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Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is currently facing two major infectious disease outbreaks: Covid-19 and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). We highlight large differences in the socioeconomic impact of these two outbreaks. The data come from a phone survey that we conducted in May 2020 with 456 households and 144 small firms from a megacity and a rural commune in the province of Nord Kivu. While 3,000 EVD cases and 2,000 EVD deaths were confirmed since August 2018, self-reported impacts of EVD on revenues, access to food and behaviour were limited. In contrast, only 43 Covid-19 cases were reported as of May 30th but respondents reported sizable effects on livelihoods, especially in the large urban hub, and in part driven by substantial job losses. Our results show that different infectious disease outbreaks can have very different effects, largely unrelated to case numbers of the disease. Moderately virulent but highly transmissible viruses such as Covid-19 can trigger a steep economic downturn, especially in areas with high economic interconnectedness, reflecting both national and international policies to contain the pandemic. Highlights: • Eastern DRC is currently facing outbreaks of Covid-19 and Ebola Virus Disease. • We highlight large differences in the socio-economic impact of these outbreaks. • Covid-19 has a much higher impact on the economy and (food) security. • This is due to Covid-19’s higher transmissibility and related containment measures. • The socio-economic impact of Covid-19 is largely unrelated to case numbers. ispartof: IOB Working Paper 2020.03 pages:1-25 status: published

This paper aims to clarify two distinct but complementary questions on economic and legal additionality in the payments for environmental services (PES) debate based on examples from the literature and direct observations made in Madagascar and Mexico. For the economic dimension of additionality, we explain two 'regimes of justification', efficiency on the one hand and social equity on the other, and discuss how analysts position themselves with regard to both regimes. For the legal dimension, we review and analyse specific cases in which PES are implemented in addition to existing environmental regulations. We propose a renewed framework of analysis to distinguish 'compensation' and 'reward' in PES by crossing the opportunity cost dimension and the legal constraint vis-à-vis the environment. We show how difficult it is to fully maintain the objective of efficiency when PES are implemented simultaneously across different combinations of opportunity costs and regulation constraints. We propose policy options to address the contradiction between incentive and coercive instruments. These options are land sparing, social targeting and chronological combinations. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Un article publié dans Land Use Policy début 2016 arrive à la conclusion a priori étonnante que la déforestation serait, au Congo, plus élevée dans les concessions forestières avec des plans d'aménagement que dans celles qui n'en ont pas. L'analyse d'évaluation d'impact qui a conduit ces chercheurs à un tel résultat se base sur un appariement de parcelles sélectionnées aléatoirement dans des concessions avec et sans plans d'aménagement. Ces chercheurs indiquent que le réseau de routes forestières plus développé dans les concessions aménagées serait un des facteurs explicatifs. L'autre facteur serait le développement local lié aux cahiers des charges des plans d'aménagement, lequel conduirait à une augmentation de la population dans ces concessions et à une déforestation accrue. Notre groupe d'une vingtaine de chercheur s connaissant bien la problématique de l'aménagement forestier en Afrique centrale s'est penché à son tour sur cette question et a analysé la déforestation au niveau des concessions sur le même intervalle de temps. Nos résultats montrent, cette fois, que la déforestation est moins importante dans les concessions avec un plan d'aménagement que dans les autres. Et si l'on compare à production égale la déforestation dans des concessions avec et sans plan d'aménagement, il apparaît que les UFA aménagées sont environ deux fois plus " efficaces ", c'est-à-dire qu'on observe deux fois moins de perte de couvert forestier par mètre-cube produit. Nous en concluons qu'il est nécessaire d'analyser précisément la dynamique des différents facteurs de déforestation, et éviter d'imputer mécaniquement à l'aménagement forestier un rôle excessif dans l'évolution dans un sens ou dans l'autre du taux de déboisement. Enfin, toute évaluation doit rappeler que les effets de l'aménagement forestier doivent être mesurés sur le long terme : l'objectif de l'aménagement est de permettre une mise en valeur forestière durable, en conservant l'essentiel du capital productif pour éviter, autant que possible, la conversion à d'autres usages après les cycles de coupe initiaux.

