2015 Progress Report Award 50457 – Strategic Ecosystems and Biodiversity protected through the implementation of Economic Valuation methodologies, payment of environmental services and adoption of new technologies as of December 2015

Output 00062375 - Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), ended its substantive actions at the end of 2014. The above mentioned three projects will will be operationally and financially closed in the period January to April of 2016.

To develop the methodology in order to carry out economic valuations at the national level to more effectively capture the economic value of ecosystems in policy making in the region.

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  A key component of the popularization of the method is being able to place it in relation to other approaches. In particular, TSA needs to find its place in relation to standard cost benefit analysis and the TEEB approach. This was done with countries and within UNDP throughout the year.
  
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  Teaching the method: in 2015, a workshop/short course, was prepared in Spanish and English. The short course is intended to be part of a workshop in wish a prospective applicant actually takes the first steps in conducting a TSA with the close supervision of the instructor.
  
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  Technical support to studies in Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Uruguay. As part of the dissemination of the methodology outside the region, support was given to Ghana, Lebanon, South Africa and Viet Nam.
  
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  Summary of TSA studies: The analysis of four TSA in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador and the Republic of Georgia is being completed in order to produce short lessons-learned document that will further improve the TSA approach in the next generation of studies. The lessons learned paper will be completed in the first trimester of 2016.
  

The end of year balance will be transferred to the new Regional Climate Change Programme (Award 92646), which is also funded by Spain.

The end of year balance will be transferred to the new Regional Climate Change Programme (Award 92646), which is also funded by Spain.

Emphasis has been given in the UNDP’s 2014-17 Strategic Plan to measuring impacts on the generation of sustainable development and income opportunities for the most vulnerable populations. Likewise, the UNDP’s Regional Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean seeks to promote dialogue, foster analysis, and systematize and share best practices and knowledge in order to develop methodologies and instruments for addressing the many dimensions of poverty, accompanying the transition to the post-2015 agenda and sustainable development goals, fomenting the sustainable use and management of natural resources in order to generate income and reinforce livelihoods in the region, and promoting sustainable investment and solutions for ecosystems of shared regional importance such as the Amazon. The idea is to integrate capacity-building, knowledge management and south-south cooperation into this work.

In this context, project 00089820 was launched in 2014, in the framework of the Regional Programme to address the relationship between environmental management - in particular, the sustainable use of natural resources - and the reduction of poverty and inequities. The goal is to systematize and analyze experiences in the region (public policies, tools and methodologies, UNDP portfolio experiences, etc.) that promote this interaction with an eye to generating and sharing knowledge and fostering more sustainable development models. In 2015, the following actions were implemented:

Activity 4.1. Preparation of a study on the impacts on sustainable development of environmental portfolio projects and public policies fostering connections between poverty reduction and environmental management.

The study carried out a detailed analysis of the environment and energy portfolio of UNDP in LAC in order to systematize case studies and successful experiences that could contribute to generating sustainable development and help establish clearer connections between the environment and poverty reduction from the standpoint of income generation and support to livelihoods. The study also included a review of the region’s existing public policies for fostering ties between poverty reduction and sustainable management of natural resources Finally, as part of the study, a manual with a conceptual framework and specific indicators for strengthening livelihoods was prepared (see Annex 2 for the main conclusions of the study). Going forward, the UNDP GEF unit will incorporate the findings and proposed indicators in future programming.

In 2015 a Community of Practice in Sustainable Development was established for UNDP LAC, with more than 100 participants from UNDP Country Offices and the Regional Hub. The goal of the meeting was to formally establish this network of practitioners, achieve collective understanding of the future development agenda and its implications for UNDP’s work, present tools and methodologies for more comprehensive programming, and share experiences of the UNDP’s environmental and socioeconomic portfolio in the region in order to foment and strengthen inter-country knowledge networks. See Annex 3 for the Agenda of the meeting. A full report of the meeting can be found here: https://intranet.undp.org/country/rc/RSCLAC/SDCOP2015/Forms/AllItems.aspx. As a follow up to the meeting, the Sustainable Development and Resilience Cluster established a data base of existing expertise in the region in the areas of Poverty Reduction/MDGs/SDGs, Environment and Natural resource Management; Climate change and Energy, and Disaster Risk reduction. This data base served as a base for inviting candidates to apply to formal expert rosters, which will be established in 2016.

