Understanding Environmental Policy Processes Cases from Africa

* How are environmental policies created and once put to effect, why are they so difficult to change despite sometimes becoming detrimental to the environment they are set up to protect?* African environmental policy is largely controlled by Northern concepts of how the environment should be handled - are these Northern ideals best for Africa itself?* What can be done to make policy making more participatoryThis book offers a critical analysis of the "post-Rio consensus" on environment and development and questions the role of particular forms of internationalized elite scientific expertise. It poses the question of why certain understandings of environmental change stick with such tenacity. In exploring this the authors unravel the politics of knowledge surrounding policy making, looking particularly at Ethiopia, Mali and Zimbabwe and their land and soils management. The book also looks at prospects for more inclusive, participatory forms of policy making.

A critical analysis of the post-Rio consensus on environment and development which questions the role of particular forms of internationalized elite scientific expertise. It asks why certain understandings of environmental change stick with such tenacity. In exploring this, the authors unravel the politics of knowledge surrounding policymaking, looking particularly at Ethiopia, Mali and Zimbabwe and their land and soils management. The book also looks at prospects for more inclusive, participatory forms of policymaking.

Preface * Knowledge, Power and Politics: Environmental Policy Processes in Africa * Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: a Conceptual Map * Global Science, Global Policy: International Policy Processes in Africa * Knowledge, Power and Politics: the Environmental Policy-making Processes in Ethiopia * Environmental Policy-making in Mali: Science, Bureaucracy and Soil Fertility Narratives * Environmental Policy-making in Zimbabwe: Challenging the Technocracy? * Spaces for Engagement: Science, Experts and Citizens * Notes * References * Index

James Keeley is a Research Officer at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. Ian Scoones is a Professorial Fellow at IDS, editor of Dynamics and Diversity (2001) and co-editor of Sustaining the Soil (1996).