This chapter presents lessons that emerged from the peer-learning on environment mainstreaming. It lists five building blocks that have evolved from the analytical framework presented in Chapter 2: strong policy commitment and leadership; robust systems, processes and tools; capacity and continuous skill development; shared knowledge, learning and engagement; well-supported country systems. It illustrates these five building blocks with good practice examples from the three Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members visited as part of the peer-learning.
Greening Development Co-operation
Lessons from the OECD Development Assistance Committee
Report
The Development Dimension
Table of contents
Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
3. Lessons from the peer-learning exercise
Abstract
The peer-learning exercise has shown that environment mainstreaming is common practice among DAC members. Development co-operation providers have diverse policies, systems, tools and procedures for ensuring that environment and climate are important considerations in their development work. The principal reason given for environment mainstreaming is that development significantly depends on good management of environmental assets and/or is subject to environment and climate risks. There has recently been growing recognition that climate and environment are core to economic and social development and to achieving the SDGs.
DAC members seek to benefit from several advantages of a mainstreaming approach to environment:
It can allow environment and climate to be accorded critical importance in development decision making. In addition to the value of separate environmental interventions, the benefits can be greater and more sustained if environment and climate are also integrated into non-environmental and higher-profile development work.
It can enable environmental considerations to be addressed systematically across policies, plans, budgets and activities – and at all stages of the programming cycle from preparation to approval to implementation to oversight.
It allows members to more effectively access and influence senior decision makers who have limited time and resources.
It enables a consistent approach to environment and climate, avoiding contradictory policy choices, for example avoiding investing in both renewable energy and large-scale fossil fuels.
Surprisingly, most DAC members conduct limited assessments of the results of environment mainstreaming. While much energy is often put into mainstreaming at appraisal and planning stages, implementation and the outcomes and impacts of environment mainstreaming receive less attention, as we explore below.
With environment mainstreaming common in practice, yet in the absence of a robust and regular review of process and results, this peer learning offers an initial set of lessons for reflection. They are summarised below under five headings which have evolved from the analytical framework (Box 2.2) supplemented by examples from the three member visits which are highlighted in additional boxes.
Strong policy commitment and leadership
Providing a legal mandate
Mandated legal requirements to integrate environment provide the foundation for mainstreaming. In the case of the European Union (EU) this is achieved through EU treaties, laws and policies, whilst Canada’s development co-operation agency, Global Affairs Canada (GAC), has a sophisticated legal process for environmental compliance known as the Environment Integration Process (Box 3.1).In many cases these legal mandates have been focused on moving from doing no harm to doing more good, identifying the environment as an opportunity for development action.
Box 3.1. Good practice in legislating mainstreaming
A strong legal and policy framework provides a firm basis for EU environment mainstreaming. EU treaties, laws and policies have built successively more ambitious high-level mandates to integrate environment and more recently climate issues Into EU development co-operation, notably and most recently through the strategy to implement the 2030 Agenda: the New European Consensus on Development (European Council, 2017[1]). This legal and policy basis for mainstreaming sends clear signals to staff to respond appropriately to the regulations on mainstreaming. This is true not only in the organisations directly concerned – such as the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Co-operation and Development (DG DEVCO) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) – but also across the EU institutional landscape, including the environmental audit process. There is a general acknowledgement that environment and climate are a firm part of the European Commission and EIB’s overall mandates.
Global Affairs Canada benefits from a strong and operationally effective legal framework comprising the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (Government of Canada, 2012[2]) and a Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals (Government of Canada, 2016[3]). An Environmental Integration Process (EIP) screening tool was developed in 2014 to assess environmental risks and opportunities in each project (Government of Canada, 2014[4]). The EIP is integrated into Global Affairs Canada’s financial system as a way to improve compliance; projects cannot be implemented until all environmental requirements are met. This legal framework has proven to be particularly important to ensure the environment is not overlooked when political or management priorities change – such as with Canada’s current focus on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls.
Source: (European Commission, 2016[5]) Integrating the environment and climate change into EU international cooperation and development; Towards sustainable development; (IIED, 2018[6]) DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September; (IIED, 2019[7]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Canada, 1-5 April 2019.
Driving mainstreaming and leadership
Leadership at a political level – both national and individual – is important for driving mainstreaming. This is especially demonstrated by Sweden, which has been a consistent champion of environment in development since hosting the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Experience from the EU and Canada reveals useful approaches for making environment and climate relevant in a context of higher profile political priorities or agendas (Box 3.2).
