Work

Determinants of effective participatory multi-actor climate change governance: Insights from Zambia’s environment and climate change actors

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Participatory governance has widely been emphasised as essential to achieving SDG 13. However, recent studies have tended to focus on climate change impacts or global-level politics and governance, to the exclusion of providing practical country-level multi-actor climate governance solutions. Our study bridges this gap by examining the determinants of effective participatory multi-actor climate change governance. The objectives were to examine the current state of Zambia’s climate change governance and policy environment, to examine the elements required to actualise participatory multi-actor climate change governance, and to develop a Climate Action Coordination (CAC) Model of participatory multi-actor governance. Using semi-structured interviews with policy-level actors and a survey of implementation-level actors, we find that Zambia’s current climate governance architecture is characterised by intricate political, policy, institutional, and coordination challenges. Despite these complexities, our study reveals that effective participatory multi-actor climate change governance is contingent upon a deep understanding of the prevailing political dynamics and the effective navigation of political interference by climate actor institutions. Within such a political context, a multi-tiered governance institutional framework is essential, anchored on both an influential political authority and robust multi-level technical autonomy. Our results also identify various determinants such as: broad stakeholder inclusion; clarity of roles; decentralisation of decision making, with safeguards to limit policy reversals; harnessing of indigenous knowledge; alignment to the broader national development agenda; adequate financing; leveraging the influence of global commitments; and establishing parliamentary oversight mechanisms, among others. We synthesised these determinants into a practical CAC Model that cuts across the different administrative and sectoral tiers of climate change governance. Our study is unique as it offers a broad, multifaceted, and practical consideration of the determinants of climate change governance. This is particularly useful for a country like Zambia that has embarked on ambitious environmental and climate change sector reforms. • We obtained data from the makers and implementers of environmental and climate change policy in Zambia. • Climate change policy uptake requires wide multistakeholder inclusion in formulation processes and implementation. • Success of climate governance is contingent upon understanding and navigating prevailing political dynamics. • Robust climate change governance is a precursor and necessity to achieving effective climate action.

Source: Environmental Science & Policy

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104040