In 2018, under the USAID-funded Vietnam Forests and Deltas Project, Microsoft and Winrock began an exciting partnership. The goal: to harness data across environmental and social indicators to help the Government of Vietnam better understand the impact of its innovative Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) system.

PFES pays upstream forest owners to maintain healthy forests, a unique example of private-sector engagement that benefits downstream water users such as hydroelectric power plants and industrial water users. To monitor PFES, the Vietnam Forest Protection and Development Fund (VNFF) initially only collected data on the number of households receiving PFES payments, the dollar value of those payments and the hectares of forests under the system. As the PFES system developed, Winrock, USAID and VNFF wanted a more robust way to capture the true impact of this work on the ecosystems and livelihoods of those involved.

VNFF set out on a multipronged effort to improve their overall PFES monitoring and evaluation system. They reviewed what data they wanted to collect, how they wanted to collect it, and how they could ensure all users access to the information they needed. VNFF and its provincial partners identified 28 indicators that could help capture the impact of the system and allow decision-makers to see the results of PFES on forests and forest communities. For example, VNFF will now be able to analyze forest loss data to compare areas where forest owners receive PFES payments and areas where they do not and track how PFES funds are distributed — whether to community-level forest patrols, local infrastructure development or community initiatives such as women-led savings funds.

Of course, collecting and compiling all this information is a major undertaking and so when Microsoft reached out to the project to see how it could help, there was a clear answer! Microsoft provided financial support and access to leading local software developers, who worked with Winrock and VNFF to develop the database infrastructure and data management system to allow VNFF to process the information they needed. As the PFES system in Vietnam is globally unique, the database infrastructure and management needed to be specifically tailored for this use, and Microsoft was crucial for the development of this system.

“USAID/Vietnam has been looking for opportunities to work with Microsoft, and it’s great that PFES monitoring provided an opportunity for successful private sector engagement,” said former USAID/Vietnam Mission Director Michael Greene.

In partnership with Winrock, VNFF finalized and institutionalized the National PFES M&E Guidelines to establish consistent monitoring and evaluation processes and procedures across all 44 provinces that participate in PFES. Using the new guidelines, Winrock and VNFF trained national and provincial-level staff on their roles and responsibilities in the new system.

“Thanks to the M&E system developed by VFD, Son La province can quantify PFES results and evaluate the effectiveness of the PFES policy. The new guidelines are essential to help other provinces navigate and institute their own M&E systems,” says Mr. Phung Huu Thu, who heads Son La Provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund’s M&E Department.

As the Winrock-Microsoft partnership moves forward, VNFF will have nuanced data on the impacts of the $130 million annual payments that move through the PFES system. And this will make PFES stronger for all who use it.

On U.N.’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, February 11, Winrock salutes all the girls and women our projects educate and empower — as well as the female scientists on our staff, who use their talents to help societies thrive.

Last year I was selected to join the fourth cohort of Homeward Bound, a global leadership program that is choosing 100 women a year for 10 years to equip them with increased leadership capabilities, tools and a skillset to influence policy and decision-making that shapes our planet.

Homeward Bound drives home the point that the crisis of climate change is also a crisis of leadership, with decision-makers prioritizing immediate and small-scale profit over collaborative medium- and long-term benefits and with a shortsighted vision that fails to see sustainability as an opportunity for growth.

“Part of the attraction of this program is that it gives you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Antarctica for three weeks.” Photo: Blanca Bernal

Homeward Bound asks the question, what if more women in leadership roles can help abate both the leadership and climate change crisis? This thought is supported by three general facts that remain true around the world:

1. That women’s contributions as decision-makers, stakeholders and experts are often overlooked across professional fields because of socioeconomic barriers and biases, both conscious and unconscious. These barriers and biases result in a 30-percent ratio of women to men in positions of leadership and responsibility ;
2. That women are just as capable of leading as men are, and by removing barriers and giving women toolsets, support, equal promotion opportunities, and a growing professional network, they will also thrive in their professional fields;
3. That women’s leadership styles tend to have a legacy and long-term mindset that favors inclusive and collaborative approaches. Studies have shown that women prioritize environmental considerations in their purchasing and lifestyle choices more than men do. In fact, countries with high female parliamentary representation have been more prone to ratify environmental treaties and pass more environmental legislation than those dominated by men.

