Collaborative environmental governance – insights from CORE project

Slide 1:Collaborative environmental governance— insights from CORE projectHeli Saarikoski, Finnish Environment InstituteBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference14 -15 May 2018Koli, FinlandSlide 2:Collaborative remedies for fragmented societies—Facilitating a collaborative turn in environmental governance (CORE)ConsortiumUniversity of Eastern Finland, collaborative governance (coordination)University of Eastern Finland Law school, environmental lawFinnish Environment Institute, collaborative knowledge practicesUniversity of Jyväskylä, civil society researchTampere University of Technology, knowledge managementSwedish School of Economics (HANKEN), value co-creationSME partners Linnunmaa Oy and Mapita OyFunding: Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland, 4,1M€Project duration: 2017-2021Slide 3:Starting points: Fragmented societies confronting ’wicked’ environmental problemsGlobalization and rapid technological development as well as the increasing complexity of social problems, including environmental issues, have created uncertainties and feelings of alienation among citizens and consequently eroded social capital and trust in political decision-making system.The challenge is to create processes and mechanisms to support active citizenship and genuine opportunities for civil society actors to participate in public debate and policy-making processesLiisa Hyssälä and Jouni Backman (2018): ”The ability of the government to sustain and create the preconditions for wellbeing is becoming increasingly insufficient. The government could handle well previous straightforward problems with conflicting interests and values but it cannot cope with complex problems which cross administrative boundaries and jurisdictions and which are characterized by multiple interdependencies between societal actors. The management of this complexity requires a systemic change and new governance relations, which rely on collaboration with actors within and outside government”. (Hyssälä, L. & Backman, J. 2018. Kansanvallan peruskorjaus. Sitra, työpaperi 23.2.2018)Slide 4:Collaborative environmental governanceCollaborative environmental governance refers to planning and policy-making processes in which governmental bodies as well as market and civil society actors come together to explore collectively the problem area and to arrive at a reasonable way forwardFrom public participation to partnerships and multi-party joint fact-finding and consensus-building processesAssumption: collaborative governance has the capacity to create wise, fair, legitimate and efficient solutionsSlide 5:The project work planSlide 6:Work in progress – initial case studiesCommunity development agreements related to mining in the municipality of Sodankylä, LaplandNational level policy dialogue process on the potential and bottlenecks on increasing the use of renewable energy in FinlandCitizen jory process on regional peatland use strategy in South Ostrobothnia, Western FinlandBuilding collaborative capacity in legislative processes (in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice)Water management cases (related to Baltic Sea??)Slide 7:collaboration.fi@core_STN@collaborationfi#corestn#yhteishallinta#strateginentutkimus#cogovernanceProject: CORE - Collaborative remedies for fragmented societies - Facilitating the collaborative turn in environmental decision-makingWelcome onboard!Slide 8:Thank you!Slide 9:Discussion pointsWhat kind of problems have you encountered when making decisions related to environmental issues?What are the opportunities to open up current policy-making processes to citizen participation and active stakeholder engagement?What is the role of democratically elected decision-makers in collaborative environmental governance prosesses?Slide 10:Emergent collaborative practiceCurrent participatory practice