The Adaptive Design and Policy Assessment Tool (ADAPTool) is an Excel-based online tool developed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development and partners as a structured guide through an assessment process that compares existing policies and programs to the characteristics of adaptive policies.

The ADAPTool assesses policies or programs in relation to a defined stressor or external change. It produces two kinds of assessments: 1) it gauges the ability of existing policies or programs to support adaptation measures undertaken in response to the specified stressor by the policy target groups; 2) it assesses the general adaptability of the policies or programs themselves, which is to say, whether they are likely to respond well under the influence of the defined changes as well as under unforeseeable changes in the future. The ADAPtool builds on IISD-led research on Creating Adaptive Policies.

In this pilot application, ADAPtool for existing policies was applied to a suite of six mining-related policies in Manitoba and nine mining-related policies in Saskatchewan. IISD and analysts from mining and other relevant departments from the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan worked together to conduct the ADAPtool analyses, including: initial project scoping (including choice of policies to be analyzed); training on use of ADAPtool; literature review and vulnerability assessments for the forestry-relevant sectors; adaptation analysis, adaptive policy analysis and final reporting on results.

A total of 15 policies were assessed using ADAPTool in the mining sector in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. For both provinces, four mining phases were identified: (1) exploring and siting, (2) development (construction of infrastructure), (3) operations (processing and waste management, extractions) and (4) closure and remediation. The primary stressor of interest in this analysis is climate change; specifically, increased drought, excessive moisture and increased temperatures were identified as climate change stressors of relevance to the mining sector. In Manitoba, 37 vulnerabilities to these climate stressors and a corresponding 48 adaptation actions were identified through literature review and collaborative deliberation. In Saskatchewan, 44 vulnerabilities were identified in the mining sector, with 66 corresponding adaptation actions.

Based on the analyses, both provinces saw a lack of support for actions such as transportation and building-related actions. While climate impacts and risks were fairly significant, there was inadequate emphasis on the use of foresighting and scenario planning methodologies to anticipate these impacts and build mitigation measures into mining policies.

On August 12, 2014, Harsha Singh (Senior Fellow at IISD and Senior Associate at ICTSD) was one of many speakers at a conference on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement: Its Impact on India and Developing Nations.

The day-long event, co-organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) was held at the Hotel Oberoi in New Delhi, India, and included sessions focused on the implications of TPP negotiations for India, the implications for likely standards and regulatory changes in India and the future challenges and way forward for India. Singh provided opening remarks for the session on Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Negotiations: Implication for Likely Standards & Regulatory Changes in India and was a panelist on the TPP Negotiations: The Future Challenges and Way Forward for India session. This is a background paper written by Singh and distributed to attendees at the conference.

This paper explores the link between fossil-fuel subsidies and gender in India.

It focuses on the likely gender impacts of reform across cooking, lighting, pumping and transport fuels. Research finds subsidies have provided little benefit to the rural population and to the poor, especially to two thirds of people who rely on biomass for cooking. Reform of subsidies should mitigate negative impacts of reform for women, and rather increase access to sustainable energy and empowerment of women. Benefit transfer schemes, designed to compensate fuel users, have not reached women due to a lack of financial inclusion. The report describes existing efforts around gender budgeting within the energy sector, and analyses available time-use and energy household survey data. 

The past decade has seen a surge of national and regional efforts to re-envision the role of mining in East Africa and more broadly in Africa as a whole.

The Africa Mining Vision calls for “transparent, equitable and optimal exploitation of mineral resources to underpin broad-based sustainable growth and socio-economic development.” In the last 10 years most states with significant mineral wealth have revised or have begun the process of revising their national mining codes. The creation of national champions in the Eastern African mining sector is part of the dynamic changes affecting that sector. This paper recognizes the increased importance of national champions and looks at options how mining might best contribute to a range of goals, consistent with the approach taken in the Africa Mining Vision and in various new mining codes drafted by countries such as Angola, Tanzania, Guinea and Mozambique. The paper also focuses on the policy tools available to states interested in pursuing this new vision of mining.

The report identifies, quantifies and evaluates measures of government support to two upstream oil and gas developments in the Russian Arctic: Yamal LNG (gas) and Prirazlomnoe (oil). Using Sigra Group’s RusTax-model and information collected from publicly available sources, the analysis demonstrates how the measures of government support to the two projects have altered their economics.

