Pamela Jagger, Ph.D. - US grants

This project is focused on developing research to evaluate the medium to long-term social and environmental impacts of a major forest sector governance reform implemented in Uganda in 2003. In addition to estimating social and environmental impacts, the project will examine the role of both formal and informal political institutions in determining social and environmental outcomes. The 2003 reform, which changed the governance of 85 percent of Uganda's forests, involved the creation of new organizations and institutions following divergent models of devolution: democratic decentralization to local government; and devolution to a for-profit parastatal. Specifically the project is focused on the following three questions:
1) Has the reform achieved its stated objectives of forest-based poverty reduction and environmental sustainability?;
2) What are the determinants of synergies and trade-offs with respect to the joint outcomes of poverty reduction and environmental sustainability?; and,
3) How do formal and informal political institutions mediate governance reform outcomes?
The proposed research builds on high quality baseline and early outcome data to understand household-level welfare impacts of two models of devolution relative to a case where forest management in Uganda has remained centralized. Remote sensing data are used to estimate changes in the rate of deforestation before and after the reform took place, and in study sites under different governance regimes. To successfully develop the proposed research three major activities will take place. First, the baseline socioeconomic data require pre-processing to match villages in intervention sites (i.e., villages in areas affected by the reform); and control sites (i.e., villages in areas that remain under centralized forest management). Second, quantitative models that integrate socioeconomic and spatial data will be developed with collaborators. Finally, qualitative data on formal and informal political institutions from an evaluation of early outcomes undertaken in 2007 will be analyzed to provide solid grounding for core hypotheses related to the causal role of political institutions in determining social and environmental outcomes.
Intellectual merit: This research focuses on one of the most mature forest sector governance reforms in sub-Saharan Africa. The ability to analyze long-term impacts using high quality data on political institutions, social welfare and forest cover change is entirely novel and provides a unique contribution to the literature on natural resource governance reforms. This study is also unique in that it gives equal attention to changes in welfare and forest cover change; most studies of natural resource governance reform focus on either socioeconomic OR biophysical outcomes. A primary objective is to understand observed outcomes in the context of the governance and institutional arrangements that mediate forest and land use decisions. The combination of longitudinal socioeconomic data, detailed multi-scale data on institutions (i.e., rules, incentives, constraints, heterogeneous actors), and spatial data over an extended time frame provide a unique opportunity to understand how governance reforms mature over time.
Broader impacts: The project will provide important information to policy makers in Uganda on the effectiveness of forest sector decentralization. Uganda is at a critical juncture as it reaches the 10-year anniversary of the forest sector reform. Early evaluation research and anecdotal evidence suggests that the reform has not achieved the desired outcomes. As other nations in the region (e.g., Kenya and Rwanda) embark upon governance reforms in their natural resource sectors, understanding the role of institutional choice and the factors that strengthen or mitigate desired policy outcomes for local resource users is of critical importance. Further, empirical analysis of the welfare and sustainability outcomes associated with decentralization is critical for informing the design and implementation of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) projects and policies. There is an emerging debate about the appropriate level of governance for achieving carbon emission reductions, while doing no harm to the local populations that rely on forests. Very few studies provide rigorous and long-term empirical perspectives on the implications of decentralized regimes.