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1.4.1 The actors in environmental mainstreaming and their needs
At the country level, three broad groups in particular should be concerned with environmental mainstreaming:
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Mainstream development organisations – notably central and sectoral planning and finance authorities and delivery organisations, as well as corporations. The national level is key, but so also are local authorities where key policy and planning decisions have been decentralised.
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They will need to understand how environmental issues affect their development interests; the associated costs, benefits, risks and their distribution; and how to make appropriate decisions especially to meet international and national environmental obligations; as such, they will need access to efficient information and decision-making tools, and to advice on building a systematic approach.
To fast-track the transition to an integrated, systematic approach, the highest levels of decision-making in government, administration, business and civil society need to be engaged. This is critical because – even more so than with environmental interests below – there is a wide range of perceptions about the importance of environmental mainstreaming (see Table 1.1) [make link to title of Table 1.1 so user can jump to it – or maybe save Table as separate file that can be jumped to?]. Furthermore, often senior people were trained at a time when cross-cutting issues such as environment were given little attention. Key information needed by such groups is the costs of inaction on environment and associated distributional issues and timeframes; and the rates of return to investment in routine environmental management, environmental infrastructure, and safeguard processes.
Table 1.1: Perceptions of environmental mainstreaming
USER GROUP |
PERCEPTIONS
( stereotype)
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PERCEPTIONS
(progressive)
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Common to all groups:
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- Increased awareness of the dangers and hazards of environmental degradation and the importance of personal and organisational responsibilities
- But personal survival and personal financial gain overrides all other criteria. The richer you are, the more you can afford to be generous towards the needs of others, including future generations.
- A belief in supporting EM up to the point that it does not interfere with personal or group immediate gain.
- Supports (and perpetuates) myths that society can separate economic and social wellbeing from environmental management responsibilities.
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- Full awareness of roles and responsibilities.
- Personal and group/organisational commitment to EM.
- Sense of the public good overrides personal materialistic needs and desires.
- Driving values are more philanthropic and involve the cooperation of all for the survival of all species, including the betterment of mankind.
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Politicians |
- Few are aware of the range of EM concerns beyond negative issues, and the range of approaches beyond safeguards.
- However, some environment, development and foreign affairs ministers are broadly aware of international EM obligations (see section 1.3.2).
- Most political debate is around environment as a (weak) sector rather than a shared responsibility.
- However, this is confused by historical wide distribution of environmental responsibilities and authority across many ministries – offering an ‘entry point’ to some mainstreaming.
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- Fully aware of the main sustainability tactics tools and approaches, and;
- Orchestrate their use, and protect against their abuse.
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Government departments/agencies - both central and sectoral
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- little knowledge of EM and the application of EM approaches, environment authorities treat EM primarily as a matter of improving environment ‘sector’ budgets and ensuring safeguards adopted.
- However, many key decision-makers never use specific EM tools; instead, they used normal budgeting procedures, holding meetings and ensuring legal compliance.
- The implementation of international EM obligations tends to be accorded low priority, or in narrow ways ‘to suit local needs’.
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- Highly informed specialists operating at all levels of government (not only in a safeguard capacity but in a proactive systematic approach to optimise on sustaining and even improving ecosystem services).
- International obligations are met and boundaries pushed for further responsible actions between and amongst nation states – calling signatory parties to comply with their respective commitments, roles and responsibilities.
- Recent increases in calls for government accountability have led to e.g. a ‘charter’ approach to environmental responsibility.
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Local authorities |
- Accorded increasing responsibility for environmental aspects of development, where in charge of district land and physical development.
- Thus, concerned as much about making positive use of environment as about environmental safeguards.
- However, inadequate capacity to map development-environment links (both positive and negative) or to develop solutions means that many adopt outmoded practices and procedures, or none at all, for EM.
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- Informed and empowered with skills and financial resources at appropriate level of management to apply relevant tools and tactics at various levels of decision-making.
- Culture of environmental responsibility and accountability ensuring it is fully mainstreamed throughout the organisation at all levels of decision making. Systems and plans in place to systematically address a wide range of dynamic and complex needs and basic rights.
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Finance institutions and businesses |
- Primarily use environmental safeguard tools designed (usually for minimum compliance with regulations) to cover their own corporate needs to avoid damage and harm to their own personal bonus schemes and company profits.
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- Public, government, stakeholder and shareholder demands are increasing and leading to changes in motivation towards more positive approaches (e.g. organic food, sustainable forestry).
- DFIs are taking on highly proactive stances with regard to environmental value systems, responsibilities and accountabilities.
