1. [ Slide Title ]
7th Biennial GEF International
Waters Conference
Bridgetown, Barbados
Targeted Workshops
Economic Valuation as a Tool to
Bridge the Science-Policy Gap
Session II: Reporting back from breakout session
Edi Interwies, InterSus

2. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
1. What are the main uses of economic valuation of ecosystem
services for decision-making?
• Awareness (e.g. transboundary impacts) & communication
• Supporting improved decision making:
• Recognizing different ES service values (esp. for certain
ones, e.g. future generations)
• Show choices of management, incl. trade-offs
• Influence policy & regulatory frameworks
• Influence allocation of financial resources/investments by
internalizing externalities into CBA
• Short and long-term planning for sustainability – leverage
resources
• Integrating TEV into decision making
• Information for mitigation and litigation/compensation
• Better governance (consensus, conflict resolution)

3. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
1. main uses:
• Fears:
• “scary”
• broader perspective needed – sometimes other issues more
important
• Limited & expensive: narrow it down to specific context
• “should not be the sole driving force for future (GEF)
projects
OVERALL:
• For fixing the problems: should be one method/tool out of
many
• Socio-economic assessments needed – valuation only part of
it
• Chose the scale of valuation depending on the scale of
question you re addressing

4. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
2. What methods seem most appropriate/usable?
•
•
Be clear on what you what to answer first!
“Quick” and rough for overall scale, more detailed for
specific issue
• Very case specific – depends on available resources, data and
political environment
• Ensure that human wellbeing is adequately covered
• Issues of replicability - comparability
• Difficult to quantify, e.g. religious/aestetic: qualitative
elements, too
 Method selection should be “purpose driven, objective
specific”: what stakeholder/sector, policy, scale, timeline relevant

5. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
3. What
are the main difficulties in increasing the use of economic
valuation of ES for decision making?
•
Lack of:
• Capacity/resources (data gaps, costly, limited
long-term/robust data) – in the projects but also
in managing institutions
• Awareness/understanding (inability to
communicate results in a non-technical manner)
& appreciation (of ES required by others) &
visualisation
• Integration (e.g. inter-agency dialogue)

6. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
3. Main difficulties in increasing the use:
•
Lack of:
• Political will (Gov will not always chose the
most appropriate policy intervention) – vested
interests (competing world views – bias through
strong lobby groups)
• Ownership (by involvement of decision makers
– key stakeholders); not demand driven
• Trust in the approach (human centered) &
results („we don t believe the answers“)
• Historical: GEF does not focus on socio-economic
components…

7. KEY OUTCOMES FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS
4. and 5. How to overcome them? GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
•
Identify possible policy decisions – target evaluation to answering specific
question; explore PPP
•
Reasonable simplification of EV to minimize costs
•
Improve data availability/accessability of information for EV (“do it quicker and
easier”)
•
Increasing buy-in for EV:
•
Conduct overall LME/RB ES-valuation studies (“quick and dirty”) for initial
awareness raising
•
Success stories (case studies – evidence of advocacy of approach)
•
Improve decision maker and stakeholder dialogue & their incorporation in
the EV-process (also inter-agency)
•
Show short/long term benefits
•
Use language decision makers understand
•
Inclusion in GEF and national planning processes (use their own methods –
challenge back)

8. 4&5: GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
•
Capacity building - improving capacity (at early stage: GEF-projects, but also
users/authorities) – create a critical mass of expertise – professionalization –
community of practice
•
GEF: Develop Guidance/guidelines/practical manual: show EV-need & success
stories (being flexible, not all aspects to be suited to all projects), lessons learned
Inclusion of EV in TDA –SAP framework & documents: NEEDS TO BE INTEGRAL
PART OF ALL STEPS!
•
Ecosystem diagnostic analysis (including valuation): for each member country
(communication issues, collecting information/data) undertake individual
evaluation and then bring together in TDA or SAP – deliverable of PCU, then get
financing
•
Causal chain analysis (between TDA and SAP: assessment of options) to see
if/what kind of ES valuation is necessary – when identifying the problems (to see
what you need to focus on)
•
Include in TDA-SAP national action plans

9. 4&5: GEF-action points focus (TDA-SAP)
•
Include values of large ecosystem assets - add information on
economic impacts of options - use CBA (total economic costs) of
options - for strategic action development
• Pilot projects - Demonstration projects: Hot-spot and small
demonstration projects in SAP formulation (feedback loop: go back
from CS to TDA)
• Better links to indicators: Include socio-economic indicators (but
linked to data access and availability) & baseline/trends in GEF-SAP
results framework
Broad(er) approach: incorporate all relevant aspects of social, economic
data/analysis in TDA-SAP – incorporate into effective governance
(“addressing the problems should remain the focus of GEF-projects)”
[Fear: GEF assessors need to be pragmatic in terms of project design &
timing – „just too many hoops to jump through“]