The role of the environment in development policy strategies

The policy synthesis chapter of the MEA Scenario Report emphasizes the interdependence be- tween environmental and development goals as one of its main messages (Carpenter et al. 2005, 471). A key implication of this interdependence is the need for a meaningful integration of environmental sustainability concerns in national development plans and strategies of indi- vidual donors and intergovernmental development agencies, as well as the need for closer co- ordination between multilateral environmental agreements and other international institutions in the development policy sphere.

Thus, MEA (2005a, 93) calls for the integration of ecosystem management goals within broad- er development planning frameworks, and more specifically for the mainstreaming of ecosys-

Dirk Willenbockel

26 German Development Institute

processes instigated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, given that the PRSPs strongly shape national development priorities in a large number of low-income coun- tries. The MEA Policy Responses Report indeed contends that“(p)overty reduction can only work if the links between ecosystems and well-being are explicitly mainstreamed into national poverty reduction strategies like Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers” (Chopra et al. 2005, 489).

To be sure, the recognition of the need for integrated strategies towards development and en- vironmental sustainability can hardly be considered a novel insight, and efforts to mainstream the notion of sustainability into the development discourse have been pursued with consider- able progress for more than two decades. As Bass (2007) puts it, it was the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report (WCED 1987) that introduced the concept of sustainable development – defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – into the political mainstream. The subsequent global summits in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002 led to a wide endorsement of the concept and helped to extend its reach into the arenas of business, local government and civil society. The Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 as well as the Johannesburg Plan of Imple- mentation call for an integration of economic development, social development and environ- mental protection as the three interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development.

These international plans express global aspirations and intentions but remain generally vague due to the need to accommodate diverse national positions and do not include specific and en- forceable commitments. However, some governments have committed to the adoption of na- tional strategies for sustainable development. Various development agencies have drafted guidelines to assist developing countries in preparing such strategies (DFID 2000; OECD 2001; UNDESA 2002).As a joint paper by DFID et al. (2002) for the Johannesburg summit points out in this context, the continuing tendency of donors to promote multiple and compet- ing strategy frameworks creates its own challenges.

In summarizing the progress in promoting the sustainable development agenda since the pub- lication of the Brundtland Report, Bass (2007) finds that there is now a bewildering array of sustainable development plans and strategies, but that these plans generally lack clear priori- ties, have little influence on budgeting, investment and public administration, and have not yet triggered the pace, scale, scope and depth of change that is needed to make development sus- tainable. There is now an abundance of political fora and councils that identify and debate sus- tainable development issues, but few have high status, or are adequately linked to the key processes of legislation and government.

With respect to the specific MEA plea for the mainstreaming of ecosystem management in PRSP processes, it should be noted that the World Bank (2004) PRSP Sourcebook in fact not only identifies the linkages between environmental conditions and poverty as a cross-cutting theme, but also argues in favour of a systematic mainstreaming of environmental management in PRSPs and their associated processes, because the quality of the environment is considered to be inextricably linked to the quality of life for poor people. The PRSP Sourcebook includes a complete chapter with guidelines to help PRSP teams integrate environmental problems and opportunities in their work and consider potential environmental and natural resource inter- ventions in their poverty reduction strategies. It also includes a review to assess the extent of environmental mainstreaming in the PRSPs up to 2001. While the MEA Responses Report

notes these efforts to include environmental concerns in PRSPs, the approach is criticized for reducing “proper environmental management to the provision of ‘sustainable livelihoods’”

(Chopra et al. 2005, 516).14

Since the publication of the MEA and IEA assessments, the recent Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) as well as the Stern Review on the economics of climate change (Stern 2007) have given additional impetus to the case for a sys- tematic integration of environmental concerns in the formulation of future development strate- gies.

Apart from establishing beyond reasonable doubt that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is due to the observed increase in anthro- pogenic GHG concentrations, the new evidence provided in IPCC (2007) shows in particular that the risks of dangerous climate change for vulnerable regions are very likely to be larger or to occur at lower increases in temperature than previously projected and assumed in the MEA scenarios. There is now higher confidence in the projected increases in droughts, heat waves and floods, as well as their adverse impacts. There is increased evidence that low-latitude and less developed areas generally face greater risk, especially in dry areas of Africa, in the Asian and African mega-delta regions, and in small island states threatened by increased frequency of storms, floods and sea-level rise. For increases in global average temperature exceeding 1.5 to 2.5 °C – as will be the case in the absence of decisive climate change mitigation action – the IPCC assessment projects major changes in ecosystems with predominantly negative conse- quences for biodiversity and ecosystem services including water and food supply.

