Making the economic case : a primer on the economic arguments for mainstreaming poverty-environment linkages into national development planning

This primer provides guidance on presenting evidence about the economic, development and poverty reduction benefits of the environment to public sector decision-makers, so as to justify and promote “environmental investment”. Section 1 provides guidance on how to frame the economic argument for environmental mainstreaming. Section 2 presents examples of the ways in which the environment contributes to pro-poor growth, and gives guidance about the kinds of data that can be presented as evidence. Section 3 summarises the data requirements for making the economic case for environmental investment. Section 4 provides advice on accessing information about the economy and environment. Section 5 outlines strategies for packaging and communicating evidence in a form that is credible and convincing. Section 6 presents a glossary and lists key references on the links between the environment and pro-poor economic growth. The primer provides a resource to help PEI country staff and counterparts to make the case for mainstreaming the environment into national and sectoral development processes, make sure they have the evidence to back this up, and identify a series of entry points to engage the attention of economic and development decision-makers and to enter into meaningful dialogue with them.