In Russia, the existing benchmark taxation system makes development of many oil and gas fields uneconomic, and introduction of certain measures of government support seeks to rectify such distortions of investment decisions. However, “manual control” of tax breaks and other measures of government support to “cherry-picked” projects comes at the cost of unnecessarily large rent transfers from government (and taxpayers) to companies. Continuing the cherry-picking of projects through ad hoc tax breaks and government infrastructure investments will most likely lead to rent transfers from the government to companies in the future. In the meantime, the lack of solid quantitative estimates precludes a straightforward answer to the question of whether or not the overall social benefits of such developments outweigh their overall social costs, including significant environmental risks.

In the first negotiating session of 2014, Parties met in Bonn under the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-4), tasked with identifying elements for a new, universal climate change agreement in 2015 to come into force by 2020, and identifying actions to increase ambition in the interim.

This meeting was the first opportunity for Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to exchange views on the scope and nature of post-2020 intended nationally-determined contributions (INDCs) to be submitted by all countries by March 31, 2015. It was also the first of many technical workshops on policies, technologies, and cooperation with high mitigation potential that could be introduced in the short term.

Parties provided submissions and statements regarding their views on adaptation; mitigation; INDCs; finance; market mechanisms; transparency; ambition and equity; and technology and capacity-building.

The March 2014 Bonn Climate Conference marks the half-way point in the life of the ADP. With time dwindling before Parties convene in Paris to negotiate a new climate agreement, the period between now and COP-20 in Lima is crucial if a global, legally-binding agreement is to be reached.

Drawing upon information gathered through a combination of document analysis and stakeholder interviews, it compares ten aggregate M&E systems according to their context, processes and content.

The analysis provides insights into challenges and enabling factors for the design and implementation of M&E adaptation systems at higher, aggregated levels. Challenges identified include the conceptual ambiguity of what constitutes successful adaptation; coordination and harmonization across sectors, scales and partners; resource and capacity constraints; and identification and access to data and information.

Enabling factors for designing, establishing and, where relevant, implementing M&E systems for adaptation were also identified, namely: political will and leadership; multi-stakeholder participation; and alignment and/or integration of an evolving M&E system for adaptation into/with existing M&E structures, which can save resources in the long run. The report concludes by providing recommendations regarding ways in which to strength the development of aggregated level M&E adaptation systems.

Monitoring and Evaluating Adaptation at Aggregated Levels: A Comparative Analysis of Ten Systems was written by Anne Hammill and Julie Dekens of IISD for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), acting on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

To achieve a top-to-bottom growth of the “green economy,” incentives and enablers need to be identified for those micro enterprises working at the grassroots level.

A three-year study of 1,300 social and environmental enterprises in developing countries reveals how they are using new business models to develop new products and services for their communities. But their scale-up is hampered by lack of access to research and technology support and gender barriers, as well as challenges with complex partnerships, progress monitoring, and financial viability. A large pool of innovative ideas thus remains untapped, and an opportunity to build a sustainable economy is being missed.

Governments today are challenged more than ever in three operational areas: pursuing sustainable development, being accountable to the public for the expenditure of taxpayer dollars, and anticipating and adapting to critical and cumulative risk.

Efforts within government to improve performance in these three core abilities of governance have been advancing largely independently over the past two decades, despite an apparent commonality in the basic principles and tools that drive them. The complexity and urgency of 21st century issues is an unforgiving place for uncoordinated efforts of such scale and importance.

This paper provides timely guidance to help governments at all levels improve their ability to effectively and efficiently pursue sustainability, accountability and adaptability. The common principles that underlie these governAbilities are highlighted along with a set of pragmatic tools that can be used to achieve them.

SDplanNet is a sustainable development planning network created to help government professionals at the national and subnational levels share best practices and build capacity in the preparation and implementation of strategies for sustainable development, and inclusive and fair green economies, and act as a vehicle to assist in implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper is a synopsis of discussions held at the SDplanNet-LAC regional workshop series that took place in Panama City in February 2014. Participating representatives from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean included government planning offices and environment departments at the national level, as well as regional organizations and networks that have mandates for sustainable development and planning at the regional level.