Research on Sustainable Development Seminar

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Research on Sustainable Development Seminar

• Center for International Development
• Harvard University
• 9 March 2006

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Center for International Development to
establishFund for Sustainable Development

• In an effort to address one of the worlds most
  pressing public problems sustainable
  development Harvards Center for International
  Development (CID) and the Ministry for the
  Environment and Territory of the Italian Republic
  will work together to create The Fund for
  Sustainable Development at the KSG.
• The fund will support training and research
  programs on sustainable development and natural
  resource management with an international
  orientation and a vision toward achieving shared
  prosperity and reducing poverty while protecting
  the environment.

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Global Environmental AssessmentsLessons from
History

• Bill Clark
• for the
• Global Environmental Assessment Project
• (Ron Mitchell, Dave Cash, Nancy Dickson, Jill
  Jaeger, Alex Farrell, Sheila Jasanoff, Marybeth
  Long-Martello)

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The Problem

• gt 200 international environmental treaties
• Most requiring periodic science assessments
• Through complex processes engaging 00s 000s
• 2-3 completed/yr on climate, ozone, acid rain in
  80s/90s
• gt12 on all topics underway in 2003
• What should we learn from the experience?
• Many works advocating particular assessment
  methods
• Growing body of work by reflective practitioners
• Benedick, Bolin, Houghton, Mahlman, Jacobs
• Growing number/sophistication of scholarly
  studies on assessments of single issues providing
  depth of analysis
• Haas, Litfin, Alcamo, Miller, Parson, Morgan
• Fewer comparative studies providing breadth
• Carnegie Commission (1992), OECD Mega-Science
  (1998)
• Andresen et al (2000) Social Learning Group
  (2001) Young (2002)
• Global Environmental Assessment Project

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Global Environmental Assessment Project
http//www.ksg.harvard.edu/gea

• Multi-year research and training program
• international, interdisciplinary team of faculty
  (20) and fellows (30)
• workshops for scholars, practitioners
• working papers (50), published articles (40),
  seminars
• Global climate change and ENSO variability
• Stratospheric ozone depletion
• Transboundary tropospheric air pollution
• Biological, chemical hazards
• Regional assessments within global change context
  (fisheries, water, coastal zone)
• Summary books
• Jasanoff and Martello, eds. (2004) Earthly
  Politics Local and global in environmental
  governance
• Farrell and Jaeger, eds. (2005) Assessments of
  Regional Global Environmental risks Designing
  processes for effective use of science
• Mitchell, Clark, Cash and Dickson, eds. (2006)
  Global Environmental Assessments Information and
  influence

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Findings What is an Assessment?

• A social process linking knowledge and action in
  public policy/decision contexts...
• usually entailing the creation of discrete
  products (eg. models, forecasts, reports)
• within an institutional framework of rules,
  norms, expectations (eg. FCCC, LRTAP).

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A Conceptual Framework for thinking about
Effective Assessments
Ultimate Determinants
Proximate Pathways Assessment
Effectiveness
Historical context
Saliency
Effectiveness
Credibility
User characteristics
Legitimacy
Assessment characteristics
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A Conceptual Framework for thinking about
Effective Assessments
Ultimate Determinants
Proximate Pathways Assessment
Effectiveness
Historical context
Saliency
Effectiveness
Credibility
User characteristics
Legitimacy
Assessment characteristics
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Finding What do assessments influence?

• Environmental pressures, states, impacts
• IIASA RAINS for LRTAP SOx-II
• Actors agendas, strategies or decisions
• Ozone Trends Panel (DuPont)
• Issue framing, terms of the debate
• WMO/UNEP Villach 86 Climate assessment
• RD priorities, standards for monitoring
• IPCC Special Report on Forest Sinks
• or, more generally, the Issue Domain
• participants, institutions, behaviors, outcomes
• (Compare Sabatiers policy subsystem, Ostroms
  actor domain)

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A Conceptual Framework for thinking about
Effective Assessments
Ultimate Determinants
Proximate Pathways
AssessmentEffectiveness
Historical context
Saliency
Effectiveness
Credibility
User characteristics
Legitimacy
Assessment characteristics
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Finding An assessment is more likely to
influence actors decisions to the extent that it
is perceived to be

• Credible (Is it true?)
• of technical arguments to relevant communities
• US CIAP-Impacts vs. WMO Blue Books
• Salient (Is it relevant?)
• to changing needs of specific users, producers
• US NAPAP vs. European RAINS
• Legitimate (Is it fair / respectful /
  accountable?)
• or fairness of the process to stakeholders.
• WRI GWP vs. German Enquete I

