Continuity and Inflexions of the program of payment for environmental services in Costa Rica: a learning process and stakeholders' balance of power perspective

program to be developed using the notion of PES. The PESP has been analyzed as a very promising innovating instrument for conservation purpose and has been considered a reference model for PES development. As such, many scholars analyzed the PESP and have discussed its efficiency. Nevertheless, the genesis and the evolution of the Program has been poorly documented from a learning process and stakeholders perspectives In this working paper, we propose to analyze the genesis and evolution the PESP interpreting the continuity and inflexions it has experimented related to stakeholders' learning process and evolution of their balance of power. We show that PES governance is a social construction where many stakeholders are interacting to orientate the objectives and the functioning of the PESP towards their interests and vision. We finally argue that PESP is not a mere market based instrument driven by a market coordination but an instrument driven by complex multi-stakeholder governance depending on the stakeholders' learning process and balance of power.