Overview

IPA and J-PAL have partnered with Peru's Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA in Spanish) to establish an Embedded Evidence Lab focused on climate and the environment. The lab aims to integrate data and evidence into OEFA's decision-making processes in order to foster the development and evaluation of innovative interventions in environmental enforcement. 

Context

OEFA is responsible for maintaining the delicate balance between private investment and environmental protection across the country. However, OEFA faces significant challenges in designing and implementing effective environmental enforcement strategies and ensuring evidence-based decision-making in their operations. While a previous behavioral economics team (BE-OEFA) made initial strides in integrating behavioral sciences into policy, it struggled to maintain momentum and create lasting institutional change. As a result, OEFA sought support from IPA and J-PAL to establish a more robust and sustainable embedded lab within the Directorate of Environmental Enforcement Policies and Strategies (DPEF) to develop new environmental enforcement interventions and rigorously evaluate their impact.

Lab Approach

Currently, the lab includes staff from IPA working closely with OEFA personnel. The lab follows a structured five-stage learning cycle for nurturing promising ideas into proven interventions that can be operated at scale:
 

Stage 1 - Policy Challenge Mapping: OEFALab developed a Research and Learning agenda (RLA) through consultation with agency units to identify key challenges and opportunities for innovation.

Stage 2 - Solution Design and Implementation: To implement the RLA, the OEFA's Lab partners with national and international researchers to design “quick-win” innovations – low-cost, innovative interventions paired with administrative data to quickly generate evidence that supports the agency's public policy decision-making.

Stage 3 - Rigorous Evaluation: These evaluations are then implemented in partnership with OEFA, ensuring that each study is tailored to address the specific policy challenge at hand. OEFA's Lab typically employs experimental methods, dividing participants into two comparable groups and applying the solution to only the treatment group. If changes are observed in the treatment group but not in the control group, the changes can be credibly attributed to the program. 

Stage 4 - Evidence Generation: Once evaluation results are available, the OEFA's Lab team will employ various strategies to disseminate the findings, such as policy briefs, innovation concept notes, evaluation reports, and scaling plans that summarize the results in order to directly inform decision-making and guide future actions.

Stage 5 - Scaling Pathway: If the evaluation results are positive, the Lab will recommend scaling the intervention and provide the necessary support to ensure its successful implementation. However, if the results fall short of technical expectations, the insights gained will be integrated into the next innovation cycle, refining the approach for future iterations.
Ensuring the sustainability of this learning cycle and evidence-based decision-making relies on effectively institutionalizing the Lab within OEFA. This includes working to secure the allocation of financial resources for teams and projects, establishing a legal framework for Lab operations, and obtaining political support. IPA, in collaboration with J-PAL, has collaborated with the Directorate of Environmental Supervision in Infrastructure and Services (DSIS), the Sub-directorate of Policies and Regulatory Improvement (SMER), and the Sub-directorate of Monitoring Environmental Enforcement Entities (SEFA) to ensure that the relevant teams and stakeholders are involved in this process.

Lab Achievements

Since the Lab kickoff in March 2024, the team has already achieved initial progress in driving innovation in environmental monitoring and enforcement, collaborating with OEFA to develop and test three key innovations in environmental monitoring:

1. Satellite Supervision of Dumpsites: The Directorate of Environmental Supervision in Infrastructure and Services (DSIS) identified that municipalities throughout Peru often operate dumpsites with insufficient adoption of responsible and sustainable waste management practices. OEFA's Lab developed an intervention to send letters with satellite images to municipal officials, in order to reinforce the sense of ongoing oversight and motivate municipalities to adopt sustainable and compliant waste management practices. This intervention is currently in Stage 2 (implementation phase) with results expected in the first half of 2025.

2. Promoting “Reporta Residuos” app: The Sub-directorate of Monitoring Environmental Enforcement Entities (SEFA) identified garbage accumulation on public streets, as a major environmental pollution problem that significantly affects public health. To tackle this, SEFA introduced the “Reporta Residuos” app, which allows citizens to report garbage accumulation directly to municipalities. However, two key challenges emerged: a low number of app users and a low response rate from municipalities on reported cases. To address these issues, the Lab has developed two targeted interventions, currently in Stage 2 (design phase), with implementation expected between late 2024 and early 2025:

• Educational Campaign: The OEFA's Lab will launch a campaign for high school students to raise awareness about the importance of street cleanliness and encourage the use of the “Reporta Residuos” app. The objective is to increase the number of garbage collection reports submitted by citizens and grow the app's user base.
• WhatsApp Messaging Campaign: This intervention seeks to deploy a WhatsApp messaging campaign targeting municipal authorities responsible for waste management. The goal is to increase the visibility of citizen reports and improve the speed and frequency of garbage collection in response to those reports.

3. Promoting the “Emergency Environmental Risk Estimator” app: The Sub-directorate of Policies and Regulatory Improvement (SMER) developed the Emergency Environmental Risk Estimator (ERA) app, which helps users assess the environmental risk of emergencies and determine if a report is necessary. However, user engagement has been lower than expected. To address this, the Lab is working on implementing a WhatsApp chatbot to inform potential users about the app’s utility in assessing emergency risks and reducing unnecessary notifications. This intervention aims to encourage more users to create accounts and increase app adoption rates among companies supervised by OEFA. This initiative is in Stage 2 (design phase), with implementation expected to begin in early 2025.

These early successes demonstrate the Lab's potential to transform how OEFA approaches environmental protection, making it more data-driven and evidence-based while ensuring interventions are both effective and scalable.