Environmental Management: Towards a Conceptual Framework for Environmental Governance
By Jan Joost Kessler, Pieter van Ginniken, Willem Cornelissen, Bart Romijn (06/01, En) See also Environment and Natural Resources
This working paper is being published with the sole objective of contributing to the debate on a topic of importance to the region, and to elicit comments and suggestions from interested parties. This paper has not gone through the Department's peer review process or undergone consideration by the SDS Management Team. As such, it does not reflect the official position of the Inter-American Development Bank.
At its Eleventh Meeting (Lima, March 1998), the Forum of Ministers of the Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean (the ?Forum?) confirmed strengthening environmental management as a priority area, stressing the importance of the environmental dimension of public policies. The Forum also adopted a Regional Environmental Action Plan in which a number of actions are set out to modernize environmental management institutions and mechanisms.
As a follow-up to the decision of the Forum, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) organized a Ministerial Consultation on Environmental Management at the Headquarters of PAHO in Washington, DC (September, 1998). Subsequently, the World Bank, with the participation of the IDB, held a workshop on institutional dimensions of environmental management in Santiago de Chile (October, 1999). The conclusion of these meetings was that there is a need to develop a new orientation on environmental management, including ?a theoretical framework with an outline of the ideal cycle of environmental management. This cycle should consider the macro-conditions, environmental policy, and environmental priorities in government plans and programs, instruments and governance??.
This study is a first attempt to fill that need. Environmental management systems are subject to political changes, which can overrule the institutional settings required to establish the goals of environmental management. This is even true for institutions that are set up to be flexible to adjust to the rapidly changing political and environmental context. New tools can help us recognize that strengthening environmental management needs to go beyond establishing an institutional setting by dealing with a process of negotiation and bargaining with multiple actors and organizations.
This study helps to shed light on some of the tools and guidelines that enable us to assess such a process. It provides a framework of different criteria, key issues and requirements that are fundamental for an environmental management process and that can be used to develop country-specific action plans for improvement.
The document provides new ideas and approaches on how to assess efforts to strengthen environmental management in Latin America and the Caribbean and will hopefully contribute to the debate on these important issues.
Last updated: 05/08/07