Box 3.2. Good practice in making the environment relevant to broader political priorities
In the EC and EU member states, the political agenda has included the priorities laid out by President Juncker and other political leaders, focusing on investments, jobs, growth, migration, security, energy and climate. A persuasive approach to mainstreaming involves being positive – presenting it as a way of improving the quality of development, and not only ensuring environment and climate safeguards are in place. This needs to be backed up with good evidence of the specific environment/climate links among these positive political priorities: for example, synergies between biodiversity management and peace and security in projects around Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo.1 Links to business and investment priorities are made visible by the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development’s green economy programme (European Commission, 2018[8]), which has a growing evidence base of how environmental activities embody opportunities for decent jobs and gender equity. In some contexts, the circular economy2 also provides a more focused and politically neutral framing than the green economy, as it is focused on functional environmental system links with the economy – high-level EC political missions have engaged with several developing countries on this.
Source: (European Commission, 2018[8]), The inclusive green economy in EU development cooperation: An innovative approach at the intersection of the EU's Planet, People and Prosperity objectives. European Commission. (IIED, 2018[6]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September.
A financial target or expenditure commitment can create a strong incentive to mainstream environment. The EC, Sida and EIB have financial targets for climate (and for biodiversity in the case of the EC and Sida, plus for environment in the case of Sida) which have helped to place these issues high on the operational agenda, ensuring both environment specialists and other staff treat them seriously (Box 3.3). The EC and Sida use a policy marker on the environment and the Rio objectives on climate change, biodiversity and desertification within the DAC Creditor Reporting System (Box 3.4) to track expenditure, whilst the EIB uses a tracking system agreed with other multilateral development banks. All these organisations also exercise quality control to try to avoid over-stating achievements, and to ensure all contributions are captured accurately by their statistical systems. One lesson is that an emphasis on accounting for financial targets needs to be accompanied by medium to long-term monitoring of results if it is to ensure real environmental integration into project design and improvement in the quality of activities.
Box 3.3. Good practice in using financial targets to encourage mainstreaming
The EC has committed to spending 20% of its budget on climate action, along with a target that is less well-known – contributing to the Hyderabad commitment of doubling biodiversity-related financing flows to developing countries (which translates into a target of EUR 332 million a year). The contributions to the climate target come primarily from spending on climate-related agriculture and energy programmes, and may be increased to 25% in the next EU budget. The European Investment Bank already has an ambitious target for climate action for developing countries of 35% of lending by 2020, increased from about 25% in 2015.
Sida has a set of environment targets to achieve by 2020, and baselines against which to compare them. The overall environment target is to increase the share of funding in which environment is a principal objective to 15% (from 12% in 2016), and a significant objective to 45% (from 34% in 2016). The climate target is to increase the share of Sida’s total funding (climate financing) to 28% (from 13% in 2015). For biodiversity, the target is to increase funding where biodiversity is a principal objective to 4% (from 1% in 2015) and a significant objective to 15% (11% in 2015).
Source: (IIED, 2018[6]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September; (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Broadening the themes
Between them, DAC members cover a wide range of environment issues, and there are always new topics in the spotlight. SDG14 and the ocean are areas of emerging interest for Canada and Sweden, for example. There is much scope for DAC interaction and learning on such issues. However, peers warned against constructing siloed, single-issue approaches to the environment given their intimate interlinkages – instead they should keep oversight of the breadth of environment concerns. While DAC members vary in their environmental foci, some clear patterns emerge:
Climate – both adaptation and mitigation – dominates other environment issues for most DAC members. This is true for the EC, Sida and Global Affairs Canada. This is not surprising given the political and economic imperatives of climate change and the resounding success of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change as a piece of political consensus building. Climate has succeeded to such an extent that it might now be described as having been mainstreamed. However, there is some concern amongst civil society groups and some peers that climate change adaptation and resilience are not receiving enough attention from DAC members as climate change mitigation, despite adaptation being the primary concern expressed by many developing countries, and especially the least developed countries (LDCs). Within this area, the links between climate and gender challenges have become clearer, and this is a growing area of programming, including in Canada and Sweden.
Where climate is a dominant political narrative and/or programme area, there is a strategic logic to combining broader environment mainstreaming with climate mainstreaming. This approach has been explicitly taken in the EC, for example. The political priority of climate can be used to raise less prominent environment issues such as biodiversity.