Cooperation with the Amazon SDSN (Sustainable Development Solutions Network), led by the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS) to help formulate a plan to provide a platform for sharing sustainable development solutions and experiences in the region. In 2014, the Moore Foundation granted USD 50,000.00 to UNDP to support the development phase of a program for the Amazon under the aegis of the SDSN-Amazon. During 2014 and 2015, key activities were undertaken, including consultations on ongoing Amazon-wide initiatives, stocktaking reports in the Amazon countries, and the layout for Program Concept, which will form the basis for a full programme formulation and subsequent resource mobilization for implementation.

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   Regional consultations on Amazon-wide initiatives: In Manaus, with the Academy of Sciences of Brazil and the Inter-American Network of Academy of Sciences (IANAS) and the Global Network of Science Academies; and in Lima, Peru a workshop was held as part of the 2014 COP 20 Lima Climate Change Conference, and involved the leadership of Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA). The key focus was to identify the participants’ ideal visions for their communities and determine the motivations and barriers involved in improving the lives of their indigenous groups
   
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   Stock taking reports in 8 Amazon countries and 5 country level consultations on the state of the Amazon, challenges and opportunities for sustainable development:
   
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   Synthesis document of the stocktaking reports (to be finalized in 2016)
   
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   Creation of a data base with SDG indicators for Amazon regions in 5 countries,
   
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   Drafting of an initial Program Concept and proposed governance structure.
   

UNDP has supported the initiative through its engagement in dialogues with government institutions, relationships with other partners, and support for the program formulation through its network of Country Offices in the 8 countries that share the Amazon basin. It is currently carrying out the final programme formulation. UNDP has accompanied the process providing technical oversight through the review of national reports and synthesis report, ensuring the inclusion of both environmental as well as poverty reduction perspectives.

The focus of the year was on support for the formulation of the second phase of the Project “CAMBio” in Central America, in collaboration with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), which could potentially become a comprehensive program addressing environmental, economic and social dimensions, providing loans for sustainable agriculture. Several technical workshops and discussions with donors were held, and as of the beginning of 2016, the project is about to be presented formally to the Swizz Cooperation’s (COSUDE/SDC). The result thus promises to be substantial, as donor funds are expected to be around US$ 4 million, whereas funds for green lending amount to USD 60 million, provided by CABEI.

Academic researchers often feel frustrated when decision makers do not seem excited by the opportunity to use the results of their elaborate economic valuation work, but they should not be surprised: What decision makers would most like to see are studies designed from the outset to serve as an integral part of a specific analysis tailored to assessing carefully defined policy or management interventions.

“…. More than 200 coastal economic valuation studies of the monetary value of marine ecosystem goods and services in the Caribbean currently exist. However, despite this wealth of valuation studies and estimates, it is not clear whether these efforts have had a meaningful impact on policy or decision making concerning the management and use of these valuable natural resources; to date, there has been no assessment to address this critical question….” (Kushner et al, 2012).

TSA Objective

Targeted Scenario Analysis (TSA)¹ is an innovative analytical approach, developed by UNDP that captures and presents the value of ecosystem services within decision making, to help make the business case for mainstreaming sustainable policy and investment choices. TSA can generate and present data related to the management of ecosystems in a way that is more relevant to the choices facing a public or private decision maker.

TSA compares different ecosystems management approaches at sector level to assess potential economic losses or gains in terms of sectoral output. The TSA approach is client and sector-focused (the targeted decision-maker of a selected sector with capacity to lead decisions of policy reform and investment). The product is TSA is a balanced time-bound presentation of economic and financial evidence, for the decision maker, that weighs up the pros and cons of continuing with business as usual (BAU) or following a sustainable development path in which ecosystems are more effectively managed. This alternate path is termed sustainable ecosystem management (SEM). This increases the likelihood that this data will be used to make policy and management decisions that result in effective and sustainable management of ecosystems and ecosystem services.

TSA is not about “selling” the idea of SEM. The focus is on identifying when, and under what circumstances, SEM is advantageous when compared with BAU. TSA is an inclusive alternative to traditional economic valuation techniques. It builds on and combines traditional cost benefit analysis (CBA) and economic valuation methods. TSA compares the implications of two contrasting management strategies on the basis of relevant criteria and socioeconomic indicators (both quantitative and qualitative) for a specific productive sector. For example: