1. The Poverty-Environment Nexus Study: Concepts and Approach
Claude Saint-Pierre and Bjorn Larsen

2. So what is the poverty and environment nexus?
Environmental resources and services
Worsening
Improving
Poverty
levels
Persisting
Decreasing

3. Asking the right questions about poverty and environment issues
Are the poor affected by environmental degradation?
Do the poor impact environmental resources?
Do the poor contribute to natural resource decrease ? degradation ? preservation ?
Do the poor have access to natural resources ?
Are the poor more affected by natural disasters?
Can natural resource preservation / rehabilitation contribute to poverty reduction ?

4. …continued
What are the major environmental health risks facing the poor?
To what extent are the poor benefiting from environmental services and programs/projects that reduce health risk?
What is the role of behavior and education?

5. Approach in the PEN study
Integration of national level analysis and field studies. Examples:
Combining household poverty data and field work in affected communities with village and district UXO data in Cambodia and Lao PDR
Identifying factors associated with lack of WSS using socio-economic household data combined with field surveys in two small towns
Using household health survey data to assess vulnerability of the poor to environmental health risks

6. Why two categories of issues
Why two categories of issues? 1 – Poverty and natural resource management 2 – Poverty and environmental health
Categories of green issues / brown issues / blue issues are more appropriate for technical analysis

7. Why two categories of issues
Why two categories of issues? 1 – Poverty and natural resource management 2 – Poverty and environmental health
These two categories are people-centered
They allow analysis of impacts

8. Why are Environmental health issues important for the poor?
The poor tend to have:
Higher risk of disease
Lack of water and sanitation
More frequent exposure to harmful smoke from solid fuels
Higher exposure to pollution from small and medium scale industry
Less access to medical services
Less financial resources to pay for quality health services
Less resources for ‘averting behavior’
Higher income losses from illness because they work in informal sector or are self-employed

9. Why are Natural resource management issues important for the poor?
The poor tend to:
Have livelihoods based on natural resources
Have fewer livelihood alternatives
Have infrastructure development needs (e.g. roads) that may impact natural resources
Live in areas where they may be in competition for natural resources with industry (forestry, mining, hydropower)
Live in areas with natural resources of high environmental value

10. Geographical analysis, an important tool of the PEN study

11. Geographical analysis: Main dimensions in the subregion
Upland and lowland
In all three countries
Regions within one country
E.g., in Vietnam, contrast between Northern regions and central regions
Urban and rural
With specific national features
Ethnic minority people
Often not visible in national data analysis …
… but critical element of geographical dimensions

12. Identifying stakeholders to understand poverty-environment linkages better
Changing the way we look at linkages between poverty and environment
Natural resource management
Environmental health

13. Identifying stakeholders to understand poverty-environment linkages
Many stakeholder categories have a role in natural resource management and poverty and/or environmental health and poverty

14. The time dimension is needed to prioritize issues
Today’s important issues may not be tomorrow’s
But “poverty trap” areas will face issues related to environment in the longer term

15. Issues of increasing importance
Urban development
Industrial and urban pollution
Agrochemicals
Involvement of private sector, for example in the forestry sector
International trade and environment

16. Issues of continuing importance
Persistent poverty traps in upland areas
Access to safe water and sanitation
Indoor air pollution from household cooking with fuel wood and other solid fuels
Flood and drought
UXO contamination
Need for more equitable access to environmental resources and services,
Need to support community capacity and participation

17. Issues of declining importance
Traditional shifting cultivation
Markets and information are now becoming more accessible to the poor