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| Books |
This book introduces the concept of community innovation developed through a detailed analysis of cases and the identification of key elements that contribute to successful community-centred local environmental management.It highlights the successful tools, methodologies and processes used by innovative communities that might be of use to other communities and stakeholders, particularly in developing countries, that face the challenge of effecting change at the community level in the hope of a more sustainable future.
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This monograph was prepared under a joint project of the United Nations University (UNU), UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/IAS) and the Global Environment Information Centre (GEIC). The eight papers presented in this volume are written with the intent of depicting interlinkages pertaining to the Climate Change regime and other relevant multilateral regimes.
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This book aims to discuss issues pertaining to NGO participation in global relations, specifically, both the setting and process of this participation, by situating such discussions in the theoretical framework of global civil society as setting, and of discourse as process. On another level, NGO participation in international policy formulation and decision-making is interpreted as communicative action in a limited discourse, that is, the international negotiations within international organizations. These are explored within the framework of global environmental politics, which is itself interpreted as a discourse of the environment.
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This is a new book from Kluwer Academic Publishers and United Nations University which discusses the evolving issue of the use of computers and its related environmental issues. On sale in both soft and hard cover editions.
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| Reports |
The workshop was a direct follow-up to the Pacific national case studies on inter-linkages, undertaken in 2002 and 2003. It was joint by regional and international partner organizations, such as the University for the South Pacific (USP), UNDP or UNEP, and strongly supported through the Japanese Ministry of Environment.
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The report contains the background and results of the Inter-linkages Regional Workshop on Integrated Capacity Development for Multilateral Environmental Agreements in South Asia, held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 14 to 16 February 2005. The workshop was organized by the UNU and SACEP, with support from the Ministry of Environment, Japan. Government representatives from nine countries in the region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), as well as experts from international and regional organizations, NGOs and academic institutions attended the event, and shared their experience in managing MEAs and conducting NCSAs. The participants also presented on various on-going capacity development initiatives related to MEAs, and adopted recommendations and action plans to build regional partnership to promote coordinated capacity development in South Asia. One of the key outcomes of the workshop is a proposal to establish a regional network of Centers of Excellence on MEAs.
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As UNU's fifth and final contribution to the World Summit on Sustainable Development process, this report, Making Integrated Solutions Work for Sustainable Development, presents the findings of the University's research on the issues presented in the WSSD Draft Plan of Implementation.
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This report is one of the core outputs of the UNU/IAS project
on “Sustainable Development Frameworks for Developing Countries” carried
out during the past five years in collaboration with leading scholars
and institutions in those three countries.
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This report was prepared based on research papers commissioned for a study on International
Environmental Governance Reform that was conducted by the United Nations University Institute of
Advanced Studies in collaboration with the University of Kitakyushu and supported by the Japan
Foundation Centre for Global Partnership.
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UNU has focused a substantial proportion of its efforts on the pursuit of sustainable development
and this report is aimed at providing an outline of some of the key research findings and capacity
development activities that have resulted. The report begins with a list of key recommendations
for consideration at the World Summit on Sustainable Development that have been generated
through UNU’s research over the last decade and the remainder of the report outlines the research
upon which these recommendations are based. The second section provides an assessment
of the state of affairs in relation to particular chapters of Agenda 21 that have been addressed
through UNU research. As a key aspect of UNU’s mandate is to understand and resolve “pressing
global problems of human survival, development, and welfare” UNU has also aimed to highlight
key sustainable development priorities that were not specifically addressed within Agenda
21 and these are outlined in the subsequent section of the report. The following section provides
a more elaborate explanation of each recommendation made by UNU in the context of its past
research and capacity building activities. The final section of the report, in keeping with the university’s
emphasis on education and capacity development, serves to highlight a representative
sample of UNU’s extensive capacity development programme.
