The Role of Government in Environmental Management

The Role of Government in Environmental Management

Introduction Woodrow Wilson recognized the administrator's dilemma as far back as 1887 when, after examining the European experience and the state of politics in the United States of America, he concluded: "It is getting harder to run a Constitution than write one."!) Anyone who has tried to translate sustainable development into a viable action program, whether he or she is in a national environmental ministry, or a subnational government, knows exactly what Wilson meant. It is getting much harder to run environmental policies than to write them. Yet all of us agree that it must be done, not only because it is essential to the survival of the biosphere but also because, at a more fundamental moral level, it is the right thing to do.

In view of the currency of the term "environmental management", an attempt is made herewith to establish a working definition for the purposes of the present paper. Whereas environmental management may be intended, in some circumstances, to refer specifically to activities concerned with pollution control, in the present context, the term is used as a part of a broader concept - that is, management of sustainable development. Sustainable development, in tum, is taken to mean development that provides economic and social benefits to all citizens, including poor and disadvantaged groups, in a way that does not diminish the natural resource base of the country. Governments, thus, are seeking ways to strengthen their institutional and managerial capability to plan, manage, and implement policies, programs and budgets so as to attain sustainable development. The term environmental management, therefore, may be used interchangeably with management of sustainable development and/or management of environmentally/ ecologically sound development. One of the reasons that environmental administration is so complex is that it is, more than most other facets of public policy, a process of inside-out management. Just as environmental problems do not respect national boundaries, so the essential requirements of environmental management necessitate regional and global action that constrains domestic administration. It is an administrative context in which a multitude of factors shape organizations from the outside and efforts to maintain a tight overhead managerial control from within are inevitably doomed. Managers must consider the characteristics that make environmental administration unique, and the factors that make that task all the more complex in the context of developing countries. The economic development strategies and growth patterns that have been evidenced in some industrialized countries like the United States have greatly increased the range and severity of their pollution-problems. At the same time, some less developed countries like Korea have been witnessing a rise in serious problems connected to overcrowded urban environments, such as large volumes of sewage, solid waste and other pollutants. As governments, in general, seek to adapt their public administration systems to pressing demands for rapid economic growth that simultaneously meet the need for sustainable development, a number of urgent and interrelated concerns emerge, which, in varying degrees, are common to many countries regardless of economic, political, or cultural background or pattern of administration. It is acknowledged that the nature and significance of environmental problems varies greatly from one nation to another, and that action programs for environmental management have to be country-specific. It is also recognized that, in many cases, local governments playa crucial role in this field. In addition, the search for solutions to various transboundary pollution problems calls for concerted efforts at the regional level. The purpose of this paper is (i) to increase awareness among senior government officials of the need to more adequately integrate environmental and other development concerns, and to strengthen capacity to address their administrative and regulatory implications; (ii) to identify alternative approaches and techniques available to central government agencies for formulating environmentally sound development policies; and finally; (iii) to identify training requirements in environmental management for senior managers in government, especially as regards such aspects as legislative and regulatory frameworks, management-control and budgetary techniques, and modalities for increasing the role of citizen participation.