“Homeward Bound asks the question, what if more women in leadership roles can help abate both the leadership and climate change crisis?” Photo: Blanca Bernal

Environment is indeed a field that attracts women, and yet the principal investigators, senior professors, or program directors around me have rarely been women. One of the many consequences of losing women as one looks up the career ladder is the loss of valuable human talent and creative potential.

What would scientific progress look like if we had more women at higher levels, and if women currently advancing in science had more visibility and support? Visibility matters — and having fewer women than men in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) makes it harder to inspire girls to become scientists. The same is true in non-scientific fields. When women are not seen as progressing in their careers because of reasons unrelated to merit or performance, this discourages other women from making similar career choices and contributes to an erroneous perception of women’s performance ability. A program like Homeward Bound empowers women to help correct these deficiencies.

Part of the attraction of this program is that it gives you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Antarctica for three weeks with 99 astonishing women who are working every day to make this world a better place. And it gives you the chance to learn from faculty the caliber of Christiana Figueres (who led the Conference of the Party Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015 and also served on the Winrock Board), Fabian Dattner (founder of Homeward Bound) or Musimbi Kanyoro (president of the Global Fund for Women). If you were not hungry for a more sustainable and equal world before, you will be after experiencing both the company and the place during those three weeks.

Antarctica gives you an overview effect that must be similar to what astronauts feel when they look at the Earth from space — beautiful, powerful and fragile — and the capacity and drive of the women that join the program is uplifting evidence of how powerful untapped potential can be.

“Antarctica gives you an overview effect that must be similar to what astronauts feel when they look at the Earth from space — beautiful, powerful, and fragile.” Photo: Blanca Bernal

On February 2, 1971, representatives from a handful of countries gathered in the small Iranian city of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea. Their historic mandate — to sign the first modern agreement between governments to preserve natural resources — built upon a decade of negotiations by environmentalists concerned by the escalating loss of wetland habitat for migratory water birds.

February 2, 2020, marks the 49^th anniversary of the treaty known as the Ramsar Convention, which is celebrated each year as World Wetlands Day. Through the cooperation of 90 percent of the world’s governments, the treaty aims to prevent the loss of wetlands and conserve existing ecosystems. This is important because wetlands provide vital ecosystem services to humankind, from mitigating climate change and purifying water to providing food and resources for billions of people.

Winrock International is working to support the goals of World Wetlands Day in Indonesia, which as one of the most wetland-rich countries in the world is on the frontlines of the global battle to fight climate change and preserve the environment.

The Importance of Peatlands

In the last century, uncontrolled development has driven the disappearance of more than 70 percent of wetlands worldwide, and Indonesia is on a similar track. It is estimated that over half of the country’s rainforests have been cleared for development and the expansion of commodities such as oil palm, rubber and wood fiber for paper. Much of this deforestation has occurred on Indonesia peatland ecosystems that cover 15 million hectares – a staggering 32 percent of the world’s tropical peatland.  This peatland forest is home to some of the most iconic and endemic species on earth, including orangutans, Sumatran tigers, leopards and species of fish found nowhere else on earth.

A helicopter helps extinguish a fire at Kubu Raya district, in West Kalimantan province. Once rare, fires are now a yearly occurrence in Indonesia’s peatlands.

Peatlands are deep organic wetland ecosystems that function as vast stores of fresh water (on which local communities depend) as well as centuries-old carbon sinks that help regulate global climate. When peatlands are drained and cleared, the freshwater they store is lost and carbon dioxide is released into the air. No longer buoyed by water, the land surface dries out and sinks, increasing the risk of deadly floods and forest fires. An estimated 300,000 hectares of peatland rainforest is cleared annually in Indonesia, an area the size of Rhode Island. Once rare, fires are now a yearly occurrence in Indonesia’s peatlands. These fires release enormous greenhouse gas emissions and  blanket the landscape with smoke, costing between 0.5 and 1.9 percent of Indonesia’s GDP and causing numerous health problems.

Fighting Back

Indonesia is committed to reversing this trend and is making progress through such international commitments as its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement and the signing of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indonesia has also created Green Districts to bridge development and conservation, and, after particularly destructive fires in 2015, formed a new agency called the Peatland Restoration Agency, which is tasked with restoring two million hectares of peatland — the largest wetland restoration effort in the world.

