Payment-for-Ecosystem-Services (PES) has been promoted as an innovative approach to environmental governance capable of simultaneously advancing conservation and sustainable development objectives. While studies commonly assess the ecological and economic performance of PES schemes, less attention has been given to their organizational and administrative effectiveness. This study examines these governance dimensions of one of Latin America’s most prominent PES initiatives—the Water Producer Program (WPP) in Brazil. Drawing on a meta-synthesis of 125 publications, the analysis investigates how regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional forces shaped WPP implementation. Guided by neo-institutional theory and institutional bricolage, findings show that WPP governance operated through hybrid and adaptive institutional arrangements developed in response to administrative constraints, land tenure ambiguities, and uneven organizational capacity. These exploratory findings highlight a need for expanded social science inquiry into the administrative dimensions of PES schemes to aid initiatives like the WPP in achieving their objectives in the future.
Thomas G. Safford (Thu,) studied this question.