Box 3.4. Reporting of environment-related development finance
The OECD Creditor Reporting System (CRS) monitors development finance that is targeted at climate- and environment-related objectives. For each activity reported, DAC members indicate whether it targets environment, or more specifically the objectives of the Rio Conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification; and whether it does so as a ‘principal’ objective or as a ‘significant’ objective. Activities scored as ‘principal’ would only have been funded to achieve that policy objective; activities scored ‘significant’ have other primary objectives but have been formulated or adjusted to help meet the policy objective. Through this scoring system, the markers provide an indication of the degree of mainstreaming of environmental considerations into development co-operation portfolios. Reporting on these policy markers is mandatory for DAC members. A few non-DAC members and multilateral providers, including environment- and climate-related funds and programmes, also apply the markers on a voluntary basis.
Since 2013, seven large multilateral development banks (MDB) have reported project-level data on their climate-related development finance to the DAC through the identification of climate components within projects, based on a joint MDB methodology.
Note: For more information see: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CRS1
Biodiversity is experiencing growing interest among DAC members, albeit starting from a low base. Commitments are illustrated by Sida’s 15% biodiversity integration target, and the EC’s intention to double biodiversity aid, described above. Biodiversity is likely to receive growing international focus in the run up to the 2020 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of the Parties (CoP) in China, where new targets will be agreed. At present, however, the extent of biodiversity mainstreaming remains limited, and most DAC members’ support for biodiversity has been through dedicated projects rather than mainstreaming. Reasons given are common across peers: 1) the economic rationale for biodiversity has not been recognised in the same way as for climate;3 2) the complexity and multifaceted reforms required to stem biodiversity loss compared to the comparatively ‘technically manageable’ (although politically resisted) growth-enhancing fixes to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions; and 3) the perception that biodiversity is a narrow niche not well linked to other development imperatives.
However, these views are being challenged in the run up to the CBD CoP in 2020, notably by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).4 Its 2019 Global Assessment Report underlines the urgency of many threats to biodiversity and their human consequences (IPBES, 2019[10]). It argues that biodiversity is a development issue: it underpins environmental goods and services which poor people cannot afford to buy – such as flood protection, food and health. The loss of biodiversity poses risks to hard-won development gains by compromising agricultural adaptive capacity, exacerbating natural disasters, reducing carbon storage, and damaging important global and local heritage (Roe, Seddon and Elliot, 2019[11]). Peers noted the constructive potential of linking biodiversity with other environmental priorities, e.g. integrating it into climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, which warrants greater exploration.
Environmental pollution has been neglected by many DAC members, in spite of clear evidence of its poverty, health and gender links. Peers concluded that DAC members should widen their focus to take account of the full range of environment issues relevant to development, notably poor local environmental health that especially affects women and girls in LDCs and fragile states (e.g. access to water and sanitation; exposure to vector-borne disease such as malaria and dengue; and indoor and outdoor air, ground and water pollution). According to the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, “diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015—16% of all deaths worldwide—three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence. In the most severely affected countries, pollution-related disease is responsible for more than one death in four” (Landrigan et al., 2017[12]).
Environment is one of the five dimensions of fragility addressed in the OECD fragility framework, and environmental fragility5 has increased since 2016 (OECD, 2018[13]). Importantly, official development assistance (ODA) is the most significant flow to countries that are highly environmentally fragile – such as Burundi, Mali and Mozambique – and can thus play a significant role in reducing environmental fragility.
While emphasis on fragility has become a key element of delivering on the SDGs, the peer learning found that this should not be to the detriment of a medium-term commitment to tackling environmental aspects in fragile and crisis-affected areas. In particular, there are some important linkages which must be kept in mind:
In fragile states, there is growing evidence that environmental decline and exposure to climate shocks is contributing to country fragility and conflict (OECD, 2018[13]).
Because of a looser regulatory framework, fragile states are more prone to large-scale environmental degradation and environmental risks.
Humanitarian response also raises environmental health issues (albeit more limited in scope). For example sanitation and indoor air pollution from biomass burning are problems in and around refugee camps. Environmental degradation such as water scarcity and poor quality can also create severe humanitarian needs and population displacements.
As DAC members’ engagement in fragile and crisis contexts increases, a better understanding of the environmental dimension of fragility in each context will be required. Because fragility and environmental risks feed each other, taking into account the environmental dimension while programming in fragile and crisis contexts is becoming increasingly relevant and warrants further enquiry.
