Summary Note on Key Issues and Proposals from the EGP Annual Meeting, Stockholm 29 Nov 1 Dec 2016

Transcription

1 Summary Note on Key Issues and Proposals from the EGP Annual Meeting, Stockholm 29 Nov 1 Dec 2016 The purpose of this note is to offer insights that promote debate and action by Environmental Governance Programme (EGP) stakeholders. It highlights structural, capacity and implementation issues in sustainable natural resource management, human rights and rule of law in environmental public administration, focusing on the mining sector. Proposals are also featured for learning, development and adaptation by the EGP programme. The note summarises inputs and discussions from the programme s 2016 Annual Meeting of the Columbia, Mongolia, Mozambique and Kenya country teams hosted by SEPA-UNDP and supported by the EGP Advisory Board. This summary note was prepared by Carl Jackson (Westhill Knowledge).

2 Structural Issues Government agencies with roles and responsibilities related to the mining sector are pursuing different economic/regulatory regimes and paths to national growth and development. Several different government agencies have roles and responsibilities related to governance of the mining sector. However, these roles and responsibilities are not always clearly defined and there is often a lack of coordination and cooperation between different agencies. They can be competitive and often share insufficient information with each other. Issues related to lack of coordination and collaboration is often compounded by a lack of functional clarity. Government agencies can have different perceptions of what human rights mean, the links between environmental degradation and human rights violations, and where human rights should be positioned in relation to mining. There can be a disconnect between human rights commissions and ministries of mining and environment. All these differences can play out from national down to sub-national and local levels of inter-ministerial / agency competition. There is insufficient information disclosure by mining companies and potential conflicts of interest when mining companies hire consultants that conduct environmental impact assessments. Solutions require effective cross-sectoral coordination, a role for national human rights commissions, including in mining decision-making processes. They also require the establishment of mechanisms that link the public administration to civil society to bridge the gap to the community level. Such mechanisms should include the empowerment of both government employees and citizens to consider the basic rule of law and human rights as guiding principles for the interface between public agencies and the constituencies they are intended to serve. This includes equal consideration of the needs and demands of citizens irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. There remain challenges with insufficient regulation and legislation concerning how human rights and rule of law principles are integrated within the licensing, decommissioning, closure and rehabilitation of mines. Closure and rehabilitation should be included in environmental impact assessments. Insurance, tax, and bond based approaches to resourcing mine closure and rehabilitation (including when mining companies fail) should be explored. Institutional Capacity Issues The differential capacities of state actors (i.e. their resources, legal powers, technical skills) to enact their formal roles and responsibilities amplify structural differences. Capacity development to address these differences should be strategic and comprehensive across the mining sector rather than on a project-by-project basis. While countries often have an ample legislative and sometimes policy framework, it is rare for public administrative agencies involved in environmental governance of the mining sector to 1

3 analyse their existing capacity to address issues and decisions based on a set of clear principles rooted in the rule of law and human rights. Substantive participation of all citizens before, during and after mining and in relation to the sector s impact on national level development is needed. There can be long-term benefits for the success of mining operations from informed citizens and transparent mining. However, too often there are significant gaps at the community level in terms of citizen access to information and to accountability mechanisms on human rights provisions and environmental impacts. The weak capacity of citizens and their representatives (elected, civic, and traditional) at the community level further hinders their meaningful engagement and influence over the development and implementation of legislation and policies. Absence of a dialogue between stakeholders can be addressed through multistakeholder platforms for the mining sector (which can also contribute to joint policy development, priority setting, increased transparency, enhanced trust and social capital). Multi-stakeholder engagement in the mining cycle can also reduce conflicts of interest that arise when mining companies provide capacity development to selected civic representatives. The judiciary also has an important role to play, but they often have capacity development needs in relation to environmental mining issues. Mining companies legal capacities are often much greater than those of the judiciary. Lessons can be drawn from both good and negative examples to better influence/inform policy, legislation and implementation. However, negative examples can be controversial in country and so lessons from relevant histories of mining in Europe and North America can be useful in that case. Other opportunities exist in greater south-south learning and experience sharing, peer-to-peer learning at national level, and capacity sharing with other ministries that have related skills (e.g. in environmental monitoring). There is a lack of domestication of international good practice guidance. Implementation Issues Countries in the EGP face particular challenges in integrating human rights and sound environmental practices in the mining sector. There are systemic weaknesses in implementation of legislation and regulation on the ground. Evaluation of implementation, especially with substantive community participation and monitoring, is lacking. Illegal mining often represents a significant proportion of all mining but sometimes falls out of the traditional scope of the environmental public administration. Illegal mining is often strongly linked to armed groups providing protection for such operations and the absence of rule of law in these mining locations. Mining revenues are highly volatile and their distribution is skewed. Communities need to gain more knowledge about the potential benefits from mining revenue. These revenues should be shared directly or indirectly with communities / artisanal miners as well as with key actors involved in 2

