USAID has worked with Vietnam to implement and improve its innovative Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) system since its inception in 2011. PFES seeks to maintain and enhance the forest systems’ environmental services, such as carbon sequestration. Healthy forests sequester carbon when they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and store the carbon as biomass. PFES has successfully generated hundreds of millions of dollars allowing Vietnam to finance the conservation of approximately five million hectares of forests. In addition, the government of Vietnam (GVN) has reported that the PFES system is significantly helping to conserve forests and support rural livelihoods. However, the GVN has yet to effectively measure the system’s conservation and social benefits at the national level. On July 13, USAID’s Vietnam Forests and Deltas Program and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development led a workshop on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the PFES system. National and provincial PFES administrators joined NGOs and other experts to share experiences and discuss practical approaches to developing a uniform and rigorous M&E platform to track the system’s results.

So What? We cannot manage what we don’t measure. An effective and efficient M&E system is critical to measuring and communicating the PFES system’s benefits and understanding how the system may be strengthened over time.