Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The same paper elaborates seven precepts
for effective environmental governance:
• NationallyAppropriateMitigationAc-
tions (NAMA) of developing country
partners; required by the UNFCCC.
• Agenda
21
nationalplansunderthe
lead of the UN Commission on Environ-
ment and Development, and National
Sustainable Development Strategies
(NSDS).
• Nationalandregionalagriculturalpolicies
(e.g. EU Common Agricultural Policy).
• Environmentallawsshouldbeclear,
even-handed, implementable and en-
forceable.
• Environmentalinformationshouldbe
shared with the public.
• Affected stakeholders should be af-
forded opportunities to participate in
environmental decision making.
• Environmentaldecisionmakers,both
public and private, should be account-
able for their decisions.
• Rolesandlinesofauthorityforenvir-
onmental protection should be clear,
coordinated and designed to produce
efficient and non-duplicative program-
me delivery.
• Affectedstakeholdersshouldhaveac-
cess to fair and responsive dispute reso-
lution procedures.
• Graftandcorruptioninenvironmen-
tal programme delivery can obstruct
environmental protection and mask
results and must be actively prevented.
There is an unfortunate tendency for these
national action plans to have very limited
circulation and be unknown outside the
ministry tasked with delivering the text -
often a relatively weak ministry such as
environment. Governance at national level
needs to be mainstreamed into ministries of
agriculture, finance, planning and economic
development. SOC suffers at two levels in
national governance arrangements. First,
there is no single obvious repository for
policy on SOC to be included in national
plans - therefore, it becomes nobody's clear
responsibility. Finance ministries are un-
likely to take up the challenge, while envir-
onment, agriculture, rural development, energy
and other possible line agencies have many
other priorities. Second, while SOC has a
relatively inconspicuous profile at the na-
tional level, the accomplishment of better
governance arrangements will remain un-
achievable as a single priority issue. In the
meantime, national-level better governance
for SOC will necessarily have to ride on the
'coat-tails' of more high-profile issues such
as climate change, pollution and food security.
Governance for SOC at the national level
must be subject to laws and regulations ap-
propriate to national procedures and en-
forcement mechanisms relevant to other
closely related environmental issues. This
would often entail explicitly coupling SOC
maintenance to regulations for controlling
soil degradation and incentives for encour-
aging soil conservation. A 'carrot-and-stick'
approach may be adopted, providing penal-
ties for losing SOC along with subsidies for
increasing SOC.
A forum for governance for SOC is in
the various National Action Plans written to
meet country obligations under several of
the environmental and sustainable develop-
ment conventions. Examples where SOC
needs to be included and/or strengthened in
its profile and importance are:
International
At the international level, global environmen-
tal governance is 'the sum of organizations,
policy instruments, financing mechanisms,
rules, procedures and norms that regulate
the processes of global environmental pro-
tection'. Therefore, the international level is
largely the sum of national governance and
reporting arrangements, with global finan-
cing mechanisms such as the GEF (for land
degradation, climate change and biodiversity)
and the Global Mechanism (for desertification
control). The GEF, for example, is currently
• NationalActionPlanonClimateChange
(NAPCC); required by signatory coun-
tries to the UNFCCC.
• NationalActionPlans(NAPs)tocom-
bat desertification; required by the
UNCCD.
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