Publication: Administrative Decentralization and Climate Change: Concepts, Experience, and Action
Loading...
Published
2022-01-24
ISSN
Date
2022-02-02
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
International and domestic efforts to respond to the severe global challenge of climate change are on the rise and evolving. Despite the importance of action from multiple levels of government, public sector reforms to address climate change and to promote decentralization and or intergovernmental relations tend to be designed and managed separately. Intergovernmental relations have administrative, fiscal, and political dimensions. This paper focuses on climate action at the subnational government level through administrative decentralization and intergovernmental collaboration. The Paris Agreement acknowledges the climate change-decentralization connection, noting a need for the engagement of all levels of government and various actors. The bottom line is that the appropriate mix of subnational climate actions will vary because climate change needs and feasible responses, as well as intergovernmental structures and the nature and degree of decentralization, differ across countries. The paper is organized as follows: section one gives introduction. Sections two and three, respectively, provide concise summaries of basic climate change issues and policies and the principles and practices of decentralization and intergovernmental relations. Section four covers the intersection of climate change action and decentralization. Section five reviews administrative decentralization for climate change action. Section six presents illustrative cases drawn from secondary materials to illustrate how selected administrative functions are used in specific situations and the types of interactions among them. Section seven concludes with some synthetic observations and offers general guidance on assessing the prospects for enhancing and supporting subnational administrative action on climate change.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Smoke, Paul; Cook, Mitchell. 2022. Administrative Decentralization and Climate Change: Concepts, Experience, and Action. Climate Governance Papers;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36911 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Kyrgyz Republic : Overview of Climate Change Activities(Washington, DC, 2013-10)This overview of climate change activities in the Kyrgyz Republic is part of a series of country notes for five Central Asian countries that summarize climate portfolio in a number of sectors, namely agriculture, forestry, water, health, energy, and transport. Recognizing the nature and significance of climate change contribution to an increase in disaster risk, the note also looks into the development partners' approaches and measures in this area. This note further provides a brief overview of the Kyrgyz Republic climate context in terms of observed impacts and historical trends as well as climate projections specific to sectors that are considered to be essential to the country's economic development. Finally, the note assesses national policy and institutional context related to climate change as well as suggests potential ways forward that can help the Kyrgyz Republic mainstream climate considerations into development activities and planning and create public demand for climate actions.Publication Development and Climate Change : A Strategic Framework for the World Bank Group(Washington, DC, 2012-06)The framework provided a road map for climate action for the World Bank Group (WBG) over fiscal years 2009-11, setting out the WBG's objectives, principles, areas of focus, and major initiatives in the field of climate change. The framework was organized around six action areas: 1) supporting climate actions in country-led development processes; 2) mobilizing additional concessional and innovative finance; 3) facilitating the development of market-based financing mechanisms; 4) leveraging private sector resources; 5) supporting accelerated development and deployment of new technologies; and 6) stepping up policy research, knowledge, and capacity building. Climate change is one of the multiple stressors that affect the environment and impact on income and welfare. Further, its impact is worsened by other environmental damages. Looking ahead, strategies to combat climate change have to account for the continued need for rapid growth in developing countries. In this context, the World Bank is now looking at climate change in a holistic manner, bringing together climate change efforts with work on growth and broader management of natural resources and pollution. The WBG has successfully worked with clients and partners to mainstream climate considerations into the WBG's core business and strategies to reach impact on the ground. Yet this remains a make-or-break decade for climate action despite escalating levels of engagement within and outside the WBG.Publication Development and Climate Change(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008)This strategic framework serves to guide and support the operational response of the World Bank Group (WBG) to new development challenges posed by global climate change. Unabated, climate change threatens to reverse hard-earned development gains. The poorest countries and communities will suffer the earliest and the most. Yet they depend on actions by other nations, developed and developing. While climate change is an added cost and risk to development, a well-designed and implemented global climate policy can also bring new economic opportunities to developing countries. Climate change demands unprecedented global cooperation involving a concerted action by countries at different development stages supported by "measurable, reportable, and verifiable" transfer of finance and technology to developing countries. Trust of developing countries in equity and fairness of a global climate policy and neutrality of the supporting institutions is critical for such cooperation to succeed. Difficulties with mobilizing resources for achieving the millennium development goals and with agreeing on global agricultural trade underscore the political challenges. The framework will help the WBG maintain the effectiveness of its core mission of supporting growth and poverty reduction. While recognizing added costs and risks of climate change and an evolving global climate policy. The WBG top priority will be to build collaborative relations with developing country partners and provide them customized demand-driven support through its various instruments from financing to technical assistance to constructive advocacy. It will give considerable attention to strengthening resilience of economies and communities to increasing climate risks and adaptation. The operational focus will be on improving knowledge and capacity, including learning by doing. The framework will guide operational programs of WBG entities to support actions whose benefits to developing countries are robust under significant uncertainties about future climate policies and impacts-actions that have "no regrets."Publication Adapting to Climate Change in Europe and Central Asia : Lessons from Recent Experiences and Suggested Future Directions(Washington, DC, 2012-06-28)Like other regions, Eastern Europe and Central Asia is vulnerable to climate change and its potential socioeconomic impacts. While all countries are facing warmer temperatures, a changing hydrology, and more extreme events (for example, floods and droughts) and are concerned about the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they differ in their financial and institutional capacities to respond. Therefore, especially for the most vulnerable countries in the region (for example, those in Central Asia and southern Europe), adapting to climate risk adds a new dimension to the challenges of development, but also provides an opportunity to revisit priorities and accelerate reforms. The Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region of the World Bank has been actively working on climate-related