Multilevel assessment of a large-scale programme for poverty alleviation and wetland conservation: lessons from South Africa

Abstract

The implementation of large-scale programmes for environment and development presents two main challenges: the tensions between both goals and the disconnect across policy levels. To contribute to overcoming these challenges, we assess a national multi-partnership programme for poverty alleviation and wetland restoration in South Africa: Working for Wetlands. We analyse this innovative polycentric programme at the macro and micro levels. At the national level, we assess the policy development and implementation model. At the local level, we analyse its impact on livelihoods and on opinions about development and the environment at a specific location. We use data from in-depth interviews across scales, household surveys (n = 47) and focus group discussions. The strengths of this programme can inform more effective design of further large-scale environment and development policies. However, critical issues originated at the national scale are likely to hinder the permanence of improvements at the micro level.

Keywords:

• environmental policy
• wetland restoration
• livelihoods
• perspectives
• multi-scale policy evaluation
• development

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Kate van Niekerk and Thamsanqa Ledula for the help provided in the field, and to Adam Kessler, John Dini, and David Lindley for very valuable comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

The underlying data and R code for analysis for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2017.1319344 of the ReShare service of the UK Data Archive.

Notes

1. This is a programme funded by the state, based on the principle of reinvesting collected taxes into projects for social benefit that address problems that may not otherwise be solved by the market. It is not, a priori, a market mechanism such as payments for ecosystem services.

2. During the implementation of a project, implementers submit monthly Project Progress Reports and provincial coordinators produce Inspection Reports about the progress and working conditions. Implementers may have more than one project and they gather all the Project Progress Reports into a Cluster Report every two months, which is conditional for payment (interviewee, p.c.). In addition, yearly or at the end of a project, an external auditor makes a Regularity Audit with a check-list provided by SANBI. There is also an internal code of practice (Basic Management Practices).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Basque Department of Research, the NeWater project (6th EU framework programme), and St. Cross College, University of Oxford.