Sustainable Development Holds the Key

Winrock International, in partnership with Packard Foundation, is supporting the development of the Green District in Siak, an administrative division on the east coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located across the Malacca Strait from Singapore. This Green District will help drive a transformational shift in jurisdictional peatland and forest management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve smallholder livelihoods and support sustainable land use planning.

Winrock is piloting new, wetland-tolerant cropping systems that can help communities transition to more sustainable peatland uses.

Winrock’s work in Indonesia has three components. First, we are working with the local government and civil society organizations to develop the policy framework of the jurisdictional Green District. Second, we are developing and piloting an innovative real-time peatland hydrological monitoring system that allows Siak to manage peatland hydrology to reduce risks of fire and peatland loss. Finally, we’re piloting new, wetland-tolerant cropping systems that can help communities that live and work in the peatland to transition to more sustainable peatland uses beyond drainage and deforestation. Together, these strategies hold the promise of a true win-win scenario.

Over the last four years Winrock along with local partners has established itself as a technical leader and key player in the development of this burgeoning Green District. We have done so by fostering trust and coordination across district and national government agencies, with local farmers and village leaders, and with private sector companies that all have a stake in Siak’s future. Siak is at the forefront of Green District development in Indonesia, and its continued success promises a roadmap for other districts to follow.

Since 2012, the USAID Vietnam Forests and Deltas program (VFD) has been helping the Government of Vietnam develop and operationalize a national Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) program that has already directed over USD $500 million to forest owners as financial compensation for maintaining forest cover. For example, Vietnam’s hydroelectric power plants now reward upstream forest owners whose trees keep soil in place, avoiding the sediment buildup that drives up operating costs.

Sơn La Dam in Vietnam. Hydroelectric power plants reward forest owners whose trees keep soil in place.

One focus of Winrock’s work is creating monitoring systems and procedures that capture the impact of the PFES program. While monitoring systems may not sound glamorous, they are crucial to answering an essential question — does PFES work? Recent studies indicate that payment for ecosystem services schemes do reduce deforestation. However, these studies are limited in scope. With PFES implemented throughout its 44 provinces, Vietnam has an incredible opportunity to understand if PFES is effective.

The challenge? Figuring out what data will help answer the question, and how to collect it. Currently, the Vietnam Forest Protection and Development Fund (VNFF) only collects three data points — the number of households receiving PFES payments, the dollar value of total payments made and how many hectares of forest PFES includes. While these are important from a process perspective, they give no information about PFES outcomes. The Vietnamese government believes that PFES payments both reduce deforestation and have a positive socioeconomic impact on households. To assess if that is true, VFD is working in three provinces — Son La, Thanh Hoa and Lam Dong — to articulate what PFES is trying to achieve, how to measure it, and how to track all the information. The result is a comprehensive list of expected results and indicators to help VNFF better understand its progress.

Staff trainings have helped explain the benefits of a strong monitoring system.

The process has been steady — initially, staff from VNFF and provincial forest funds were nervous that monitoring would be used in a punitive way. Winrock worked with staff to help them understand the benefits of a strong monitoring system and eventually turned anxiety into support from forest fund staff. After training, each participating province worked independently to identify what PFES is trying to achieve and indicators to measure it. Now, Winrock is addressing the next challenge — data accuracy — by creating automated tools to help provincial staff review, process and update large datasets.

These tools are making an enormous difference in the ability of provincial staff to handle complicated data. Ha Minh Tam, the vice director of the Thanh Hoa Forest Protection Department, told VFD “…It took a half day for one of my staff to prepare data for one village, our province has 300 villages, so it would take us 150 man-days to complete the task. Now with the new tools, it only takes a half day to prepare data for whole province.”

In fact, one staff member, Ngo Thi Trung Thanh from the Moc Chau district Forest Protection Department in Son La province, told VFD staff that she was so overwhelmed by the idea of processing all the data that she cried. “I thought it was impossible to complete huge data preparation in one month, much less one week. I was ready to tell my boss that I quit. So when I got your tool, I cried. It is amazing, it only took me few hours to complete everything.”

The next step? Using geographic information systems (GIS) technology to ensure that the forest maps demarcating forest areas are accurate. With Winrock’s assistance, VNFF and the provincial forest funds can look forward to a more rigorous system that demonstrates how PFES can contribute to improved forest conservation in Vietnam.

This article was originally published in USAID’s Climatelinks.