With public-private blended finance growing as an aid instrument, there is a pressing need to mainstream environment into this process. This will include making links between private finance and the transition to an inclusive, green economy, with specific focus on infrastructure, energy, urban development and agriculture. This requires greater attention by DAC member environment professionals, supported by training and guidance. Country partners will also need support and capacity building.
Robust systems, processes and tools
Embedding environmental appraisal
A rigorous environmental appraisal of each proposed project/programme is a key entry point for effective mainstreaming. This is most effective when it looks at both negative environmental impacts as well as positive environmental opportunities. It should also run all the way through the project cycle from identification, to design, approval, implementation, monitoring and learning. Recent trends among some members of making environmental appraisal more flexible – sometimes voluntary rather than mandatory, context-specific rather than entirely rules-based, and participatory rather than organised by environment staff – have helped increase the profile and ownership of the mainstreaming process and its results. However, for some members this has also meant that the appraisal has lost rigour and, as a result, some activities have become exposed to environmental risk. Nevertheless, many DAC members have good examples to learn from – the key being to embed environmental appraisal in the overall management system (Box 3.5).
Box 3.5. Good practice in environmental appraisal
It has been mandatory for all Swedish government agencies to establish an Environmental Management System (EMS) since 2009, and to operate it according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency's guidelines. Sida has focused its EMS on managing the potential environmental impacts of its diverse roles as financier, analyst and dialogue partner, as well as its direct green office operational impacts. Sida is working towards ISO14001 assurance of its EMS to attest to the quality of the system. The EMS is recognised as a foundation for Sida’s work in environmental integration, and applies to the full cycle of planning, implementation and monitoring of strategies and contributions. The 2018 Sida environment audit (itself a requirement of the EMS) noted that Sida’s leadership is committed to the EMS as a way to strengthen the quality of Sida's overall work, and that the annual external audits of the EMS have strong messaging and strategic potentials.
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has evolved a rigorous system, and a strong and sophisticated set of environmental appraisal tools as part of the Environmental Integration Process (see Box 3.1). This process is not limited to the project design phase, but continues throughout implementation. Tools include environmental screening and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for policies and strategies requiring ministerial approval. These require sign-off by GAC staff and GAC-appointed environmental specialists before projects can proceed, ensuring that environmental issues cannot be ignored.
Source: (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019; (IIED, 2019[7]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Canada, 1-5 April 2019.
Integrating multiple goals
It can be useful to consider mainstreaming as a methodology for integrating multiple cross-cutting goals, and not simply as a one-way, single-issue campaign. The EC, EIB and Sida, for example, all have approaches to mainstreaming multiple issues, embracing gender, human rights and the environment (Box 3.6). The SDGs, whole-of-government approaches to development, and other holistic frameworks on the one hand, and DAC members’ development of results-based management on the other, provide imperatives and opportunities to pull these different mainstreaming dimensions together (although there may be organisational challenges in doing so).6
From a DAC member perspective, a highly integrated approach encourages greater team working and interdisciplinarity. It creates an enabling context for staff to open up to environment issues, probably more so than if environment was mainstreamed on its own. It should help staff to be in a stronger position to respond to future multi-faceted policy drivers such as the SDGs and the green economy. The multiple perspectives can also help those working on dedicated environment projects to integrate the most relevant aspects of, for example, gender, rights and conflict into their environment work. This can improve the robustness of work on environmental problems: for example, specific environment challenges that involve women may turn out to be better addressed as a gender intervention than an environmental one on its own.
From a country partner perspective, integrated multiple mainstreaming may often more closely mirror the situation on the ground than a siloed sector approach. Local people often more strongly feel environmental, gender or conflict realities than they do sector problems in say infrastructure or agriculture. This more joined-up, strategic approach can also reduce mainstreaming fatigue, as long as it avoids inefficient attempts to deal with everything.
Box 3.6. Good practice in integrating multiple issues
Triggered by the EC’s gender and rights policy focal points, all EC staff involved in mainstreaming are beginning to explore the potential of a systems approach integrating gender, rights and environment in a joined up, coherent way.
