pied 5230 seminars the significance of un summits on environment and development david mkwambisi...
TRANSCRIPT
PIED 5230 SEMINARS
The significance of UN Summits on
Environment and Development
David Mkwambisi (PhD)
University of Malawi
Objectives• An overview of Environmental ‘mega’
conferences• Introduction to Policy formulation• Malawi environmental policy formulation
and development• Group discussions on Malawi case study• The influence of mega conferences on
national development goals• Areas for improvement• Essay question
UN Summits
UN EnvironmentalSummits
1972UNHCE
Stockholm
1982Nairobi
Stockholm +10
2002WSSD
Johannesburg, RSA
1992The Earth Summit
Rio de Janero-Brazil
Un SummitsFundingPlanning
Where?Who?Why
Attendance Who?WhyNumbers
StakeholdersNorth
VsSouth
CoordinationBefore and after
GovtNGOsMedia
Coordination
ImplementationRegional Organisation
e.g SADC
Problemidentification
Global vsNational
National prioritiesand local conditions
PoliticalSocial
etc
PoliticalAnd other
factors
Gill Seyfang and UN Summits
UN EnvironmentalSummits
Setting a global agenda
Facilitating joined-up thinking
Endorsing common principles
Providing global leadership
Building institutional capacity
Legitimising global governance
National Policy formulation
No Environmental PolicyBefore 2005
Environmental PolicyAfter 2005
UN
Process
NEAP1994
GoM
NEAP Process
Summary on Malawi case
Global problem
National and localproblem
How is the process initiated?
What was the formulation process?
Who was involved?
What issues did it covers?
Who funded the process?The role of parliament
Implementation constraints
Vertical vs horizontal policy integration
Greening the economy
Monitoring and Evaluation
UN summits and Malawi: Group discussion
Setting a global agenda
Facilitating joined-up thinking
Endorsing common principles
Building institutional capacity
Legitimising global governance
In two groups, let is discuss whetherUN Summit faciliate sustainable
Development at country and local levelIn relation to Gill’s paper and the Malawi
case study
Essay Question
Outline how UN environmental policies have influenced local-level development practices and critically assess the value of international policies in enabling sustainable management of environmental resources upon which the poor’s livelihoods depend.
Essay points
• UN environmental policies
• Local-level development practices
• International policies and sustainable development
• International policies versus national policies
• Policies in general and sustainable development
Group discussions on difficulties of cross-sector policy implementation
• From this briefing, newspaper article & your general reflections …
• List the factors that you would envisage as affecting the local-level implentation of international environmental policy agreements
• Compare your lists to others around the room & discuss the most important in groups of 3 or 4
Difficulties of cross-sector policy implementation
• They are donor driven failing to recognise local capacity
• Environmental Ministries are not well funded
• Parliament can not understand the technical issues
• Policies and regulations are not followed with action
Difficulties
• Poor coordination between Ministries/ departments and within Ministries/department
• Summits resolutions/recommendations and local capacity
• Too many environmental issue (Fisheries, water
resources, forestry, agriculture, energy and mineral resources, tourism, land use, biodiversity,
research, pollution, policies, health and sanitation etc.)
• Illiteracy levels
National policies versus UN summits
• Are UN summits effective or not?
• In which ways have they been effective and where can we improve?