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Globally over 3 billion people rely on biomass as their million deaths annually, more than the number of deaths from malaria and tuberculosis. This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award is focused on developing an integrated research program that addresses the determinants of fuel and technology use and their associated health and socioeconomic outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While the household-level determinants of fuel use and cooking technologies are relatively well understood, few studies model a comprehensive set of both supply and demand side determinants of fuel and technology use. The project tests the central hypothesis that meso and macro level variables including land use and land cover change, population dynamics, and variable rates of infrastructure and market development influence fuel and technology options, and in turn observed respiratory health, nutrition, and socioeconomic outcomes. Specific aims include: (1) developing and testing a multi-level spatial model of the determinants of fuel and technology use in Malawi; (2) developing and testing a comprehensive and appropriate set of measures and field methods for understanding respiratory and nutritional outcomes associated with fuel and technology use; and (3) estimating a dynamic multi-level spatial model that integrates the determinants of fuel and technology use with health and socioeconomic outcomes. To achieve the objectives and test hypotheses, the study proposes to combine theory and methods from the fields of epidemiology, nutrition, environmental health, political economy, demography, welfare and development economics, and uses cutting edge methods including spatial epidemiology and dynamic multi-level modeling. The findings from this study will have a wide impact on targeting of public programs aimed at reducing the negative health impacts of exposure to biomass smoke, specifically, acute respiratory infection, chronic respiratory illness, low birth weight, and under nutrition throughout SSA. The training component of this award will enable me to: (a) obtain training in epidemiology and nutrition; (b) review and field test appropriate measures for collecting exposure, non-volatile biomarker, and anthropometric data; and (c) build skills in advanced spatial, multi-level and panel regression modeling. I will combine these skills with my existing expertise in the analysis of natural resource management policies and welfare outcomes to become a leading researcher at the intersection of population, environment, and health.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Globally over 3 billion people rely on biomass as their million deaths annually, more than the number of deaths from malaria and tuberculosis. This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award is focused on developing an integrated research program that addresses the determinants of fuel and technology use and their associated health and socioeconomic outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While the household-level determinants of fuel use and cooking technologies are relatively well understood, few studies model a comprehensive set of both supply and demand side determinants of fuel and technology use. The project tests the central hypothesis that meso and macro level variables including land use and land cover change, population dynamics, and variable rates of infrastructure and market development influence fuel and technology options, and in turn observed respiratory health, nutrition, and socioeconomic outcomes. Specific aims include: (1) developing and testing a multi-level spatial model of the determinants of fuel and technology use in Malawi; (2) developing and testing a comprehensive and appropriate set of measures and field methods for understanding respiratory and nutritional outcomes associated with fuel and technology use; and (3) estimating a dynamic multi-level spatial model that integrates the determinants of fuel and technology use with health and socioeconomic outcomes. To achieve the objectives and test hypotheses, the study proposes to combine theory and methods from the fields of epidemiology, nutrition, environmental health, political economy, demography, welfare and development economics, and uses cutting edge methods including spatial epidemiology and dynamic multi-level modeling. The findings from this study will have a wide impact on targeting of public programs aimed at reducing the negative health impacts of exposure to biomass smoke, specifically, acute respiratory infection, chronic respiratory illness, low birth weight, and under nutrition throughout SSA. The training component of this award will enable me to: (a) obtain training in epidemiology and nutrition; (b) review and field test appropriate measures for collecting exposure, non-volatile biomarker, and anthropometric data; and (c) build skills in advanced spatial, multi-level and panel regression modeling. I will combine these skills with my existing expertise in the analysis of natural resource management policies and welfare outcomes to become a leading researcher at the intersection of population, environment, and health. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding the full range of determinants underlying fuel and cooking technology use and their relationship to health outcomes is a necessary step toward developing policies that effectively reduce morbidity and mortality from exposure to smoke from the combustion of biomass fuels and its proximate effects. I will apply my training in Malawi, where rapid land use change, population growth, and slow infrastructure development are hypothesized to change fuel and technology options over time. Women and children, who do the majority of biomass fuel collection and cooking, are the populations of interest.

