governance

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INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT AS AN IMPERATIVE TO REALIZING THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER AND SANITATION

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Pedi Obani* and Joyeeta Gupta**

ABSTRACT

There are a plethora of governance instruments for operationalizing human rights obligations on water and sanitation at multiple levels of governance. The realization that the human right to water and sanitation depends on the discourses and approaches used in a country to implement it implies that it is not self-evident that implementing the right will lead to inclusive development. The inclusive development aims at not only social inclusion but also ecological and relational inclusion, where the latter aims at ensuring that the structural causes of inequality are also addressed. Relying on an extensive literature review and jurisprudence on the human right to water and sanitation, we develop an ideal-typical conceptual framework for assessing the human right to water and sanitation with inclusive development as an imperative. Our framework is based on the premise that governance instruments are value-laden tools which can steer social changes depending on the contextual political paradigm which can be garnered from the goals, ownership models, accountability mechanisms and incentives of actors involved in the governance process. We, therefore, propose a simple model for assessing whether the governance instruments for operationalizing the human right to water and sanitation will, in fact, lead to inclusive development.

Keywords: Human Rights, Governance, Water and Sanitation

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i2.4

* Lecturer I, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria; PhD Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and the UNIHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands. Email: pedi.obani@gmail.com; pedi.obani@uniben.edu. ** Professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and UN-IHE Institute for Water Education, The Netherlands. This article is based on ongoing PhD research and supervision financed by the NUFFIC Netherlands Fellowship Professional Project No. CF 162/2012 for which the authors are very grateful.

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THE NEED FOR A GOOD ENOUGH TERRITORIAL AND ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE IN SOUTH SUDAN

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Francis Onditi* and Cristina D’Alessandro**

ABSTRACT

Peace and conflict dynamics in South Sudan are intertwined with political governance, institutional capacities, and leadership. Nevertheless, in the specific South Sudanese intractable civil wars since signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, territorial and economic governance are also certainly strictly connected to any possible prospect of sustainable peace for the country. As such, after carefully defining these concepts, this article emphasizes that territorial governance in South Sudan relates to boundaries definition and to the division of the national territory in states with a certain degree of autonomy. The issues and divergences engendered by territorial governance are intertwined with economic governance concerns. The uneven distribution of natural resources (especially oil) produces wealth and power redistribution concerns that are at the core of contentious relations between social and ethnic groups. These circles of tensions rapidly degenerate into conflict in a context of widespread poverty, inequality, and consequent social vulnerability. The article defines and illustrates a “good enough” territorial and economic governance framework for the South Sudanese case study.

Keywords: South Sudan; Governance; Resources; Territory; Political System.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i2.1

* Senior Lecturer & Head of Department, School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Riara University, Nairobi, Kenya. Email: fonditi@riarauniversity.ac.ke. He previously served as Governance and Political Leadership policy analyst, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Nairobi.

** Senior Fellow at the Centre of Governance at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and a Research Fellow at the Research Centre PRODIG (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonnne, CNRS), Paris, France and a Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences-Po, Paris, France). Previously she served as a Knowledge Expert at the African Capacity Building Foundation in Harare (Zimbabwe) and as a professor at the University Lumière Lyon 2. Email: cdalessa@uottawa.ca

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TOWARDS A FLUID AND MULTISCALAR GOVERNANCE OF EXTRACTIVE RESOURCES IN AFRICA1

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Cristina D’Alessandro*

ABSTRACT

Political geographies of oil investigate extractive value chains with an emphasis on governance and scales, analysing the role that territories and especially spatial networks play in these dynamics. While underlining the limits and gaps of territorial governance, as it is nowadays theorized and used in the academic literature, extractive resources, particularly in developing contexts, call for fluid networks, and multiscalar governance; more flexible and adapted to changing contexts. This approach leads to networked justice, as a consequent adaptation of spatial justice to these specific situations. This article points out, for instance, the geopolitics of pipelines in Africa and its critical role in transforming the continent, despite its related challenges and conflicts. It advocates a better governance of extractive resources in Africa. Scholars have a role to play in this process, helping to analyse critical phenomena and sensitive dynamics, as well as provide sound policy recommendations.

Keywords: Extractive resources, sub-Saharan Africa, territorial governance, political geography, justice.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.14

* Senior Fellow, Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa, Canada.

