Governance for Sustainable Development: As if it Mattered?

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Governance for Sustainable Development As if it
Mattered?

• Dr. Ann Dale, Trudeau Fellow
• Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community
  Development
• Royal Roads University
• www.crcresearch.org

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What is sustainable development?The human
imperative of the 21st century
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Sustainable Development
A Process of Reconciliation
Social
Ecological
Economic
Human Systems
Natural Systems
AND EQUITABLE ACCESS TO RESOURCES SOCIAL,
ECOLOGICAL, AND ECONOMIC IS FUNDAMENTAL TO ITS
IMPLEMENTATION
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Barriers to Implementation
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Solitudes, Silos and Stovepipes

• cleavages
• artificial separations
• divisions

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Lack of Shared Meaning
Population impact x Consumption
Time
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Lack of Shared Meaning
Population impact x Consumption
Time
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Lack of Shared Meaning
Population impact x Consumption
Time
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Governments

• keep it simple
• implementation gaps
• system rigidities
• system inconsistencies
• KISS

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Governments Continued

• questions of legitimacy
• who gets to frame the question?
• who gets to decide who the experts are?
• dialogue versus consultation
• electoral cycles

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Status Quo
Adapted from Holling 1986
Renewal accessible carbon nutrients energy
Conservation fire k-strategy storm pest
Stored Capital (Potential)
Exploitation opportunist r-strategy pioneer
Release dimax construction
Connectedness
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The Context

• complex, dynamic living systems
• information will always be incomplete, science
  uncertain
• not easily bounded
• highly normative
• time, place and scale dependent

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The Context Continued

• beyond any one sector or level of government to
  solve
• demands unprecedented levels of collaboration
  and partnership to implement
• complexity of the dialogue

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Sustainable Development Innovation, Creativity
and Competitiveness

• rapid knowledge diffusion
• private-public partnerships, public-public
  partnerships, civil society
• research-government partnerships
• interdisciplinary research
• trans-disciplinary solutions

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Reconciliation
Adapted from Holling 1986
Renewal accessible carbon nutrients energy
Conservation fire k-strategy storm pest
Stored Capital (Potential)
Exploitation opportunist r-strategy pioneer
Release dimax construction
Connectedness
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A New Governance Model
Domains of Appreciation
Sustainable Development
Emerging Policy Domains
Trans-disciplinary Networks of Collaboration
Sectoral Implementation
Sectoral Implementation
Sectoral Implementation
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Expanded Policy Development
Desired Futures
PARADIGMS
PARADIGMS
VALUES
VALUES
Policy Alternatives
Enlarged Decision-Making Context
FEEDBACK
Policy Approaches
Strategies Tactics
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A Governance Checklist As if it Mattered?

• only one domainsustainable development?
• integrated decision-making
• policy congruence
• policy alignment
• Sustainable community development will not be
  achieved unless supported by a strong legal
  system. For in a constitutional democracy, the
  legal system is the mechanism through which the
  values of the people are expressed and their
  beliefs acted upon.
• Adapted from Boyd 2003

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Concrete Immediate Actions

• get the prices right
• carbon tax (all revenues devoted to mitigation)
• enforceable national air quality standards
• enforceable national water quality standards
• national law guaranteeing safe drinking water
• national law guaranteeing safe drinking waters

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Concrete Immediate Actions Continued

• law to protect wild and scenic rivers
• law guaranteeing citizens access to information
• long-term planning
• strategic research imperative by the granting
  councils
• enshrine in the Charter the rights to access to
  clean air, water and food
• ClimateACTION