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This report provides a summary outline of the research activities of the United Nations University that
are aimed at removing key barriers to sustainable development and are of particular relevance to Asia
and the Pacific. The university’s work in this regard has focused on the interactions between natural
and societal systems. Also of particular interest is the nexus that exists between social, economic, and
political systems and processes. In this context, the university’s work continues to emphasise the need
for an integrated and holistic approach to sustainable development through all its stages from the
identification of priorities, decision making, and policy formulation, to implementation at the local,
national, regional, and global levels, and also in regard to monitoring and assessment. At the same
time, the nature and scope of UNU research has consistently reflected a keen awareness of the potential
negative and positive consequences of the twin processes of globalisation and rapid technological
advancement.
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This is the report of the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) “International Eminent Persons Meeting on Inter-linkages - Strategies for Bridging Problems and Solutions to Work Towards Sustainable Development” organized to ponder at the international level, the issues that would lead up to the WSSD.
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This report is based on study on various environment and sustainable development issues in Penang conducted jointly by researchers from RCE Penang and United Nation University Global Environmental Information Centre (GEIC).
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The report was prepared by the UNU Inter-linkages Initiative, in close collaboration with other key regional organizations, such as SACEP and the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. It is a review of existing projects, mechanisms and tools used by countries in South Asia, in promoting synergistic management of MEAs in the region.
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The Innovative Communities project published its recent research, focusing on innovative approaches at the community-level to address challenges of sustainable development. The report summarizes a forthcoming book on Innovative Communities, to be published by UNU Press in November.
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A summary report of the training, “Follow the Leader: Youth and Environmental Leadership in the Asia Pacific Region”, organized by GEIC, CityNet, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), and Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU), 2-22 March 2001, Bangkok, Thailand. It cosists of a brief summary of the sessions, lecture notes, presentation materials, and other related reference materials used in the training.
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A summary report of the training, “Localizing Environmental Action: Bringing Together Local Governments and Urban Stakeholders in the Asia Pacific Region”, organized by GEIC, CityNet, and Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU), 2-2 February 2001, Tokyo, Japan. It cosists of a brief summary of the sessions, lecture notes, presentation materials, and other related reference materials used in the training.
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The report explains the current systems and problems of the oil spill response in Japan from different viewpoint of various sectors. In particular, the three articles on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the US system will help readers understand important factors in responding efficiently to oil spill issues. The report is composed of three chapters. Chapter 1 covers the different activities of the JEDIC Preparatory Committee. Chapter 2 contains the contributions from the speakers of 15 seminars organized by the JEDIC Preparatory Committee. Chapter 3 covers discussions made at various symposia and workshops organized in relation to the activities of the Committee.
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The study reviews the governance structure of Bhutan and its impact on the environmental aspects of sustainable development. It addresses both opportunities and challenges, while keeping Bhutan's uniqueness in mind - its fragile ecology and its careful pace of development, trying to balance environmental protection and economic development.
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The study looks at MEA management and sustainable development in Papua New Guinea. It considers institutional, legal, financial, information- and capacity-related issues, leading towards a better understanding of environmental governance structures and processes in Papua New Guinea and beyond.
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This study examines how the inter-linkages approach can be used to help make sustainable development financing more effective and efficient. It provides an outline of the key processes and trends that serve to shape the current financing environment and gives concrete examples of how the inter-linkages approach can be applied to the issue of financing sustainable development.
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The report examines approaches in three Pacific island countries (Cook Islands, Palau and Vanuatu) regarding the national and regional management of Multilateral Environmental Agreements. It covers aspects of negotiation, ratification and implementation of MEAs and looks at institutional and legal aspects as well as information management, coordination, capacity development and other facets of mechanisms to improve synergies among MEAs.
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This report looks at the approaches in Asia and the Pacific regarding the national and regional management of Multilateral Environmental Agreements. This covers negotiation, ratification and implementation of these MEAs and looks at the institutional, legal, information, coordination and other aspects of these MEAs.
