What are the ACA Project results to date?

According to the UNEP GEO for Latin America and the Caribbean, during the past decade, concern for environmental issues in the region has increased markedly. New environmental institutions and policies have been created. However, the creation of these institutions and policies alone has not significantly improved environmental stewardship to date. Environmental management continues to concentrate on sectoral perspectives without coherent integration with economic and social strategies. Common problems include lack of financing, technology, personnel and training, and—in some cases—excessively complex legal frameworks. Increasing institutional awareness of sustainable development issues needs to be reinforced through a process of education, dissemination of information and joint engagement of civil society, governments and business.[7]

Common Challenges: ESD Priorities of all Americas Sub-Regions

In the first phase of the ACA Project, a comparative analysis was done of the most recent sub-regional and regional action plans to address environmental and sustainable development challenges. This diagnosis reveals that indeed, the sub-regions share many common environmental problems, and in many cases, they have committed to resolve them in similar ways. In terms of substantive issues that need to be addressed, many of which are linked to commitments under (relatively new) multilateral environmental accords (MEAs), these priorities include:

All the sub-regions, in their action plans, declarations or treaties, recognise the need to engage civil society more deeply in their environment and sustainable development programming, and call for partnerships with civil society and business.

Means of Implementation: Instruments for all Sub-Regions

What are the obstacles to addressing these issues? Countries in all 5 sub-regions of the Americas face weaknesses and gaps in environmental law, policy and management. They also lack effective ESD instruments. Most recent declarations and commitments related to sustainable development, including the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, the Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial meetings, the Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas process, and the Meeting of Environment Ministers of the Americas, have highlighted certain priorities. These priorities are seen as key means of implementation, strategies and instruments, upon which future capacity building can focus.

In particular, most of the sub-regional and other action plans have included a call for further capacity building and awareness raising activities in the use of instruments such as:

Linking Environmental Management to Social and Economic Development

The 'sustainable development' part of ESD management involves using strategies or instruments to address linkages and overlaps between environmental instruments, laws and policies, and the social and economic ones. Such links are still very weak in the Americas, and this is currently one of the major gaps in ESD capacity building. The need to strengthen these linkages, and integrate environmental management into social and economic policy making, is reflected in mandates from the 2002 LAC Plan of Action for WSSD, the 2002 CIDS of the OAS, the 2002 Health and Environment Ministers meeting, the 2001 Quebec City Summit, the 2001 Environment Ministers of the Americas and the 1996 Santa Cruz Summit.

Priority intersections have been identified in recent sub-regional and hemispheric sustainable development declarations and action plans. There are three areas where this is very important, and where governments and others have called for increased policy linkages at the hemispheric level.

First, all sub-regions now have an explicit mandate to address linkages between environmental managed, and international economic policies. For example, in the Mercosur, the focus is on developing complementary environmental and economic development policies; and in the Andean community, the focus is on developing an environment, trade and competitiveness agenda. Hence, a new environment, trade and social development agenda, for the Americas, can focus on key issues of relevance to national, sub-regional and hemispheric trade negotiations, and also of relevance to the ESD priorities identified above. As well as longer term priorities, such as social and environmental linkage in government procurement policies; or sustainable competition law and policy sustainable development, these include:

Second, all sub-regions have made the linkages between health and environment into a priority, even though most sub-regions address health issues in separate instruments or plans. Cooperation to address these priorities can also help to support the agenda of the Health and Environment Ministers of the Americas (HEMA) process, by focusing on issues such as:

Third, all call for further attention to the link between environment and poverty. In this context, poverty can be defined as lack of access to basic needs. A rights-based approach considers these basic needs as social, economic and cultural rights, such as food, water and health. At the area of intersection between this agenda, and the environmental / economic agenda, reform strategies are needed in the region, including:

An ESD Capacity Development Agenda in these various intersecting areas can focus on several priorities that have been identified at the sub-regional level. There is a need for a comprehensive assessment of the current levels of sub-regional and hemispheric environment and sustainable development management capacity. There is also a need for capacity development action, on a number of fronts. The ACA Project partners, with CEMDA in Mexico, CINPE in Costa Rica, CEDA in Ecuador, RIDES in Chile, ECOS and CIEDUR in Uruguay, CEDHA in Argentina, CIECA in the Dominican Republic and potentially, AEIES in Guatemala and CEHI in the Caribbean, among others, have made a commitment to joint research and analysis to strengthen coherence and strategic alliances, as well as advance these priorities. In particular:

A solid foundation is needed to undertake this hemispheric capacity development agenda. In a Workshop on March 27 – 28 at the McGill Law Faculty in Montreal, Canada, the partners (1) agreed on a method to survey the sub-regional ESD management capacity in the Americas; (2) discussed their joint priorities for ESD capacity development materials and activities; (3) developed ESD institutional cooperation recommendations for the negotiations of the environmental provisions of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and (4) agreed on a workplan and timeline for their future cooperation. They presented this work in a Roundtable Dialogue with experts from Environment Canada, Health Canada, Foreign Affairs Canada and the Canadian International Development Agency, and the International Development Research Centre, as well as international, academic and civil society organisations such as the Carleton Centre for Trade Policy Development, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and others. The Roundtable Dialogue helped the partners to refine and develop their cooperation agenda, and led to revised versions of ACA Project working papers.

Future Research and Capacity Development Priorities

The ACA Project ESD research and capacity development agenda will depend on the results of a series of sub-regional capacity surveys that are being carried out by the partners. The initial analysis has proposed that the partners should focus on:

1. Research, design and testing of capacity development materials to help Americas environmental authorities carry out assessments of economic integration policies, including hemispheric trade liberalisation policies related to market access, intellectual property rights, subsidies, services liberalisation, standards, government procurement, competition law and others. Depending on funding, this work might seek to develop methods appropriate to the Americas that integrate health issues into environmental impact assessments. Such measures would seek indicators for environmental and social drivers of hemispheric population health that are appropriate to the different sub-regions of the Americas.

2. Research, design and testing of capacity development materials to help Americas decision-makers use economic instruments for environmental and social purposes. These instruments include full cost accounting and life cycle analysis of products, development of environmental accounts, and valuation of environmental services. Initially, the partners might focus on use of economic instruments in sustainable water and agricultural management.

3. Research and capacity building on use of integrated coordination mechanisms to improve monitoring and compliance with environmental, economic and social laws (including human rights, such as the right to a safe, healthy or clean environment). This work will help to increase civil society engagement on hemispheric sustainable development issues, and to promote more integrated social, economic and trade policy making.

[7] UNEP, Global Environmental Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico City: UNEP ROLAC, 2000).