Perverse economic effects can create strong negative feedbacks between natural and human systems. For example, short-term, fine-scale, net economic benefits from uses of natural resources that compromise the future supply of related resources can reduce long-term, large-scale economic benefits. Numerous governmental programs have effectively tested the hypothesis that such negative feedbacks can be eliminated with economic counter-incentives, but few if any of these programs have been suitable for and subjected to the rigorous scientific analysis needed to determine the true results of the test and help generalize results. This project will analyze what is probably the largest program within the most widely used type of counter-incentive, the Sloping Lands Conversion Program of China, a program of payment for environmental services. Under this program, the government pays farmers to convert cropland on sloping or otherwise ecologically sensitive areas to forest or grassland. Researchers will survey farmers and local governmental agencies in three provinces to determine how the program was implemented and affected the decisions of farmers, detect changes in land cover using satellite imagery, and model carbon storage and water availability based on field measurements.

Results of this project will be of great value to policy makers and land use managers in the U.S., where similar programs have been tried and are envisioned in the context of ecological restoration and protection. The research also will help inform the global discourse on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This project will strengthen scientific collaboration in both social and natural science between the U.S. and China, and train numerous undergraduate and graduate students.

Wood fuels are used as an energy source for cooking, heating, and small-scale industrial activities by a large number of people in the developing world. As populations increase, the effects of burning wood or other biomass on the vitality of forests, air quality, and human health or well-being can be severe. This project investigates the dynamic connections among these areas of concern and evaluates strategies that can alleviate problems in the future. It examines how people use forest resources for energy and whether these habits are altered by the introduction of more efficient cooking stoves and other new technologies. The effects on forest condition will be examined through direct measurements and modeling. Measurements of air quality will determine how pollution levels will be affected. The field sites are in Malawi and the results will be scaled up to determine the possible changes in the larger regions of eastern and southern Africa. This research has the potential to improve forest condition and air quality in areas at risk of severely declining environmental conditions, and improve the quality of life for large numbers of people who depend upon these resources.

The overall goal of this project is to investigate linkages between the use of biomass energy in Southern Africa and its coupled impacts on human, terrestrial, and atmospheric systems. Quantitative and qualitative field observations of both human and natural systems, scenario development, and modeling of both the atmospheric and land-use changes will further examine these linkages and quantify the magnitude of human influence. The project will explore how natural and human system resilience can be enhanced at local, national and regional scales assessing the impact of a scalable household energy intervention. This study couples both terrestrial and atmospheric systems with the human system, providing a new dimension on human-environment relationships. It also adds new insights into the relative effects of a wide array of biomass energy uses on land-use land-cover changes, air quality, and human well-being. The project also evaluates a scalable household energy intervention targeted at the poorest and most vulnerable households, and models its influence on terrestrial and atmospheric systems in future scenarios.

Principal Investigator: Pamela Jagger (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Co-PIs: Michael Emch, Barbara Entwisle (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Andrew Grieshop, Stephen Kelly (North Carolina State University)

Access to modern energy services are limited in the developing world. Energy poverty, or lack of access to modern energy services, has serious implications for the well-being of individuals and communities, the environment, and impacts economic growth. This project seeks to understand the impact of strategies to improve access to modern energy in Southern Africa, a region with low energy access. The researchers will evaluate the environmental and human impacts of approaches that rely on promotion of new technologies and/or incentives for behavior change to mitigate energy poverty. They will investigate the social, demographic, and spatial dimensions of energy poverty by analyzing geographic variables, and consider the optimal scale of interventions for maximizing environmental benefits and human well-being. The researchers will use social ecological systems frameworks and theories of population and environment dynamics to study energy poverty. They will foster and sustain a network of academic, practitioner, and policy communities to fill critical gaps in the strategies used to mitigate energy poverty. This project will train over 70 postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate researchers from disciplines as diverse as anthropology and engineering.


Sub-Saharan Africa is an epicenter of energy poverty, defined as the lack of access to electricity and reliance on biomass fuels. In Southern Africa, the absolute number of energy poor is projected to increase through 2050. Energy poverty has implications for climate, environmental sustainability, human health, and well-being, with negative impacts realized at individual and collective-scales, and in local, regional, and global contexts. The researchers' goal is to build an interdisciplinary evidence base and network for transformative change. They will center their research and educational program around two themes: evaluating technology and incentives; and population and environment dynamics. Using rigorous impact evaluation research designs, they will measure the air quality, land use, and human welfare impacts of a representative set of novel and scalable technology and behavioral interventions designed to mitigate energy poverty. The researchers will use life-cycle analysis to evaluate temporal trade-offs and synergies between environmental and social outcomes. In the second theme, they will investigate the social, demographic, and spatial dimensions of energy poverty by analyzing geographic variables as determinants of energy poverty, and consider the question of optimal scale of implementation of interventions for maximizing environmental benefits and human well-being. Using their comparative research design, they will explore the relationship between energy poverty and urbanization and migration, and shocks such as droughts and political instability. The research is innovative for two reasons. First, it uses rigorous interdisciplinary impact evaluation as the anchor. The team will study what works, why it works, and over what spatial and temporal scale. Second, the study of energy poverty is highly fragmented across a large number of disciplines with very little cross-fertilization or engagement with interdisciplinary frameworks (e.g., complex socio-ecological systems and population and environment dynamics). The researchers will use these theoretical lenses to shed new light on this problem, and guide a coherent body of empirical research in an understudied region.

This project is co-funded by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.