1 This paper is part of the Qatar Foundation’s National Priorities Research Programme – NPRP 6-1272-5-160.

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LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT CREATION WITH AFRICAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

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Franklyn Lisk*

ABSTRACT

Natural resources are an assured source of government revenue, but this does not always translate into more jobs, better productivity or an increased demand for that country. Traditionally, the role of government in a resource-rich country has always been to act in the best interests of its citizens. In the case of natural resource-rich nations, this role also includes ensuring that jobs in the extractive sector are safe – both in the physical and financial sense. In such competitive environments, the private sector also has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that all employees are fairly treated. However, it is evident that almost all African nations that are rich in resources are affected by lack of human development. This article examines the current state of affairs in the resource-rich African nations and their impact on human development. It focuses on how these resource-dependent economies are experiencing economic growth and why this growth does not directly translate into higher and better employment for the local populations. The article examines growth and human development from the perspectives of both the private- and public-sector actors. It recommends that private actors should have a complementary approach, through foreign direct investors or other modes, to the long-term policies and plans set out by the state. This approach would allow for successful intersectoral linkages and community development through higher job creation. It argues that the state is responsible for managing these natural resources and highlights the role of governance in this management. Governance issues, challenges, such as developmental gains, job creation, transparency and accountability are all addressed in the article. Finally, the article strongly recommends developing both human and institutional capital and regulating production.

Keywords: Resource development, resource curse, Africa, governance, management.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.12

* Professorial Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization (CSGR), University of Warwick, UK. Email: f.lisk@warwick.ac.uk

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INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE: LESSONS FROM UNEA AND PERSPECTIVES ON THE POST-2015 ERA

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Joseph Nyangon*

ABSTRACT

The inaugural meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) held in June 2014 in Nairobi, was a culmination of more than four decades of environmental governance since the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was established in 1972 in Stockholm. The meeting addressed weighty and contentious issues including strengthening of UNEP’s role in promoting environmental governance and enhancing science-policy interface. Yet despite the historical significance of the meeting following universalization of the governing body of UNEP and current debates on the post-2015 development agenda, questions persist about the role of UNEP, its establishment, performance, and fragmentation of programmes and secretariats of the multilateral environmental agreements associated with it. This paper reviews the outcome of the inaugural UNEA session, while developing a political economy account of institutional arrangements of international environmental governance to clarify the potential for, and barriers to effective environmental reform. Multilaterally, international environmental governance continues to exhibit elements of complexity, fragmentation, lack of coordination as well as redundancy. In more critical terms, lack of policy integration between environmental regimes is a concern of environmental governance that the new UNEA should address as a matter of priority. Furthermore, incoherent policy objectives in international environmental law often characterised as a governance patchwork have been criticized for their economic orthodoxies that only serve to marginalize and delegitimize alternative modes of environmental governance. In this regard, a core part of UNEA’s institutional legitimacy depends on its success in coevolving to keep up with environmental challenges as they themselves change, as well as enhancing consensus-based stakeholder engagement, perspectives, and participation on environmental governance. This will be its true litmus test on how it responds coherently and effectively to international environmental governance in a post-2015 development world.

Keywords: International environmental governance, institutional arrangements, UNEA, political economy, fragmentation, SDGs, post-2015 goals

* Joseph Nyangon, Ph.D. Researcher, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP), University of Delaware, U.S.A., jnyangon@udel.edu.

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GOVERNANCE AND THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA.

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Patrick Oluwole, Ojo Friday Aworawo, and IfedayoTolu Elizabeth*

ABSTRACT

Various factors are said to be responsible for Nigeria’s current status as an underdeveloped country. These range from historical colonial experience, political instability, the monoculture nature of the national economy, and the persistent lack of commitment to focused development strategies on the part of the political elites. The most popular among the prescriptions for tackling the phenomenon of underdevelopment emphasized macroeconomic policies, economic diversification, transparency and accountability in governance and even direct distribution of resource proceeds to the general population. These solutions have not been able to adequately address Nigeria’s development challenges. However, the crucial role of the regulatory institutions, especially their oversight functions, has arguably been the missing link in establishing the complimentary relationship between governance and development in Nigeria. This paper discusses the importance of governance institutions as a fundamental determinant of robust and sustainable social and economic development in Nigeria.

Keywords: Democracy, Corruption, Governance, Socio-economic development

* Department of Political Science and International Studies , Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti.