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Commentary: Greening the Way to Democracy
Commentary by Dr. Peter Veit
Around the world a number of progressive environmental organizations are now spending their limited time and energy working to promote democracy and protect democratic ideals. These groups haven’t given up on environmental causes, yet. What they are doing is taking a sophisticated approach to their conservation efforts.
Green groups in Uganda, for example, are promoting a freedom of information act, with hopes that public attention on the dealings of their government will promote better environmental decisions. In Tanzania, environmental organizations are working to protect their freedom of association. Even in the United States, environmentalists are now fighting to block proposed curbs on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires community participation in government decisions that impact the environment.
Environmentalists have found that green priorities almost always fare better when government and industry decisions are transparent and open to public participation. The U.S. State Department understands this dynamic, and a year ago at the World Summit on Sustainable Development pushed for good governance to be a major theme.
Still, most governments have been slow to recognize another key tenet of good governance: that improving environmental management also promotes and strengthens democracy.
This principle may not seem intuitive. But flawed national accounting of natural resources is one of the hallmarks of corruption. Indonesia’s corrupt resource management under its former President Suharto is one of the most prominent examples. Suharto sanctioned the massive clearing and burning of huge sections of the country’s forests, which he had doled out as political rewards to timber barons and plantation owners.
Around the world, control over natural resources confers political power. This is especially true in many developing countries, where natural resources are often the principal source of revenue for national development. This may lead to competition, conflict, and corruption, and under weak governance systems means the politically and economically connected get more than their fair share of profits from natural resources.
Unaccountable officials or corrupt businessmen sometimes monopolize natural resources in the name of national interests. They claim natural resources as political prizes, using them to enhance personal wealth. Or they distribute resources as patronage to consolidate their power. Political power unchecked or without public oversight is easily abused.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Africa, where environmental governance issues dominate the political landscape. In Gabon, leaders have silenced critics by using oil revenues to create a welfare state. In Kenya, land in forest reserves has been handed out to party functionaries for political favors. The Zambian government limits trophy hunting because hunting revenues fund opposition parties. In Southern Africa, conflicts over water have strained relations between countries. And, of course, Sierra Leone’s diamonds have been exported to fund brutal rebel groups and many of Liberia’s forests have been cleared and sold to feed a ruthless regime.
Most people in the developing world consider democracy irrelevant unless it also includes local participation in natural resource decisions. For people dependent on local natural resources, having a say in local environmental decisions is crucial.
Yet the United States, Europe, Japan, and other donor nations continue to define democracy by political party pluralism and work to build democracy from the top down. They often ignore opportunities to strengthen the institutions and procedures necessary for ensuring transparency and accountability in natural resource management.
It’s about time for donor countries to help other nations head down green paths toward democracy. (WRI Features, 608 words)
Peter Veit (peterv@wri.org) World Resources Institute’s Regional Director for Africa in the Institutions and Governance Program. |