projects and has advanced a number of initiatives in response to climate change since the 1990s. Nevertheless, up until a few years ago the region's focus was mainly on emissions reduction (mitigation), rather than on helping countries respond to existing or expected impacts from climate change through adjustments in natural or human systems. But more recently, adding focus on climate adaptation had led ECA to initiate a program of analytical work and pilot investment projects to help develop the information and knowledge base necessary to help build staff skills as well as better respond to client needs.Publication Africa - Making Development Climate Resilient : A World Bank Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa(World Bank, 2009-10-30)This strategy for making development Climate-Resilient in Sub-Saharan Africa is the World Bank's operational response to climate variability and change on the continent. Grounded in a climate risk review of the Africa Region's sustainable development portfolio, it adds the climate change dimension to the Region's development strategy and business plan, the Africa Action Plan (AAP, 2009-2012), and will be an integral part of the AAP in the future. The AAP and the climate change strategy are a sound and realistic framework for climate-resilient development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy is based on the premise that increased climate variability threatens the development gains of African countries, and that these effects need to be anticipated so that development efforts can be made more resilient to climate change. Climate has always featured prominently in African development, and people across the continent have been living with and adapting to a high degree of climate variability and its associated risks for many centuries. Yet the accelerated changes in the climate and increasing incidence of climatic disasters (floods, droughts, cyclones) during the last century, and the scientific consensus that Africa is the continent most vulnerable and least able to cope with these changes, have brought these risks into sharper focus, and made the need to address them more urgent.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Global Findex Database 2025: Connectivity and Financial Inclusion in the Digital Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-16)The Global Findex 2025 reveals how mobile technology is equipping more adults around the world to own and use financial accounts to save formally, access credit, make and receive digital payments, and pursue opportunities. Including the inaugural Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker, this fifth edition of Global Findex presents new insights on the interactions among mobile phone ownership, internet use, and financial inclusion. The Global Findex is the world’s most comprehensive database on digital and financial inclusion. It is also the only global source of comparable demand-side data, allowing cross-country analysis of how adults access and use mobile phones, the internet, and financial accounts to reach digital information and resources, save, borrow, make payments, and manage their financial health. Data for the Global Findex 2025 were collected from nationally representative surveys of about 145,000 adults in 141 economies. The latest edition follows the 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021 editions and includes new series measuring mobile phone ownership and internet use, digital safety, and frequency of transactions using financial services. The Global Findex 2025 is an indispensable resource for policy makers in the fields of digital connectivity and financial inclusion, as well as for practitioners, researchers, and development professionals.Publication Digital Opportunities in African Businesses(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-16)Adoption of digital technologies is widely acknowledged to boost productivity and employment, stimulate investment, and promote growth and development. Africa has already benefited from a rapid diffusion of information and communications technology, characterized by the widespread adoption of mobile phones. However, access to and use of digital technology among firms is uneven in the region, varying not just among countries but also within them. Consequently, African businesses may not be reaping the full potential benefits offered by ongoing improvements in digital infrastructure. Using rich datasets, “Digital Opportunities in African Businesses” offers a new understanding of the region’s incomplete digitalization—namely, shortfalls in the adoption and effective use of digital technology by firms to perform productive tasks. The research presented here also highlights the challenges in addressing incomplete digitalization, finding that the cost of machinery, equipment, and software, as well as the cost of connectivity to the internet, is significantly more expensive in Africa than elsewhere. “Digital Opportunities in African Businesses” outlines ways in which the private sector, with support from policy makers, international institutions, and regulators, can help bring down these costs, stimulating more widespread digitalization of the region’s firms, thereby boosting productivity and, by extension, economic development. This book will be relevant to anyone with an interest in furthering digitalization across Africa.Publication Rising to the Challenge(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)About 1.2 billion people - one in five people in the world – are at high risk from climate-related hazards, but much can be done to make people, business, communities, and countries more resilient. The new World Bank flagship report “Rising to the Challenge” argues that reducing climate and disaster impacts requires a combination of more rapid development, more resilient development, and targeted adaptation interventions. Development plays a key role as nobody can be resilient without access to basic infrastructure and social services, decent housing, or while living in poverty. While a 10-percent increase in income is associated with a decrease in the population at high risk by close to 100 million people, current development patterns will not be enough. An assessment of 44 countries shows that, in spite of growing attention and adaptation planning, most countries are still lagging in implementing resilience interventions, especially those related to policies and macro-fiscal dimensions, and in the monitoring and evaluation of their actions. However, the report dispels the idea that no progress is being done: a collection of case studies - with firms, governments, and public-private partnerships - shows that the private and public actors are undertaking promising adaptation and resilience efforts with measurable results and good practices that can replicated to scale up action and to build resilience for all.Publication World Bank Annual Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25)This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.Publication Good Practice Note on Dam Safety(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10)The objective of this good practice note (GPN) on dam safety is to provide additional guidance to World Bank staff on the application of relevant requirements under the environmental and social framework (ESF). This GPN provides guidance on using a risk management approach to the application of the dam safety requirements. The guidance contained in this note is designed to enhance the quality of practice without creating new requirements for the application of the ESF. The GPN provides guidance on compliance requirements, a risk management approach to dam safety, risk analysis tools, quality of information and capacity, application to World Bank operations, and procedural aspects. The GPN pertains to: (a) construction of new dams or dams under construction (DUC) under investment project financing (IPF); (b) rehabilitation of existing dams under IPF; and (c) existing dams or DUC that are not financed under IPF, on which the project relies or may rely.