Pro-poor Payment for Environmental Services: Some Considerations
Resource information
Date of publication
March 2008
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
recoftc:29
PES is a new concept gaining momentum in the Asia-Pacific region. But what are the enabling conditions for employing PES schemes, and how can they be made pro-poor? Payment for Environmental Services (PES) sets up systems where beneficiaries of environmental services reward the providers of such services with payments or other non-financial goods (market access, land security, public services, infrastructure, capacity building). However, the Asia-Pacific region has relatively little experience with PES, and risks and challenges remain towards realizing pro-poor PES schemes.
This introductory brief considers several key questions:
- Why consider PES?
- Under what conditions is PES likely to work?
- What is the potential for a pro-poor PES scheme?
- What are the challenges and potential risk for a pro-poor PES?
- Potential roles for governments?