While the MEA takes the effects of climate change on ecosystems into account, climate change is not framed as the potentially dominant driver of ecosystems change in the longer run, and the policy implications chapter of the MEA Scenario Report indeed explicitly refrains from a discussion of climate change adaptation and mitigation policy options in order to avoid step- ping on IPCC territory.15_{This is a rather astonishing decision in view of the calls for an inte-} gration of environmental policies within broader policy frameworks elsewhere in the same Re- port, but it also perfectly – if involuntarily - illustrates one of the main practical obstacles to the realization of truly integrated policy approaches, namely the difficulty to step over estab- lished institutional boundaries and organizational divisions between different policy spheres. In the light of the recent IPCC evidence, the MEA’s conception of embedding environmental management into national poverty reduction strategies appears to aim too short if climate change policy is excluded from such integrated strategies. In the words of Stern (2007), it is essential that climate change be fully integrated into development policy, and that rich coun- tries honour their pledges to increase support through development assistance. As already not- ed in section 4, it is no longer possible to prevent a significant further rise in global tempera-

14 Given the distinctly anthropocentric perspective of the MEA conceptual framework outlined in section 2, in which the links between ecosystems and human wellbeing take centre stage, the precise point of this criti- cism remains unclear to this reviewer as the subsequent discussion does not develop a coherent argument in support of the cited statement. However, it is certainly correct that current PRSP implementation practices fall generally short of the corresponding aspirations of the PRSP Sourcebook mentioned above.

Dirk Willenbockel

28 German Development Institute

tures over the next few decades due to past GHG emissions, and an acceleration of adaptation measures, especially in the most vulnerable regions, is required.

The objective of climate change adaptation is to reduce vulnerability to adverse impacts. Vul- nerability to adverse climate change is a function of geographical exposure, sensitivity and adaptability. As adaptive capacity rises with per-capita income, infrastructure endowments and with the level of development in general, Stern (2007, 432) concludes that“much of what gov- ernments should do in relation to adaptation is what they should be doing anyway - that is, im- plementing good development practice.”

The Human Development Report 2007/08 likewise identifies the integration of adaptation planning into wider poverty reduction strategies as a priority, but also calls for a closer coor- dination of international support efforts and multilateral adaptation funding mechanisms:

“International support for adaptation has to go beyond financing. Current international efforts suffer not just from chronic underfinancing, but also a lack of coordination and co- herence. The patchwork of multilateral mechanisms is delivering small amounts of fi- nance with very high transaction costs, most of it through individual projects. While proj- ect-based support has an important role to play, the locus for adaptation planning has to be shifted towards national programmes and budgets. … Dialogue over Poverty Reduc- tion Strategy Papers (PRSPs) provides a possible framework for integrating adaptation in poverty reduction planning. Revision of PRSPs through nationally-owned processes to identify financing requirements and policy options for adaptation could provide a focal point for international cooperation.”(UNDP 2007, 15).16

With regard to international funding mechanisms to support a closer integration of environ- mental management into national development strategies, the MEA has sparked a debate about the merits of establishing a dedicated Millennium Ecosystem Fund financed by developed donor countries as proposed by Sachs and Reid (2006) and Bass (2006). Such proposals have met with the objection that the proliferation of new global funding mechanisms is likely to in- troduce new layers of bureaucracy and increase the reporting burdens for poor countries, and therefore it might be preferable to strengthen existing mechanisms such as the Global Envi- ronmental Facility, and existing UN environmental programmes.17_{As shown in section 5.3, the} MEA scenario analysis is not designed to throw further light on this debate and a systematic discussion of proposals for future reforms of multilateral funding mechanisms to support de- velopment cooperation is beyond the scope of the present paper. However, real progress to- wards the integration of ecosystem management and climate change adaptation in the devel- opment strategies of low-income countries as addressed in this section will certainly require significant increases in the flow of financial resources from rich to poor countries.

There is also an urgent need for further research to extend the knowledge base required to en- sure that such financial resources are channelled into uses that promise maximum returns in terms of vulnerability reduction. While the existing climate change adaptation and develop-

16 For a detailed discussion of the shortcomings of existing multilateral funding mechanisms and reform pro- posals see UNDP (2007, 186–98).

17 See e.g. the UK government’s response to the Millennium Ecosystem Fund proposal in House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (2007).

ment literature is replete with extensive bullet point lists of desirable policy measures, efforts to set clear priorities are very limited. Setting priorities is important in the presence of limited funding, and this requires detailed knowledge of the costs and prospective benefits of different policy options. Yet systematic evaluations of these cost and benefits at a disaggregated geo- graphical scale are in short supply at present. It is noteworthy that a major recent World Bank initiative on the economics of climate change adaptation with UK, Swiss and Dutch govern- ment funding is beginning to address this knowledge gap for a small subset of highly vulnera- ble countries. Further research in this direction for a wider set of countries should be assigned a high priority on the future development policy research agenda.