Madagascar's notoriously high level of biodiversity is currently threaten by deforestation. Protected Areas (hereafter “PAs”) remain until now the central instrument to protect it whilst little is known about their environmental effectiveness in the country. With a matching approach in a quasi-natural experiment setting, we demonstrate for the entire island's rainforest that PAs' additionality has been limited from 2001 to 2012. PAs have made it possible for deforestation to be stabilized in a trend and has restricted the upsurge of deforestation resulting from the country's late political instability. Nonetheless, post-matching analyzes reveal that PAs have only contained some of the causes of deforestation. Effectively stopping the latter will require further ambitious policies to trigger the necessary agricultural transition for the country.

Madagascar représente un hot spot pour la biodiversité mondiale, le plus brulant selon Myers (2000). Avec l'inscription à l'agenda politique de la préservation des Services Environnementaux (SE) et dans le contexte de la REDD+, les forêts de l'île sont également vues comme de potentiel espaces importants de captation et de stockage de carbone. Depuis une vingtaine d'années, les instruments économiques s'imposent dans le champ académique et présentent pour les praticiens des solutions permettant de réinstaurer une gestion durable des ressources naturelles renouvelables. L'un d'entre eux génère beaucoup d'espoir : les Paiements pour les Services Environnementaux (PSE). Dans ce travail, je propose d'étudier la place que pourrait prendre des mécanismes PSE dans le mix de politiques publiques afin d'endiguer la déforestation dans le Corridor Ankeniheny-Zahamena ; un mix dominé par un autre instrument : le statut juridique d'Aire Protégée (AP). La politique menée sera analysée sous le prisme efficacité-efficience-équité. En enrichissant la grille d'analyse standard par la mobilisation de la littérature du Common Pool Ressource (CPR) Management, je montrerai que l'intégration de PSE en complément du statut d'AP est possible et pertinent, au sein d'une politique plus générale de développement rural.

A sufficient level of collective action between community members is often presented as a strong pre-requisite to sustainably governing local common property resources(CPR). What if in some contexts instead, strong collective action led to short-term depletion of CPR instead of their sustainable use? This paper brings to light causal evidence on the environmental impact of establishing community-managed forests in Madagascar and highlights the complexities underlying collective action in their sustainable management. I compile fine-scale deforestation data over 15 years, use a unique spatial census of locally managed CPR and mobilize firsthand field data from four case studies to show that transferring management rights to local communities has failed to decrease deforestation. Instead, the policy has led to an increase in deforestation in some areas, often when collective action was strong, not when it was weak. This is what I call the possible "dark side" of collective action. Commons, Collective Action, Impact Evaluation, Experimental Economics, Forests, Madagascar

Protected areas (PAs) remain the primary conservation instrument of Madagascar’s unique but threatened biodiversity. We combine matching and panel regressions in a quasi-natural experiment setting to analyze PAs’ environmental effectiveness annually between 2001 and 2012 and study two channels that moderate the impact: initial poverty rates and local variations in law enforcement. Our findings show that PAs have stabilized deforestation around a positive trend without having halted it. Their overall environmental impact is however limited: PAs created before the 2000 have helped to slow down deforestation by approximately 20%, meaning that 80% of forests are still cleared even though they are protected. As for new PA created from the mid-2000s, the early impact is statistically not significant. As a result, the total welfare impact of protection is currently uncertain. We show that PAs have been effective for municipalities where overall law enforcement was the lowest: PAs have helped to limit what we call opportunistic deforestation. Meanwhile, PAs have been poorly effective when poverty rates were high: when necessity is the driver of deforestation, PAs are not sufficient to slow down deforestation. As a consequence, effectively stopping deforestation in Madagascar will require ambitious policies to trigger the necessary agricultural transition for the country.