Policy coherence in climate governance in Caribbean Small Island Developing States

How does network governance affect social-ecological fit across the land–sea interface? An empirical assessment from the Lesser Antilles

“…The Dominican case shows greater participation of state and nonstate actors; however, MA1 is still not significant in the Dominican case. Participatory governance, as represented by state and nonstate collaboration and coordination, is an ongoing challenge in the Caribbean in general (Scobie 2016), and these challenges are replicated in both case studies. However, Dominica is typically perceived as having a slightly more participatory system than other Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean, which is supported by the following interview quotes.…”

“…Both cases exhibit considerable collaboration; however, in some cases, this collaboration was not necessarily organized in a way to specifically tackle issues of social-ecological fit across the land-sea interface. We found that network governance could help engage diverse actors, but existing networks are constrained by the general lack of reliance on participatory governance that is apparent across the Caribbean region (Scobie 2016). The situation is somewhat better in Dominica where there has been a concerted effort to improve participation and erode the barriers imposed by top-down hierarchal governance.…”

Towards Comprehensive Policy Integration for the Sustainability of Small Islands: A Landscape-Scale Planning Approach for the Galápagos Islands

“…It may also help to split the cost of policy formulation and implementation among policy actors [33,35], and increase compliance with legal and policy frameworks [76]. Additionally, policy integration processes may lead to progressively improving the capacity of policy actors to deal with more complex issues, trade-offs and uncertainty [70,77]. This may improve the resilience of socio-ecological systems [77][78][79], and help develop local stewardship for the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policy measures [29,53].…”

“…However, the benefits of policy integration initiatives often unfold in the mid-to long-term, and their initial costs might only be accepted when their benefits clearly outweigh short-term losses [35,36]. Furthermore, policy measures and their respective outcomes are unlikely to be replicated, or succeed, outside their original socio-political context [33,70].…”

“…More recently, Shannon and Schmidt [43] described policy integration as an activity to facilitate, strengthen, and expand links between policy actors, organizations, and networks across sectoral boundaries. Related terms, such as policy coordination [68,69] and policy coherence [70,71], refer to the collaborative work between private and public actors to formulate policies that avoid gaps, duplication, or contradiction. Others, such as intersectoral cooperation [72] or cross-sectoral policy cooperation [73], indicate the collaboration between government and non-government policy actors through activities that assist in the identification of issues, definition of goals, and the implementation of policies and programs.…”