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Civil society & communities |
- Feel that current provisions for EM often fail to empower them to participate, and sometimes alienate them from the decision-making process – for several reasons:
- How power works in society;
- How control of the process is governed;
- How jargon is used;
- Because (they believe) consultants tend to operate EM tools for money-making rather than for environmental and social justice.
- Are unfamiliar with EM approaches, but are keen to know more about the environment and receive relevant information in a usable format.
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- Are fully skilled and operational with a variety of environmental strategies, tools and tactics. Are multiskilled and use media and other communication and organisational means to get message across to relevant levels of decision makers.
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Environment NGOs |
- Between them, rarely have a consistent view of EM and how to go about it – which often leads to ineffective action.
- The majority tend to focus on environmental problems and adversarial approaches – rather than opportunities and collaborative approaches.
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- leading brokers of environment and development interests, of public and private partnerships, with experience of EM, and are adept at using a range of international obligations (see section 1.3.2).
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Academics and experts/consultants |
- Have produced a wide range of EM tools, not all of them real-world tested; and tend to ascribe to one or two ‘miracle’ tools.
- Have inadequately explored the political economy of EM.
- Tend to recreate the same concepts by giving new names to the same concepts.
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- Are fully conversant and experienced in a range of EM approaches and are able to empower groups to speedily learn new approaches for changing contexts.
- Help to critically review the power relationships in society and the effectiveness of existing approaches and help to identify a mix of tools and tactics to challenge problem areas.
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Development cooperation agencies |
- Tend to have high influence on whether and how developing country governments tackle EM. That influence is channelled through policy and programming approaches shaped by the Paris Declaration (see section 1.3.2).
- Largely this is a matter of including environmental safeguards in cooperation agreements.
- It has also involved organising major ‘projects’ to include environmental dimensions in national development plans and poverty reduction strategies – evoking ‘country-driven’ approaches but also associating EM with conditionalities attached to supporting those plans and strategies.
- This approach is too technocratic and inadequately supports national political processes for EM. They have also sometimes failed to adapt EM tools to local culture and conditions.
- It is also limited by the fact that, within cooperation agencies themselves, environment is rarely full mainstreamed and ‘high-level’ decision makers in those agencies do not accord EM much more than ‘box-ticking’ importance.
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- Increasingly co-operation agreements tend to be about building the capacity of ‘country systems’ to act as safeguards.
- More aware of political ecology and forces of change and how power works in society and intervene in various ways to address human and environmental rights issues – structure interactions to be mutually supportive of learning approaches to achieving meaningful levels of social justice and sustainable development practices.
- From CEO down there are skills and practical knowledge in EM and personal commitment.
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Environmental organisations – whether as regulatory authorities, service delivery organisations, environmental NGOs or civil society groups representing people who are especially dependent upon the environment, and human rights and activist groups and health and welfare organisations representing the ‘public good’.
They need to improve efforts to influence the ‘mainstream’ to integrate environmental considerations; as such they will obviously need to have good command of environmental information, but more especially excellent understanding of the development context, goals and drivers – and then tools and tactics, as well as effective ‘entry points’ to influence the mainstream.
In most countries, their intention should be to make the transition from a prevailing institutional framework - where environment is divorced from development, to an integrated system.1 In countries where such an integrated system is forming, this will require collaborative approaches and far more nuanced information. In both cases, however, the wide range of environmental interests need to develop and assert a broad and shared vision for environmental mainstreaming, or their lobbying and tactics will be dissipated and ineffective. They need to rehearse many of the issues discussed in sections 1.1 and 1.2 and form a shared platform.
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Multilateral and bilateral donors, international organisations and international private investors also need to address environmental mainstreaming. Firstly as an internal need, particularly in terms of how they best delivering against environmental obligations in a range of international agreements and mandates (see Chapter 2). But also in terms of how they can avoid the current trend of much development assistance having to be applied to increasing humanitarian and conflict-related expenditure – short-term ‘bail-outs’ from collapses in financial, employment, social and political systems in developing countries, which predicted incidences of collapse in environmental systems will surely exacerbate. Secondly, in terms of what conditions and support they will provide to the above groups in their catalytic roles to improve policy, plans and investment for sustainable development.
It is also important to try to engage a wide array of other actors who can or should play a critical role in promoting particular environmental concerns, e.g. the general public and citizen movements; the private sector; educational institutions and authorities; institutions of various faiths; and political parties. Making the environment part of the political process can draw attention to such issues and provide pressure for them to be addressed. In the last two decades, we have seen the emergence of ‘green parties’ in many developed countries which advocate development based on sound environmental management. Their ideas and popular profile has often resulted in the environmental agenda and particular policy options being adopted by the main political parties, too, and thus being mainstreamed into development policy. Such green parties are rare in developing countries where such a role is more usually played by NGOs.
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