While many national governments have made real progress in honoring their 1992 Rio Earth Summit commitments to better include the public in environmental decisions, a new book released here today in honor of World Environment Day finds that all the countries studied have fallen short in some aspect.
It would be impossible to identify all the decisions to be made by governments that will affect the environment in different places in the coming years.
Environmental democracy is about government being transparent, accountable, and involving people in decisions that affect their environment. 20 countries in The Access Initiative (TAI) network are expanding their work to promote environmental democracy. Here is a summary of what’s ahead in 2008 and beyond.
As part of World Water Day, The Access Initiative (TAI) is releasing a case study of how in 2004, poor data dissemination put the citizens of the capital of the world’s richest country at risk from lead in their drinking water.
In many developing countries, forestry policies systematically exclude the poor from the wealth of the forests around them. Senegal provides an interesting example of how even good policies can fail to deliver the benefits they are intended to provide.
Unfair government policies fail to benefit poor people who live in the forests of many developing countries. Those same policies fail even to protect forests, according to a new study.
Laws alone are not enough to ensure environmental protection. Civil society organizations often play a critical role in bringing those laws to life. In Uganda, Greenwatch has done exactly that for the country’s laws on access to environmental information, the first of which passed in 1998.
The Access Initiative (TAI) and its partners are launching the first of its kind assessment of environmental governance in China. It is the first step towards engaging civil society organizations and government agencies to promote the public transparency, participation, and accountability that are essential foundations for sustainable development.
Click on map to see where WRI is making a difference.