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Findings SCL Complexities

• S,C,L are more multiplicative than additive
• poor perceptions of one cannot be (wholly) offset
  by good perceptions of others
• Tight tradeoffs exist among saliency, credibility
  and legitimacy due to potential power of findings
  to support/undermine interests
• most ways of improving one dimension undermine
  other(s)
• Its (relatively) easy to craft an assessment that
  a single user/country will perceive to be
  adequately SCL
• the challenge is designing assessments that are
  simultaneously perceived to meet SCL standards by
  multiple users/stakeholders with different goals

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A Conceptual Framework for thinking about
Effective Assessments
Ultimate Determinants
Proximate Pathways Assessment
Effectiveness
Historical context
Saliency
Effectiveness
Credibility
User characteristics
Legitimacy
Assessment characteristics
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On what do perceptions of salience, credibility,
legitimacy most depend?

• Context of the assessment
• issue characteristics, linkage, attention cycles

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Attention to Global Environmental Issues
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Findings On what do perceptions of salience,
credibility, legitimacy most depend?

• Context of the assessment
• issue characteristics, linkage, attention cycles
• Characteristics of the user, target audiences
• concern, openness, capacity
• Implications for changing user, or changing
  assessments.

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A Conceptual Framework for thinking about
Effective Assessments
Ultimate Determinants
Proximate Pathways Assessment
Effectiveness
Historical context
- issue characteristics
- linkage
- attention cycle
Saliency
User characteristics
Effectiveness
Credibility
- concern
- capacity
- openness
Legitimacy
Assessment characteristics
- science/ governance
- participation
- scope, dissent
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Characteristics of theAssessment Process

• Institutionalization
• Participation
• Treatment of scope, dissent
• Provision for iteration, evaluation, learning

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How does the institutionalization of assessment
influence effectiveness?

• Dilemma salience vs credibility
• enhance communication btw science and policy
• protect scientists, policy makers from contagion
• Concept the interface as boundary
• not static gulf to be bridged (Carnegie)
• rather a dynamic boundary to be negotiated
• embeddedness of assessment institutions

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How do participation decisions influence
effectiveness?

• Dilemma legitimacy vs value vs credibility
• identify, attract, retain relevant participants
• great expectations vs great numbers
• Concept participation as means to an end
• differentiate roles in the process (eg. scoping
  vs. fact-finding vs. policy advice)
• match expectations to institutional capacity

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How does the treatment of assessment scope
influence their effectiveness?

• Dilemma saliency vs. credibility
• Concept integrated assessments suffer from
  bounded rationality, vulnerability to
  deconstruction dis-integrated assessments
  provide focused answers to specific questions
• Cause/effect vs. impacts vs. policy options

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How does the treatment of uncertainty and dissent
influence the effectiveness of assessments?

• Dilemma value vs credibility vs legitimacy
• Concept embracing inconclusiveness
• insight oriented vs decision oriented assessment
• strategies for treating extreme events
• strategies for using dissent

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Provision for iteration,evaluation, and social
learning

• There exists a huge variety of experiments in how
  to do good assessments.
• But the target is moving (changing political
  context, issue framing, knowledge)
• and the institutional frameworks tend to be
  sticky, locked in early forms (IPCC)
• We dont learn because its hard but also
  because we dont try (a few exceptions).

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Practical implications.

• Adjust design details for scientific assessments
  dependent on case, context (attn. IPCC One size
  does not fit all smaller is often better)
• Reconceptualize assessment as process of
  co-production through which interactions of
  experts and users define, shape, validate a
  shared body of usable knowledge
• Work for international system of research and
  assessment, coupling global knowledge and local
  use through national institutions.

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Summary of Findings on Influential Assessments

• Assessments vary in the type of influence they
  have, not just the amount (influence on what?)
• Influence of a given assessment varies across
  audiences (influence on whom?)
• Influence for a given audience depends on its
  attribution of saliency and legitimacy, not just
  credibility, to the assessment (influence though
  what pathways?)
• Such attributions, and thus influence, are best
  achieved through processes of co-production
  that involve users in the design of assessments
• Successful co-production requires matching
  capacity of users with demands of assessment (and
  adjusting both)

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Summary of Findings on Assessment Design

• Design the process, not just the report
• Design for saliency and legitimacy, not just
  credibility (and recognize tradeoffs)
• Design for multiple specific users, not single
  generic ones
• Design jointly with users as co-production,
  rather than in academic isolation
• Design as iterative learning process, not
  one-shot efforts to get it right.

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Further information

• Global Environmental Assessment Project
• http//www.ksg.harvard.edu/gea
• Science, Environment and Development Group (CID)
• http//www.ksg.harvard.edu/sed/
• Bill Clark
• Science, environment and Development Group
• Center for International Development
• John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
  University
• william_clark_at_harvard.edu