Participating or Just Talking? Sustainable Development Councils and the Implementation of Agenda 21

Abstract

Sustainable Development Councils were among the few specific recommendations for institution building to come out of Rio in 1992. At their best the councils manifest Agenda 21's call for new participatory arrangements. At their worst they represent the frustrations and unmet challenges of the thirteen years since Rio. The article compares attempts to establish councils in three Caribbean states: Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia. The cases offer lessons in the survivability of deliberative bodies concerned with sustainable development policy and raise questions about their efficacy. We conclude that such bodies survive when members derive significant if intangible benefits; and that by surviving, they help optimize limited human resources for the implementation of international environmental conventions and provide needed venues for deliberation and accountability. But the relationship between efficacy and survivability is not linear and councils may have to avoid direct challenges to government decision-makers and established relationships between the state and private sector. Copyright (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Process effects of multistakeholder institutions: Theory and evidence from the Open Government Partnership

“…Transnational multistakeholder initiatives (Raymond & DeNardis 2015), for example, such as the Kimberley Process and EITI, are more frequently participatory and iterative than more traditional organizations. Yet these features are present to differing degrees across institutions, as seen in systematic studies of NGO access (Tallberg et al 2013), and multistakeholder participation in examples such as Agenda 21 (Rosenberg & Thomas 2005) and the Sustainable Development Goals (Senit 2020). Recent work on global experimentalist governance (De Búrca et al 2014), the UN's Universal Periodic Review (Milewicz & Goodin 2018;Carraro 2019), and the Paris Climate Agreement "pledge-and-review" system (Hale 2016) also point toward the wider prevalence and increasing importance of iterative features incorporating a framework for organized, repeated action and review.…”

“…Yet these features are present to differing degrees across institutions, as seen in systematic studies of NGO access (Tallberg et al . 2013), and multistakeholder participation in examples such as Agenda 21 (Rosenberg & Thomas 2005) and the Sustainable Development Goals (Senit 2020). Recent work on global experimentalist governance (De Búrca et al .…”

Explaining Variations in the Subnational Implementation of Global Agreements: The Case of Ecuador and the Convention on Biological Diversity

“…The nature of the obligations and the wording of the text ( hard or soft ) also play a role (Hønneland & Jørgensen, 2003; Mitchell, 2003; Revelt, 1998). MEAs that have a system of implementation review, including support for implementation in the form of capacity building, technical or financial assistance, also tend to be more effective (Chayes & Chayes, 1993; Rosenberg & Spencer Thomas, 2005; Victor, Raustiala, & Skolnikoff, 1998).…”

Education on Sustainable Development based on Local Agenda 21

“…Studies addressing LA21 evolution describe its application in various countries, such as Portugal [13,14], Japan [15], Spain [16], Germany [17], Italy [18], Turkey [19], Dominican Republic, Grenada and Santa Lucia [20], Basque region [21], Australia [22,23] and various other cities [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] These studies analyze data, derived from procedures and structural changes monitoring, both at local and national levels, in order to evaluate the evolution of LA21 application, its outcome and drawbacks experienced.…”