Sida’s work on environmental mainstreaming is not undertaken in isolation – it mainstreams several cross-cutting issues together. Responding to Sweden’s Policy for Global Development, Sida prioritises five perspectives to be integrated into its work: environment/climate, poor people’s perspective, gender, human rights, and conflict. Each of these perspectives at the policy level are assessed at the diagnostic level using Sida’s multi-dimensional poverty analysis (MDPA) (Sida, 2017[14]), and are co-ordinated by a Policy Support Unit with staff responsible for each of the five perspectives.
The purpose of the MDPA is to contribute to a shared and deeper understanding of multidimensional poverty, better knowledge about how Sida’s operations affect people living in poverty and better operational decisions that reflect the perspective of people living in poverty.
The MDPA identifies four dimensions of poverty: resources; opportunities and choice; power and voice; and human security. In analysing each of these, a consideration of the environmental context is required.
Source: (IIED, 2018[6]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September; (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Starting mainstreaming early
Starting mainstreaming early, and envisioning its outcomes, can exploit more opportunities, whereas leaving it late makes it appear as a constraint to development. Peers felt that exploring and discussing environment potentials and risks earlier in the programming cycle were much more engaging to staff, opening up opportunities to consider potential outcomes of mainstreaming and to be innovative. Many colleagues in country offices and embassies in particular expressed this view. In contrast, if environmental concerns are left until relatively late in planning, while the potential environmental problems may be clearer by this stage, mainstreaming can come across as an obstacle to ideas that have already been developed, or at least as a bureaucratic hurdle.
However, for many DAC members, mainstreaming has concentrated principally on the planning and design stages of the policy and project cycle, with mainstreaming in actual implementation relatively neglected. Mainstreaming in implementation requires many actors to improve their environmental awareness, capacity, production, purchasing and consumption behaviour. This will take significant time and sometimes resources. Canada has been taking pioneering steps to focus on these latter stages of the project cycle (Box 3.7).
Box 3.7. Good practice in mainstreaming during project implementation
Under Canada’s Environment Integration Process (EIP), environmental clauses are required in all contracts, agreements and arrangements for development assistance initiatives (including pre-negotiated grant arrangement templates). These require environmental deliverables or follow-up measures to be undertaken by the consultant/organisation after approval, in order to ensure compliance with Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) environmental policy and legal obligations. Typical environmental deliverables are environmental management plans, environmental site assessments, class-screening environmental assessment7 and further environmental analysis. Often these are included in contribution agreements (which specify activities, and what GAC provides and expects). Typical follow-up measures include reviews of project documents such as the Project Implementation Plan, annual workplans and progress reports, partner visits, project/programme evaluations, and due diligence assessments.
Source: (Global Affairs Canada, 2019[15]), Briefing Note: DAC-OECD Peer Learning Exercise on Mainstreaming Environment, March 2019.
Capacity and continuous skill development
Prioritising interdisciplinary skills
Interdisciplinary skills and holistic perspectives help staff to manage a diversity of cross-cutting issues – including environment. A mainstreamed world is a more integrated, interdisciplinary and participatory world. It demands people with the skills to listen and empathise; to understand, solicit and work with different disciplines; to build trust; and to drive institutional reform. But it is also a dynamic world – where policy priorities and technological possibilities often change rapidly, and the confluence of social, economic and environmental tipping points is an increasing risk. It is not a question of one-off mainstreaming, but of continuous effort so that environment is always part of the evolving agenda. In the development co-operation context, continuous skill development for all staff is therefore important, as Sida has experienced (Box 3.8). A good way to do this efficiently is through tailor-made modules that link to existing training such as for new staff or staff to be deployed overseas. For environment staff, peers particularly noted the need for improved capacity on economy-environment links and on the environmental issues arising from the general increase in public-private blended finance.
Box 3.8. Good practice in continual training
Sida makes significant efforts to train all staff in handling environment and climate issues. From 2016 to 2018, 33 training sessions were held at the embassies and in the operational departments at headquarters, mostly with support and participation from Sida’s Environment and Climate Helpdesk (see Box 3.10). The scope of the training has evolved from being focused on “What and why – environmental integration?” to “How – environmental integration?” The training is said to have shaped a common understanding among staff in Sida departments, units and embassies of the diverse and context-specific challenges in relation to environment. The training is felt to be more effective when it focuses on specific themes, including links with other cross-cutting issues and notably gender, and when it includes partners. Sida’s ongoing human resource planning exercise has started to look more closely at future skills needs for environmental mainstreaming, and at the gaps in Sida’s capacity and culture.