In Ghana, a changing climate is affecting the production of cocoa, one of the country’s major cash crops and its second leading foreign exchange earner. USAID and Winrock International worked together to produce ECO Game: Northern Ghana to provide communities with a better sense of  land use planning and ecosystem services. The purpose of the game is to show players that more sustainable land uses lead to better long-term outcomes. A follow-up, called ECO Game: Ghana Deforestation-Free Cocoa, is currently under development and scheduled for release in late 2019.

Once an indulgence reserved for Mayan rituals or European high society, chocolate has become a treat that millions of people around the world delight in every day. The basis of this enormous industry is the small Theobroma cacao tree, which produces pods along its trunk whose seeds are processed into chocolate. These trees dominate Ghana’s once heavily forested Western Region. The country supplies 20 percent of the world’s cocoa. The commodity forms the backbone of its economy, and is the primary livelihood of over 800,000 Ghanaians.

Yet cocoa yields in Ghana are declining, with already aging farms suffering from exposure to higher temperatures and drier conditions associated with climate change, as well as pests and diseases. Sustaining Ghana’s cocoa industry, and all those who rely on it, requires a landscape-scale approach to rehabilitate farms, protect natural forests to mitigate climate change and bolster resilience, and empower communities to invest in long-term solutions.

Cocoa farm in the western region of Ghana. Photo: Gabriel Sidman

Addressing Threats to Ghanaian Cocoa

USAID’s Supporting Deforestation-Free Cocoa in Ghana Activity is working to accomplish these objectives by combining the financial resources, political will, and public participation to reduce deforestation and promote reforestation by improving tenure security, rehabilitating old and diseased cocoa farms, and promoting participatory community land use planning.

While improving tenure security and the benefits of rehabilitating cocoa farms offer clear, direct benefits to participating communities, the role of natural forests in enhancing long-term mitigation of and resilience against climate change is a harder message to effectively convey. And given the tantalizing draw of gold mining, despite devastating environmental impacts, the imperative to bring to light the value of natural systems is even more critical.

USAID’s Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (AgNRM) project faced this dilemma in northern Ghana, where Winrock International worked to improve sustainable community land use planning. The project completed a technical study on economic benefits and ecosystem services associated with common land uses in the region, yet deep down, we knew that few would read it – not least the farmers in rural communities for whom the information was intended.

A staff member from USAID’s Agriculture and Natural Resource Program discusses impacts of land use changes with community members during Eco Game: Northern Ghana piloting. Photo: Alexandre Grais

Mobilizing a Community With Games

So why not translate results through a game? We learn best through experiences: making decisions, feeling impacts, and then linking cause and effect. Games simulate those experiences, making them a powerful, fun way to learn sometimes complex and interconnected concepts. Not surprisingly, many games have been created by the development community and educators around the world to explain concepts around water management, climate change, and sustainable development. When we first proposed the idea of a game about ecosystem services and land use planning to our local Ghanaian community mobilizer, Martin Yelibora, he was skeptical, arguing that the communities we were working with make decisions based on immediate economic needs or limitations, not on esoteric concepts like ecosystem health and resilience to climate change.

Nevertheless, Martin and his team provided invaluable support in developing the Eco Game: Northern Ghana, where players strategically select land uses to meet community needs and face natural disasters and economic or social chance events with negative or positive outcomes. Over the course of the game, players learn that selecting land uses that involve more sustainable soil, water, and other natural resource management lead to better long-term outcomes.

And soon enough, Martin was a champion of this approach. On a hot, dry day in Ghana, we huddled under a couple of shade trees while Martin introduced the game to more than 40 attentive community members. Their response was overwhelmingly positive, participating enthusiastically and discussing decisions. After the game, we were delighted to hear players have lively discussions about the impact land use choices had on food and energy production, water needs, and resilience.

We are now working to adapt the game approach through the ECO Game: Ghana Deforestation-Free Cocoa. In this game, players interactively explore challenges and balance the tradeoffs associated with rehabilitating cocoa farms and maintaining forest cover in a landscape where land is scarce, and the boom-or-bust draw of gold mining offers short-term gains. Simultaneously, players grapple with insecure land tenure, regional social and economic forces, and the realities of the climate crisis. We are in the final stages of development, and Martin is eager to roll it out in late 2019.

Click here for more information on the Eco Game.