these processes but are not highly influential,the media provides an avenue for alerting governmentsof the need to address environmental degradation andcorruption. Providing opportunities for journalists toinvestigate environmental abuses, to compare experi-ences across countries, and to publicise their findingsin both domestic and international contexts, is a meansof addressing this problem.

poverty issues and facilitate the development of cross-sectoral links. This, in turn, will assist environmentalministries to plan development in relation to otherministries’ activities and limit the potential for contra-dictory development. Greater knowledge of SWApsand of spending ministries development plans willalso assist in finding ways to integrate environmentand poverty linkages into local-level or district plans.

Institutions with trained government staff play a leading role in implementing and monitoring environmentalregulations in Ghana. Increasing the capacities and resources of such organizations is key for pro-poor development.

© CIDA/Pierre St-Jacques

LESSON

Government capacity to monitorenvironmental regulation is questionable

RECOMMENDATION

Enhance media opportunities tomonitor environmental regulation

4

In addition to mainstreaming environmental issuesinto PRSPs, the interpretations of these environmentalnarratives should be scrutinized to reveal whoseperspectives are included and whose are excluded.Has a narrow technical view of environment been usedor does the PRSP broaden environmental problemsto include political issues of ownership, control, andaccess? Although PRSPs are the synthesis of viewsand recommendations, generally they do not includealternative narratives about environmental problems.As a result: (a) insufficient attention is paid to in-equity as a cause of poverty and of environmentaldegradation while technical solutions and regulationare overemphasized; (b) this emphasis on sector-based technical solutions reduces the possibility ofadopting an integrated approach to environmentalmanagement and poverty reduction; and (c) conten-tious issues relating to property rights, usufructuaryrights, and governance are generally ignored, whilenon-contentious environment-development narrativesare included (e.g. such as a desire to modernizeagriculture). Opening up PRSPs to deliberate overrights, ownership, and control suggests that PRSPsaddress political and economic questions about envi-ronmental resources. A revised focus should examinethe following questions: who owns or controlsresources? who benefits from the use of theseresources? what are the power relations between theowners and the users of environmental resources? what

legal and institutional arrangements shape the useand control of environmental resources? who defineswhat environmental issues are seen to be problematic?what alternative narratives exist which question main-stream versions of environmental problems? and, whodetermines the solutions to “environmental problems”?

Such an exercise would explore different definitionsof environmental problems and hence arrive at differ-ent solutions, seeking to mediate between variousdifferent sets of vested interest—between extractiveindustries, people who live on the land, traditionalleaders, the government, and so on—and exploringways of working together to mutually benefit fromand protect natural resources. Such an approach wouldrequire an up-front examination of who currentlybenefits from environmental resources and suggeststhat, ultimately, new types of participation may haveto be considered. These may include forms of parti-cipation that legally enshrine citizens’ opportunities toengage in PRSPs and to raise their concerns, coupledwith formalised governments’ responsibilities toaddress these concerns.

Although it is not possible to widen the PRSP scopeto include all environment and poverty narratives, theencouragement of debate over different understandingsof environmental problems and solutions enables theformal airing of alternative narratives. Enhancedexploration of different and, possibly, opposed environ-mental narratives should facilitate the inclusion ofother, more politically nuanced, narratives and environ-mental solutions into PRSPs. This will requirebroader-based forms of civil society participationthan have been included in PRSP processes to date.A recommendation is thus to open up opportunitiesfor participation to a greater variety of stakeholdergroups, including the grass-roots groups forwardingalternative perspectives. This, in turn, will requireexploration of alternative hosting arrangements (inlocalities, or by CSOs) that enable such groups tospeak openly about their concerns, as well as mecha-nisms to ensure that they are fed into higher levelsof debate and drafting.

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LESSON

It is crucial to examine which environ-mental narratives are mainstreamed forfuture implementation

RECOMMENDATION

Explore alternative narratives andencourage debate over how environ-mental problems and solutions areframed

5

local municipalities and centralized ministries. Incontrast, the Ugandan BMUs show that successfulimplementation may be possible by mainstreamingenvironmental considerations into regional and districtdevelopment plans, developing opportunities forapproaches which crosscut sectors, and enhancinglocal community participation coupled with legalaccess to and control over resources. If, ultimately,the purpose of mainstreaming of environment andpoverty linkages and the sustained implementationof PRSP policy is to improve conditions for poorpeople at the local level and, in so doing, to feedinto national processes of growth and development,then a focus on decentralization and local-levelinvolvement is critical.

It is therefore vital to assess country-specific, localprojects which address environment and povertylinkages over an extended time frame and in moredetail in order to examine how environmental issuesare being mainstreamed into local projects, whatconstraints exist, and under what conditions imple-mentation may be sustainable and successful. Indica-tions from this research suggest that communityinvolvement, and access to and responsibility overresources may be crucial components of successfuldecentralization. Such local-level approaches and asustained focus on decentralization (including thedevolution of authority to local authorities andcommunities) must be pursued more widely acrossmore sectors, although appropriate adaptations tocontext will be necessary.

31


Decentralization of environmental resources and theimportance of addressing environment and povertylinkages at the local level may prove to be a crucialcomponent for addressing the above recommenda-tions. It is also an important means of mainstreamingenvironment into PRSP policy documents and forfacilitating the implementation of environment andpoverty projects. In this regard, decentralization notonly facilitates greater involvement of local govern-ment authorities, it also has potential to increase ruralpeople’s involvement in PRSP policy and implementa-tion. Environmental NGOs, civil society represent-atives, traditional leaders, local authorities, and ruralorganizations in Honduras, Vietnam, Ghana, andUganda are all advocating decentralization as a meansof enhancing environment and poverty linkages andreducing rural poverty. Although decentralization isaddressed in many PRSPs (through the regionalizationof sector commissions, through NGO activities, andoften through government plans to decentralize),PRSPs seldom spell out what is intended by decen-tralization, local authorities are not generally includedin the production of PRSP policy, and implementationis not always accompanied by the devolution ofauthority and control over resources. As demonstratedin the case of Honduras, a focus on decentralizationin the PRSP, the lack of explanation about what thismay be, and complications with the implementationprocess becomes a potential source of conflict between

LESSON

Decentralization offers good possibil-ities for enhancing environment andpoverty linkages

RECOMMENDATION

Assess current environment andpoverty projects at the local level whilepursuing further opportunities forcrosscutting, local-level approaches

6

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