Source: (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Installing networks of practice
An internal environment/climate network or community of practice can stimulate learning and catalyse the collective responsibility needed for mainstreaming within the development co-operation agency. Sida again offers useful lessons here (Box 3.9). Without this, there is often too much reliance on individual mainstreaming champions, which does not always ensure consistency for partners, and the range of skills and opportunities across the agency can be overlooked. The need for development co-operation agencies to engage with external environment/climate networks was also noted, both in-country or globally – notably the DAC’s ENVIRONET and the Poverty Environment Partnership.8
Box 3.9. Good practice in using environment networks
Sida’s environment and climate network builds a virtual community of practice of about 90 people across Sida (nearly 15% of Sida staff). It includes sub-networks on water and sanitation, agriculture and energy. Meeting regularly, it is one of several thematic networks that have become part of Sida’s institutional landscape, and to which Sida management encourage staff contributions. The networks act as tools for learning and exchange across Sida units and departments, and help internal co-operation for improving the implementation of Sida’s financial and technical support.
Source: (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Maintaining expert capacity
An environment/climate helpdesk or facility can be an efficient way to maintain expert capacity and to organise, make available and provide an overview of the range of environmental knowledge, instructions, guides and tools. This can be either full-time and in-house, as in the EC, or part-time using draw-down external specialists, as in Sida (Box 3.10). Both models can work well, depending on the organisation’s structure and budget. One issue that requires consideration is the extent to which the facility should be proactive in driving environment mainstreaming (as is the EC’s), or reactive and driven by the demands of agency staff.
Box 3.10. Good practice in complementing limited technical staff capacity
The European Commission (EC) has recruited an external provider to run an environment/climate mainstreaming facility with three full-time equivalent consultancy staff largely based in-house. Together with the responsible services they support mainstreaming through awareness raising, technical assistance, assessment of proposals and plans, training of EC staff, tracking of financial commitments to the Rio convention objectives, and preparation of guidance materials. The role both responds to demand and is proactive in ensuring environment, climate and mainstreaming policies are implemented.
Sida’s Environment and Climate Helpdesk was initiated in 2009 by merging two existing helpdesks, for environmental economics and for environmental assessment. Call-down contracts with 13 staff in two leading Swedish universities offer access to a high standard of expertise, practical knowledge and academic research. The helpdesk is contracted through a central budget and has adequate resources to support Sida staff and partners on-demand.
Source (IIED, 2018[6]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September; (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Shared knowledge, learning and engagement
Building an evidence base
Understanding what works for integrating environment, what does not, and under what conditions, requires good analysis. However, peers felt that available evidence is too often restricted to isolated projects, and there is little exploration of the impacts of environment mainstreaming over time, and across different types of countries and themes. There is an appetite to do more to bring together material on environment mainstreaming practice, building on this DAC peer-learning exercise.
To date for most DAC members monitoring and evaluation of environment mainstreaming is limited to some tracking of the integration of environment and/or other Rio Convention objectives in financial commitment (Box 3.11). The indicator with most visibility is how much money is being spent on different environmental issues (and notably climate). Many DAC members use the Creditor Reporting System (CRS) policy markers on environment and on the Rio Conventions (Box 3.4) – both as input indicators for mainstreaming and as output indicators from mainstreaming. While detailed DAC guidance has been developed for the Rio Markers, similar guidance is not available for the environment marker. This is a potential area for collaboration, to which we turn in Chapter 4. Peers felt that, in general, there needs to be a more structured approach to planning, assessing and monitoring mainstreaming, with more precise targets so that progress can be tracked and challenges and opportunities identified.
Box 3.11. Good practice in the strategic use of the Rio Markers
Sida’s Statistical Handbook9 offers instructions for classifying contributions against the DAC CRS environment marker. This includes the use of environmental assessment, active use of environmental information, setting specific environmental objectives and activities, and monitoring them. Sida also has an Environmental Action Plan (EAP 2017-20) that sets environmental expenditure targets – describing what should be achieved, when and by whom. It includes quantitative financial targets and calls for annual reports using Rio Marker data, as noted in Box 3.3.
Source: (IIED, 2019[9]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
Promoting organisational learning
Organisational learning about how the environment matters in the institution’s work can drive real improvements in mainstreaming. How an organisation learns about environment in its work (and not just what it learns) can reinforce mainstreaming strategies and build the confidence to implement them. Learning opportunities like the EC’s annual environment weeks, seminars and case studies have helped, but DAC members could benefit from more deliberate, strategic (and potentially collective) knowledge management. The aim would be to connect and inform a community of practice of both specialist environment professionals and non-specialists across the organisation and build in useful feedback loops so that their work feeds learning.