4 strengthening capacity to achieve wider developmental impacts. Royalty revenues from the private sector are generally too low to support development impacts and capacity development. There is no one mining sector and therefore risks and remedies differ substantially between different types of mining. Proposals for the Environmental Governance Programme EGP is an innovative programme that aims to help address a number of the issues mentioned above. It recognizes the key role of environmental public administration in realizing human rights to ensure sound environmental management and better development outcomes of mining for all citizens. The EGP needs to further adapt to feedback from programme country stakeholders by continually fine-tuning / clarifying key messages / concepts as the learning process goes on and continuing to be demand driven. It needs to be more widely known among other global stakeholders by offering a clearer description of what it is about, clarifying project focus and objectives and developing a Theory of Change. As such, partnerships and south-south cooperation need to be strengthened through activities such as webinars, the GOXI platform, trainings and workshops in countries and at the global level. EGP could strengthen in country and cross-country coordination including with partner initiatives to avoid duplication, leverage synergies and better systematize knowledge across fields of expertise. Furthermore, greater emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring that social dimensions including gender and indigenous rights are an integral part of all the programme s activities and tools, including in the Rule of Law in Public Administration of Mining (RoLPA-M) assessment and follow-up implementation of its recommendations. Collaboration could be strengthened with UN Women and country-based women s NGOs. The RoLPA and Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment (SESA) assessment tools can strengthen the human rights-based policies and capacities that determine the decision-making processes of administrative agencies that govern the mining sector. EGP needs to do a better job of unpacking Human Rights / Rule of Law / Environmental Governance / Public Administration conceptual issues, in particular by explaining what the programme is doing rather than trying to define what the programme means by the different concepts. Further implementation of these tools requires data gathering to develop baselines, identifying capacity and coordination gaps, overcoming challenges related to the procurement of consultants through greater collaboration with national research institutes, improving government buy-in and ownership, contextualisation of the tools to each country, and coordination through multi-stakeholder groups. The tools need to be responsive to associated rights to water, land (including communal ownership), and information. EGP has an ongoing role in facilitating peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing using these tools. Key support needs of EGP country partners to enhance the relevance and effect of the RoLPA assessments include: 3

5 1. Capacity development to country advisory committee (webinars, training, country exchanges, good practices / lessons); 2. Methods and capacity to integrate human rights and gender perspectives; 3. Benchmark indicators for successful integration of human rights and rule of law principles in public administration of the mining sector. There was a consensus that the EGP Flagship Guidance Note should adopt a general framework under which each country can domesticate the lessons and tools presented to their own countryspecific contexts. It should cover the full mining cycle with current examples of successful efforts by central and local government, communities and private sector partners which contrast to less successful policy and practice in the past. It should be co-created with EGP partners in country, linked to existing complimentary resources, and be an innovative living document and on-line product. The kinds of behaviour change the note seeks will require translating legislation into action on the ground and monitoring and evaluating these changes. The GOXI knowledge-sharing platform on governance of extractive industries presents capacity development opportunities through continued practitioner sharing of country experiences and challenges on the Environmental Governance of the Mining Sector Group. Background on the EGP Annual Meeting The SEPA-UNDP Environmental Governance Programme for Sustainable Natural Resource Management - Human Rights and Rule of Law in Environmental Public Administration, focusing on the mining sector held its Annual Meeting in Stockholm from November 29 1 December The three-day meeting included a focus on global level work and the four supported countries of Colombia, Mongolia, Mozambique, and Kenya. Country teams shared updates, good practices and lessons learned from EGP and partner initiatives. This knowledge exchange was integrated in a review of the country diagnostics applied in the four countries, namely the ROLPA-M and SESA. This review of methodologies and progress, in turn, flowed into the work planning sessions for both country and global level of the programme. The Annual Meeting also provided a platform to establish links between the country level work, to harvest feedback on the design of the EGP Guidance Note, webinar series, and to promote and grow the GOXI community of practice. All of these activities were also integrated in the work planning sessions. The EGP Board of Advisors, in addition to meeting in parallel, joined the working sessions and played active roles in facilitating country and cross-country dialogue as well as providing their reflections on sessions. 4

6 The event brought together over 50 representatives from national governments, civil society and multilateral institutions, as well as the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and UNDP staff, including: Ministries of Environment, Mineral Resources, and Energy; environmental licensing agencies; national and local environmental public administrations / agencies (from Kenya, Mongolia, Colombia and Mozambique); UNITAR; UNEP; UN Women; National Human Rights Commissions; the Institute for Human Rights and Business; Earth Rights International; Folke Bernadotte Academy; Stockholm Environment Institute; the Environmental Law Institute; Witwatersrand University; Source International; and WWF. Facilitation for the event was provided by Lund University in collaboration with Westhill Knowledge. By the end of the conference, there was a clearer understanding of how assessing and incorporating human-rights and rule of law principles in environmental public administration can improve the social and environmental outcomes for all citizens in line with Sustainable Development Goals. Participants also visited SEPA to hear about its work; attended a joint Sida, SEPA and UNDP Seminar on Human Rights and Environmental Sustainability; and undertook a field visit to the Garpenberg mine hosted by the Bolinden Group. For more information contact: Sanna Due from UNDP/SEPA; sanna.due@undp.org Ann Cathrin Pedersen from UNDP; ann.pedersen@undp.org 5