IHDW 2006 : The Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: water, trade and the environment.

The 5th International Human Dimensions Workshop. Sponsored by IHDP and APN. Held on the 13-26 October 2006, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Background

There are widely disparate views in today’s world about the best ways to achieve social order and pursue collective action on environmental problems.

For several decades a neo-liberal perspective on development has held sway over many aspects of modernizing life. Under this world view a strong emphasis is placed on property rights and market-related institutions to tackle a wide range of social development challenges. The globalization of trade and liberalization of investment have been important goals. Government role is usually seen as a facilitator and coordinator and consequently its presence modest. But proponents vary quite substantially on just how much power at critical junctures are held by state authorities.

This view of the world has always had its opponents both in the developed and developing world. The alternatives often place a larger emphasis on institutions to protect human rights, social justice or the environment. Ideas of economic efficiency are tempered by concerns for how the benefits and involuntary risks of development are distributed among different groups of people and ecosystems. Views on state roles, however, vary from being one partner among many in a governance system filled with diverse civil society actors, to strong government with key regulatory roles.

Ideas about democracy, from the accountability and social responsibilities of authorities through to deliberative policy analysis and making, don’t fall neatly into either of the political economy camps despite claims of each to be the owner of such ideals. This produces a second over-arching tension, anticipated above, that is important for institutional change: the degree to which the emphasis is place on institutional design (or getting the rules right) versus the process of governance (or the way in which rules are arrived at and revised).

In this workshop these tensions were explored with respect to trade and water. The aim was to give participants practical experience in applying theoretical and analytical tools to explore these issues from an institutional perspective. At various points in the workshop we returned to these over-arching tensions and reflecting on how they affect the positions taken by various actors, what institutional forms are considered, and how institutions change. We will be exploring institutions as both, causes of, and responses to environmental change, and where appropriate asking questions about their performance.

Workshop Objectives

In this workshop participants learnt about the role of institutions in causing and mitigating global environmental problems. The substantive focus was on water and trade. In the case of water, institutions mediate among users and determine access, availability, quantity, and quality. The commodification of water and water rights leads to the link with issues concerning the impact of trade and globalization on environments. The workshop treated these issues in an integrated way often returning to the two tensions that shape political and economic institutions discussed above. We shall also investigated the role of institutions in determining the vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation of communities to global change, water allocation, trade, and globalization.

Science-Policy Dialogue Event

A science-policy dialogue event with much wider participation than IHDW participants was held October 20-21. See dialogue website for details.

Programme

The workshop will take place from October 13 – 26, 2006. Participants should arrive in Chiang Mai on the 12^th October. The Science Policy Forum or Dialogue event will be embedded in the workshop. It will be held after the first week from October 20-21, 2006 in Chiang Mai. The program is a diversity of session formats, including many working in smaller groups. There is a separate program for the Dialogue Event.

In most cases trainers and facilitators participated in the workshop for around 3-4 days with a prominent role on at least 2 days. People connected directly with IHDP and the IDGEC programs were spread throughout the program to help provide some continuity. Dr. Louis Lebel from the host organization USER and lead organizer of trainers for the program was present and active throughout the two week workshop.

During the course of the workshop participants developed individual or group project concept notes that could be the basis of further research on related institutional themes.

Trainers

Trainers, facilitators and other resource persons contributing to IHDW 2006 are a diverse mix of people with experience in water governance, trade and globalization analysis. They include some of the best from around the world as well as within Asia. In addition there is a very significant contribution from people woking in and on the Mekong and Northern Thailand region both the training and dialogue activities. This will provide continuity through the program and allow more case-based analysis and exploration of real-world examples with some of the players. All trainers, facilitators and resource persons have volunteered their time to help.

Participants

Participants from different countries were selected on the basis of an international competition. All has a Masters degree or PhD qualification. They, in their own fields and expertise, were involved in various regional water resource development and management issues, and global environment, water and trade issues. There are total of 46 participants: 12 from the Africa/Middle East region; 12 from Asia/Pacific region; 8 from the Latin America/Caribbean region; 10 from region of Europe/North America/Australia; and 4 representatives from Eastern/Central Europe/Russia region.

Workshop follow-up

Information about follow-up activities to IHDW 2006 is avaliable on the IHDW-L List Serve Archives : Archive of all messages sent to the ihdw2006-l list serve. Currently requires additional log-in.

Some post workshop documents also appear on the "Documents" page.