Countries seeking debt relief and concessional loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must prepare a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)—a document detailing the nation’s philosophy and plan for achieving substantive cuts in national poverty. PRSPs have also emerged as a principal policy instrument and process for directing aid from developed countries and international agencies to help developing countries implement the Millennium Development Goals.

Unfortunately, like the Millennium Development Goals, the PRSP process suffers from critical shortcomings when it comes to acknowledging the central role of ecosystems in the lives of the poor, and their potential to reduce rural poverty. Among the current crop of PRSPs, the strategies of most countries fall short of a full commitment to better ecosystem management that benefits the poor. Maximizing environmental income opportunities for the poor requires that PRSPs and other formal poverty-reduction plans recognize the importance of their environmental assets, and embody an ecosystem-based perspective to ensure long-term sustainability of rural livelihoods.