Global environmental governance should be participatory: Five problems of scale

Gunderson, Ryan

doi:10.1177/0268580918792786

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…These conventions address the obligations of states within a Westphalian system of nation-states. However, the literature on water governance emphasizes that to govern waters for the benefits of all stakeholders, governance arrangements need to be multiscale and must include the participation of local communities (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2010;Gupta et al, 2013;Braun and Könninger, 2018;Gunderson, 2018). Public participation aims to improve sustainability outcomes by drawing a wide range of stakeholders into the policy process (Leck and Simon, 2013;McKendry, 2016).…”

Section: Shared River Basins As Plural Legal Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusive governance of hydropower on shared rivers? Toward an international legal geography of the Lower Mekong basin

Hensengerth

2024

Front. Clim.

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Hydropower is now the largest source of renewable energy worldwide. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that current hydropower capacity will need to double by 2050 in order to transition to net zero and to arrest the rise of global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Much of the currently built and planned dams are on rivers shared between two or more countries. This raises the risk of increased inter-state conflicts. However, to exploit hydropower peacefully, the impact on local communities must also be considered. This foregrounds the need to build inclusive institutions that can mediate the different interests, norms, and values held by communities located across different scales. The article examines the role of international river basin organizations to manage this legal pluralism in shared river basins. In many basins globally, such as the Lower Mekong, the Columbia, the Zambezi, or the Senegal, international river basin organizations are tasked with the development of shared water resources. To understand to what extent river basin organizations can mediate the legal pluralism in a shared basin, the article develops an international legal geography approach to the governance of transboundary waters in an attempt to uncover marginalization and disempowerment in the process of law-making. It therefore expands the analytical scope of legal geography to the study of transnational spaces, in this case complex ecosystems for which there are no fixed jurisdictional boundaries. It then applies this approach to the case study of the Lower Mekong basin. Findings indicate that the Mekong River Commission, despite attempts to include project-affected people in decision-making, largely operates within a Westphalian framework of sovereignty to the detriment of more inclusive forms of governance. Project affected communities are largely unable to exert influence and are relegated to participation in alternative forums. These forums, or counter publics as Yong called them, are disconnected from official processes. While they give rise to marginalized voices and enable the creation of inclusive and participatory spaces, the exclusionary official decision-making processes continue to produce significant tension and conflict potential as hydropower is championed globally as a clean, climate friendly form of energy. As hydropower is set to double by 2050, inclusive participatory institutions in basins worldwide must be built to navigate complex stakeholder interests and to benefit those who are otherwise likely to lose out in net zero transitions. These findings are relevant for other shared basins, particularly across Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America where hydropower is booming. An international approach to legal geography can foreground these hidden and marginalized voices and help identify ways to build inclusive institutions for the governance of shared resources.

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Section: Shared River Basins As Plural Legal Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusive governance of hydropower on shared rivers? Toward an international legal geography of the Lower Mekong basin

Hensengerth

2024

Front. Clim.

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“…In framing inclusive environmental decision-making, this paper draws from concerns raised by Gunderson (2018) for assessing scale of participatory environmental governance and decision-making. These concerns relate to ve contextual indicators for a holistic environmental governance framework.…”

Section: Embedding Inclusive Environmental Decision-making In Partici...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Inclusive environmental decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from the Ogoni remediation project, Niger Delta, Nigeria

Sam

Zibima

2023

Preprint

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Greater involvement of women is globally believed to enhance environmental management outcomes. However, despite being disproportionately affected by environmental degradation primarily caused by oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, women in the region are often excluded in environmental decision-making processes. Women involved in farming and fishing face increased vulnerability to contaminated land, food insecurity and conflicts driven by environmental degradation. Using a mixed approach, women, lawmakers, policymakers, regulators, civil society organizations, environmental management practitioners, and government agents responsible for environmental remediation were engaged through interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaires to examine women inclusion in environmental decision-making and governance in the Ogoni contaminated land remediation project in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The results indicate that lack of trust and confidence in drivers of environmental decision-making process could affect women participation and involvement in environmental management. Although cultural beliefs and practices impede women participation in the region, women participation in itself does not translate to inclusion in environmental decision-making due to limited capacity, confidence and trust in the process. Creating platforms for capacity building, developing gender policy, adapting appropriate communication strategy, initiating women networks and strengthening social cohesion could enhance women involvement in environmental decision-making in regions with similar cultural context to the Niger Delta region.

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“…Information acquisition is the basis for stakeholders to jointly address environmental matters [ 63 , 64 ]. Information transparency refers to information sharing among stakeholders [ 9 , 65 ]. For example, the government and citizens can ascertain the status of environmental pollution through environmental responsibility reports disclosed by private firms [ 66 ].…”

Section: Environmental Co-governance Framework and Process Of Bwm-mv Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stakeholder participation can improve the level and effectiveness of environmental governance [ 9 , 25 ]. Effective environmental governance actions ensure the effectiveness of environmental governance policies and mechanisms while also increasing the attention and participation of all stakeholders [ 22 , 73 ].…”

Section: Environmental Co-governance Framework and Process Of Bwm-mv Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These problems pose numerous risks to public health [ 8 ]. The environmental problems caused by urbanization and industrialization urgently require solutions [ 9 , 10 ]. Bennett and Satterfield [ 11 ] suggested that in many environmental protection initiatives, the main approach to solving environmental problems should be the establishment of a strong local environmental governance system, and Cheng and Li [ 12 ] discussed the impact of environmental governance policies on the industrial environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improvement Path for Resource-Constrained Cities Identified Using an Environmental Co-Governance Assessment Framework Based on BWM-mV Model

Wang

Huang

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Global warming and extreme weather have increased most people’s awareness of the problem of environmental destruction. In the domain of sustainable development, environmental governance has received considerable scholarly attention. However, protecting and improving the environment requires not only substantial capital investment but also cooperation among stakeholders. Therefore, based on the network structure of stakeholders, the best–worst method (BWM) and modified Vlsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje method were combined to form an environmental co-governance assessment framework that can be used to evaluate the effects of various policies and identify strategies for further improvement through data analysis (henceforth the BWM-mV model). This mechanism is not only useful for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental governance policies but also for generating suggestions to enhance these policies. Hence, the BWM-mV model is particularly suitable for local governments with limited resources in time, money, or labor. Pingxiang City Government is currently subject to such limitations and was therefore selected as the subject of an empirical case study. The results of this study revealed that the aspects (i.e., criteria) the Pingxiang City Government should urgently improve on pertain to a high-quality information communication platform (C13) and smooth joint decision-making by stakeholders (C24).

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Global environmental governance should be participatory: Five problems of scale

Cited by 14 publications

References 70 publications

Inclusive governance of hydropower on shared rivers? Toward an international legal geography of the Lower Mekong basin

Inclusive governance of hydropower on shared rivers? Toward an international legal geography of the Lower Mekong basin

Inclusive environmental decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa: Insights from the Ogoni remediation project, Niger Delta, Nigeria

Improvement Path for Resource-Constrained Cities Identified Using an Environmental Co-Governance Assessment Framework Based on BWM-mV Model

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