Gazetted Forests Participatory Management Project — Household PES Contracts for Reforestation (Burkina Faso)

Burkina Faso's Gazetted Forests Participatory Management Project targeted restoration of approximately 284,000 hectares across 12 gazetted forests, funded with $11.5-12.5 million from the Climate Investment Funds' Forest Investment Program (FIP) and implemented by the African Development Bank together with Burkina Faso's Forestry Administration. It benefited an estimated 5,400 direct households (2,700 women) and around 850,000 people indirectly.

To test and implement household-level payment-for-environmental-services (PES) contracts that incentivise tree-planting and survival while addressing the food-insecurity risks associated with unpaid or delayed reforestation labour, particularly during the agricultural lean season.

In August 2017, researchers from Tilburg University and the World Bank fielded a trial of two PES contract models among programme households: a linear per-tree-surviving payment of $0.62 per tree, and a threshold contract paying $62-238 per five-person group depending on the tier of tree survival achieved.

Timing cash payments during the lean season reduced household food insecurity by 35% and severe food insecurity by 60%, with no measurable displacement of labour from farming. Results were published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (Adjognon, van Soest & Guthoff, 2021).

Lean-season timed PES payments can materially improve household food security among reforestation participants without drawing labour away from farming activities, suggesting payment timing design is as important as payment amount or structure for PES programmes targeting poor rural households.