Engaging civil society
Engaging civil society in policy dialogue and learning in partner countries and at headquarters can stimulate social demand for environment integration – and tap into real-world local perspectives. Most DAC members provide finance to civil society organisations and have some interaction with civil society representatives both domestically and in developing countries. The peer learning suggested that this was important for better understanding the political economy of environment, especially given the importance of some social movements, such as the recent engagement by youth on climate change. However, it was noted there is scope for further interaction, notably in country policy dialogue around pressing environmental issues and/or regular policy and planning review processes.
Well-supported country systems
Building commitment and capacity
Environment mainstreaming depends critically on country partner commitment, priorities and capacity; it should be less about outside agencies promoting mainstreaming and more about responding to demand from country actors. Mainstreaming needs to be driven by specific and high-profile environment/climate priorities relevant to the country’s development, e.g. supporting growth, jobs and security, and not diffused across a broad range of potential issues. A good starting point is including environment in policy dialogue between country delegations/embassies and partner countries, reinforced by identifying the country’s own demands for the environment. Linking up with nationally owned holistic processes can offer good opportunities for this: such as countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – which outline their domestic plans and priorities on climate change – their SDG planning, and their dialogue with civil society organisations.
Capacity support for environmental integration is particularly needed among country partners and should be at the heart of mainstreaming. This is more than simply a question of capacity to implement donor projects effectively. As peers’ discussions with embassy staff revealed, it relates to the capacity of country systems to integrate environment with poverty reduction. Most peers felt that more attention is needed to assess and build partners’ capacities for mainstreaming; Sida, for example, has started putting more effort into this, with many of the embassy training programmes including partner organisations.
Capacity building and policy dialogue must also move beyond ministries of environment to ministries of finance, planning, and key line ministries and agencies, such as agriculture, energy, and local government. This will ensure that mainstreaming achieves its objective of putting environment and climate at the centre of economic and political decision making. Peers highlighted the UNDP/UN Environment Poverty Environment Action for the SDGs programme (PEAS, successor to the pioneering Poverty Environment Initiative) as a strong example for reaching key government actors,10 as well as the EU Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) and the Green Economy Coalition. These are all supported by the EC (Box 3.12).
Box 3.12. Good practice in patient, strategic mainstreaming support to country partners
The EC has been a pioneering and patient supporter of four programmes for in-country mainstreaming:
The UNDP-UN Environment Poverty Environment Initiative (PEI) and its follow-up Poverty Environment Action for the SDGs (PEAS):11 PEAS focuses on mainstreaming improved natural resource management within ministries of finance and ministries of planning across Africa and Asia.
The Global Climate Change Alliance Plus initiative12 (GCCA+) works worldwide on mainstreaming climate resilience within multiple ministries.
The Green Economy Coalition (GEC)13 engages civil society partners in seven countries on their priority issues for mainstreaming environment and inclusion in economic development.
The Switch to Green initiative14 focuses on economic policy and business opportunities from the transition to a green economy.
All four EC-supported programmes have been running for over a decade and have in-country presence to engage in the labour-intensive practice of day-to-day mainstreaming by public and private stakeholders. The results of these programmes include strengthened capacity in-country, institutional reform, increased finance flows, greater social demand and support, and – with time – changes in environment and climate outcomes. There is potential for the EC to increase the strategic links among these four different but complementary programmes, which would enable them to be even more effective catalysts for change.
Source: (IIED, 2018[6]), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September.
Making the economic case and engaging the private sector
Mainstreaming in-country is more likely to be effective if there is a specific, and economically well-argued case for priority environment issues. Mainstreaming fatigue can be brought about when countries are required to address the full suite of environmental issues, rather than focusing on a more targeted set of politically or economically higher profile environmental challenges. While tools like environmental impact assessment (EIA), SEA and climate assessments can be useful, tools that demonstrate the economic links with environment can often (but not always) be more convincing. These economic tools include environmental economic valuation and national accounts; studies of the links between environment, poverty reduction, gender and growth; public environmental expenditure reviews; and reviews of fiscal revenues that environmental subsidy and tax reforms can generate.
