Getting the most for the money - how public   environmental expenditure reviews can help

Markandya, Anil ; Hamilton, Kirk ;; Sanchez-Triana, Ernesto

Getting the most for the money - how public environmental expenditure reviews can help

Markandya, Anil ; Hamilton, Kirk ; | Sanchez-Triana, Ernesto

Public environmental expenditure reviews (PEERs) offer a way of systematically assessing the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of public environmental spending. A PEER may be a stand-alone analysis, or it may be part of a wider public expenditure review or country environmental analysis (CEA). The data and insights it yields can be valuable for the design of government budgets, policy reforms, and investment projects. The starting point for a PEER is an understanding of a government's appropriate role in managing natural resources and regulating environmental quality in a particular country. A low level of public environmental spending is not in itself an argument for more expenditure; the question is whether government expenditures are effective in meeting environmental priorities. Managing natural resources and controlling pollution emissions present very different challenges for governments. Some problems, such as conservation, entail short-term expenditures but yield benefits only in the longer term. These characteristics must be taken into account when assessing public expenditures. This note introduces the basic elements of PEERS and presents good practice examples as illustrations.

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