The challenges of environmental mainstreaming into development institutions and decisions

AIMED AT: Policy Makers PURPOSE:To develop a guide to a range of approaches and tools/methods for environmental mainstreaming applied at different levels (e.g. national, district, community) and by a range of users, and to identify which approaches and tools work best, for what purpose and for which user GEOGRAPHICAL AREA: Caribbean, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ghana, India, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines, South Africa TECHNICAL AREA: Mainstreaming, climate change, development BASIC STRUCTURE: The paper reviews the context and challenges to environmental mainstreaming (EM), discusses what it takes to achieve effective EM, and provides a roadmap for selecting operational EM methods and tools. The focus is on those approaches and tools which directly help to shape policies, plans and decisions;not the wider array of secondary tools applied to implement those decisions. The conclusion is that too many tools are being ‘pushed’ by outside interests, and too few locally developed (and more informal, or less expensive) approaches are widely known. There is not enough ‘demand-pull’ information from potential users. Neither is there enough information available that helps them to select the right tool themselves – as opposed to taking what others want or suggest/promote. Given the prevalence of ‘top-down’ material promoting particular mainstreaming techniques on the one hand, and the paucity of really effective mainstreaming to date on the other, the conclusion is that environmental mainstreaming capacity will be much stronger if stakeholders are able to select tools, methods and tactics that are relevant to their context. Some of these will be widely used and others still in development; some are easy to do and others demanding of skills and money; some are effective but others are not.

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