Chapter 1: Regional Context and Priorities
Video 1.2.2: Municipal waste management in Oman
Video 1.2.3: Global Waste Challenge
1.3 Environmental governance and sustainability
Environmental governance is the means by which society determines and acts on goals and priorities related to the management of natural resources. It includes the rules, both formal and informal, that govern human behaviour in decision-making processes as well as the decisions themselves. Appropriate legal frameworks at global, regional, national and local levels are a prerequisite for good environmental governance. Thus, environmental governance refers to processes of decision-making to control and manage the environment and natural resources that build on principles such as inclusiveness, participation, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. Environmental governance aims to ensure sustainable development through the good management of the environment including social, economic and political aspects. It involves or presupposes the adoption of an holistic approach that takes into consideration all stakeholders from public (governmental institutions) to private (individuals and businesses) as well as civil society (non-governmental and civil society organisations).
1.3.1 Governance and sustainability
Throughout West Asia, governments and stakeholders are increasingly interested in environmental matters including governance, even though their ability to act remains crucially
limited due to institutional weakness and a lack of adequate resources devoted to the sector, including legislation with a defined role.
Institutionally, West Asian environmental governance can be categorized into six broad types:
•
inter-ministerial environmental Councils (Box 1.3.1) with environmental secretariats, as in Bahrain and Kuwait: these are inter-ministerial bodies with technical secretariats that take action on specific decisions endorsed by the council;
• environmental directorates within line ministries, as in Saudi Arabia: typically, an environmental directorate is an agency or department within a ministry;
• combined ministries, as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen: in these cases responsibility for environmental matters is included in the mandate of a larger ministry responsible for a related area of government policy, such as tourism, water resources or planning, reflecting a shift in priorities regarding the relative importance of environmental issues in these sectors;
• semi-independent environmental agencies, such as in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Syria: the environmental agency may have its own Minister of State, but is usually represented in the Council of Ministers by the minister of an associated line ministry;
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