Mainstreaming in-country also needs to engage with the key private sector actors who will lead the transition to an inclusive, green economy – both the larger firms and the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the informal sector who make up the backbone of most developing country economies. They may already be tapping into the new opportunities offered by an inclusive, green economy such as off-grid renewables and organic agriculture, but informal private sector actors in particular may lack access to credit, tenure, technology and skills. There is a need to mainstream green business thinking into general SME development in partner countries. This is likely to receive renewed attention with many DAC members turning towards blended finance and private sector development. But, in doing so, it is important to keep the focus on the green economy transition and to keep the needs of SMEs and the informal sector front and centre.
Disseminating effective and relevant tools
Many guides and tools are available for mainstreaming, but they need to be assessed for their relevance to country contexts, and their suitability to users and their demands. As well as the economics techniques above, and well-established environmental assessment tools like EIA and SEA, innovative approaches include sustainable value chain analysis, biodiversity risk management, multi-dimensional poverty assessment, and multi-risk mapping. DAC members are in a good position to assess user needs and outcomes, and to disseminate effective tools in partner countries through a communication strategy involving multimedia, especially visual materials such as videos.
References
[8] European Commission (2018), The inclusive green economy in EU development cooperation: An innovative approach at the intersection of the EU’s Planet, People and Prosperity objectives, Publications Office of the European Union.
[5] European Commission (2016), Integrating the environment and climate change into EU international cooperation and development; Towards sustainable development.
[1] European Council (2017), The New European Consensus on Development: ’Our World, Our Dignity, Our Future.
[15] Global Affairs Canada (2019), Briefing Note: DAC-OECD Peer Learning Exercise on Mainstreaming Environment, March 2019.
[3] Government of Canada (2016), The Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals.
[4] Government of Canada (2014), Environmental Integration Process - Screening Tool.
[2] Government of Canada (2012), Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012.
[7] IIED (2019), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Canada, 1-5 April 2019.
[9] IIED (2019), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to Sweden, 21-25 January 2019.
[6] IIED (2018), DAC Peer Learning on Mainstreaming Environment: Visit to the European Commission and European Investment Bank, 24-28 September.
[10] IPBES (2019), Global Assessment Summary for Policymakers, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Bonn, https://www.ipbes.net/news/ipbes-global-assessment-summary-policymakers-pdf.
[12] Landrigan, P. et al. (2017), “The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health”, The Lancet, http://dx.doi.org/dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32345-0.
[13] OECD (2018), States of Fragility 2018, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264302075-en.
[11] Roe, D., N. Seddon and J. Elliot (2019), Biodiversity loss is a development issue: a rapid review of evidence. IIED, London, https://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17636IIED.pdf.
[14] Sida (2017), MDPA Poverty Analysis, Sida, Stockholm, https://www.sida.se/contentassets/4ecfd42348644d32abbfdccbed6f15c0/mdpa_poverty_analysis.pdf.
Notes
← 3. This has been recognised with the United Kingdom government’s commissioning in 2019 of Sir Partha Dasgupta to write a report on the Economics of Biodiversity to complement the Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change.
← 4. For information about the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, see https://www.ipbes.net/
← 5. Environmental fragility is one of five dimensions considered in the OECD’s fragility framework. It aims to capture the vulnerability to environmental, climactic and health risks to citizens’ lives and livelihoods. This includes exposure to natural disasters, pollution and disease epidemics (OECD, 2018[13]).
← 6. The forthcoming OECD report Climate Change Mitigation through a Well-Being Lens looks at how governments might achieve two-way alignment between climate action and broader goals of well-being and sustainable development, to both ensure that climate action meets other important societal goals and does not negatively impact on key dimensions of well-being, and that action in non-climate policy is supportive of and does not undermine the pursuit of climate change mitigation goals.
← 7. Class screening in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is a special type of screening that can help streamline the environmental assessment of projects that are not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects. See https://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=0DF82AA5-1&offset=3&toc=hide#p2-1
← 8. The Poverty-Environment Partnership (PEP) is an informal network of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, UN organisations and international NGOs. The PEP seeks to integrate poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and climate resilience in global, national and local development agendas. For more information see http://www.povertyenvironment.net/partnership
← 9. Available on https://openaid.se
← 10. Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI) lessons were shared in the second Paris workshop by UNDP, UNEP and a PEI partner country, Mozambique.
← 11. See https://www.unenvironment.org/regions/asia-and-pacific/regional-initiatives/poverty-environment-action-sustainable-development
← 12. See www.gcca.eu