By Rear Admiral (Rtd) Gary A. R. Best,
Presidential Advisor on the Environment

Today we will look at institutional sustainability, the final of three sustainability articles that began with the environment.

AT THE outset, it must be said that the concept of Sustainable Development assigns a fundamental role for institutions as a tool for its implementation. One only has to look at Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and its 27 Principles, to find that practically all of the tasks within the mandate of Agenda 21 were assigned to institutions for implementation on the road towards sustainable development.

Whether the issues concerned combating poverty, protection of the atmosphere, integrating environment and development into decision-making, combating deforestation, managing fragile ecosystems, sound management of hazardous wastes, or strengthening the role of major groups: such as farmers, children and Indigenous peoples, it ultimately fell on institutions for implementation. In this context, institutional responsibility is evidenced at the state, national, local and international levels; and includes organizations such as the World Maritime Organization, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, national organizations, and the Economic Commission for Africa, among others.

Emphasizing the importance of rules and practices, Pfahl (2005) offers a definition of institution which goes thus: “persistent and connected sets of rules and practices that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations. They may take the form of bureaucratic organisations, regimes, or conventions”.

In addition, the writer Gordon (2000) believed that norms, values and practices must be enduring in order to ensure that development interventions have continuity in the context of institutional sustainability. In fact, institutional sustainability is a principal factor in enabling sustainable development.

Often times, a charismatic leader or an entrepreneur may have been the catalyst for sustainability, but it is important to have appropriate institutions to take over after individual champions may have led the way in a given project, in order for the project not to lose momentum or fail completely. Institutional sustainability, therefore, must narrow social divides by adopting norms, practices, adaptive behaviours and aggressive learnings in an integrated manner to produce the promised ‘good life’.

However, we should note that, notwithstanding the creation of new institutional structures aimed at sustainable development, existing institutions may prevent the required results due to old practices of unsustainable conduct. In some cases, it may be a simple name change, and not in essence a new institution; and this may provide challenges to old staff in adapting to new mandates.

Further, institutions must facilitate decision-making. They must ensure that various interests are represented at the policy level, and that decisions are reflected in political instruments.

Institutions should also ensure that an integrated system is set up, so that information reaches the citizenry, and a feedback mechanism is created in order for citizenry information to return to the institution. Good examples in the context of Guyana are the ‘inclusive democracy’ Article of the Guyana Constitution, and the local government mechanism.

In many ways, the absence of coercive state power is the hallmark of governance, as opposed to government, which does require the coercive arm. Similarly, and in the context of governance, institutional analysis can be more effective if it examines functional and structural tiers, organization of governance functions, and formulation of key institutional rules as the principal aspects of institutional design.

In addition, the performance of institutions must be measurable or assessable. An example of a measuring instrument was developed by the United Nations during its deliberation at the Conference for Sustainable Development in 1995. At that conference, the indicators by which institutions would be assessed in achieving the goals of Agenda 21 were established. In this regard, the indicator system added the institutional dimension as a fourth element of sustainability; the other three principal elements being the social, environmental and economic dimensions.

Sustainability indicators for the evaluation of institutional achievements include participation of NGOs in policy making; access to institutions and services; accountability; access by affected groups to national courts, and capability of institutions to balance interests and improve equity. Add also to these categories transparency, participation, responsiveness, and implementation capabilities. Indeed the categories could be wide and encompassing for institutional assessment.

According to Litten (2005), key indicators for institutional sustainability relative to corporate activity would include reports on areas such as health, business, ecology, environment and employment impacts.

However, Spangenberg et al (2002) believed a more scientific approach was necessary. They posited that good governance towards sustainability is not possible without appropriate institutions; and unless the sustainable indicators used to measure success of institutions are scientifically based, any results therefrom would be doubtful. As a result, the system has been revised by the United Nations, and is now based on nominal, ordinal and cardinal indicators. The categories now have a bias to science and information technology.

However, the new United Nations’ indicators would likely leave out greater participation by developing countries — a critical issue for Guyana. Notwithstanding this, however, indicators for assessing institutions are critical to the entire process of institutional sustainability. And in this context, Guyana has a splendid opportunity to adapt, modify, and formulate its own indicators through norms, rules, and practices that would enable institutional sustainability as a prerequisite to attaining the good life.
(Comments can be sent to towardsagoodlife@gmail.com)

[box type=”shadow” align=”aligncenter” ]Mr. Gary A. R. Best is a retired Rear Admiral and former Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force. He is an attorney-at-law and is the Presidential Advisor on the Environment. He is a PhD. candidate at the University of the West Indies, and holds a BSc in Nautical Science (Brazil) and Masters’ degrees from the University of the West Indies and the University of London. He is also an alumnus of the National Defence University and Harvard Kennedy School. His research areas include climate change governance, climate change finance, international relations and environmental law.[/box]