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The UNU, UNEP and the MIT proposed an initiative to develop coherent and robust measures for supporting progress during the implementation of international conventions. The approach envisioned is designed to bridge the gaps between science, technological knowledge, and policy. Focussing initially on two major MEAs, this initiative is motivated by the conviction that knowledge-driven strategies must be accompanied by effective on-the-ground measures, and that the interests of states and all other stakeholders involved must be taken into account.
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This initial Inter-linkages Report builds on the background papers and presentations submitted to the UNU's International Conference on Inter-linkages: Synergies and Coordination among Multilateral Environmental Agreements, held in Tokyo, 14-16 July, 1999.
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This report summarizes the findings of a case study conducted by the UNU’s project on Innovative Communities, on community-based environmental education initiatives in Nishinomiya City, Japan. In Nishinomiya, the city government has recognized the importance of community-based environmental education, not only as a tool to raise environmental awareness of children at schools, but also as an effective means to empower a community, by involving different local stakeholders, including NGOs and local businesses. This report illustrates how Nishinomiya City has developed and implemented its innovative approaches for environmental education and community building, particularly through the non-profit organization Learning and Ecological Activities Foundation for Children (LEAF), which has played a pivotal role in designing, coordinating, and managing the initiatives. This report describes how the Eco-card Project has been implemented in Nishinomiya, analyse tangible and intangible impacts of the project, and discuss future prospects of environmental eduction in Nishinomiya City.
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This report is a summary of the findings of a case study conducted on solid waste reduction initiatives in the city of Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya’s initiatives have been widely praised for their success, not only in reducing solid waste, but also as an example of good cooperation between city government and citizens. The report first outlines the background of waste management in Nagoya, and the initiatives implemented toward waste reduction, including an analysis of innovative approaches taken by the city government. Further, the roles of other actors in the innovations achieved in Nagoya, as well as some criticisms of the city’s initiatives, are discussed.
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The Innovative Communities project published its recent research, focusing on innovative approaches at the community-level to address challenges of sustainable development. The report summarizes a forthcoming book on Innovative Communities, to be published by UNU Press in November.
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The handbook explores linkages among MEAs, particularly UNFCCC, UNCBD, UNCCD, as well as Ramsar, CITES and the Montreal Protocol. It covers the convention texts and MOP/COP decisions up to 2005. Two annexes look at the links to regional agreements in Asia and the Pacific, and the Millennium Development Goals and WSSD results.
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by W. Bradnee Chambers
Shona E.H. Dodds
Jerry Velasquez
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by W. Bradnee Chambers
Shona E.H. Dodds
Jerry Velasquez
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by Laura Campbell
W. Brandee Chambers
Jerry Velasquez
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The United Nations University International Conference on Forests and Sustainable
Development - The Values of Forests, held on 12 and 13 October 2000, attracted a
significant number of high-level participants from the UN, governments and national and
international organizations dealing with forest issues. The meeting came at a critical stage
when the international community was pondering the next steps to be undertaken on the
forest agenda.
The conference focussed on the multiple values of forests and discussed ways to utilize
these values towards sustainable development. This was done through discussions on the
principal causes of global forest decline and the necessary solutions to reverse the decline.
The conference also looked at the increasing interest by civil society in becoming more
involved in decision making about how to manage forests.
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This report was prepared by the United Nations University in co-operation with the International Center for Disaster Mitigation Engineering (INCEDE), University of Tokyo {http://incede.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/default.html} for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR).
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The report describes the background and outcomes of the Brainstorming Workshop on the Development of a Regional Partnership for Integrated Capacity Building for MEAs in South Asia, held in Dambulla, Sri Lanka from 28 June to 1 July 2004. The workshop was organized by the UNU, in collaboration with SACEP, the University of Peradeniya and the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MENR) of Sri Lanka, with support of the Ministry of Environment, Japan. Representatives from the countries of South Asia and regional and international organizations attended the meeting, and adopted various recommendations regarding the effective management of MEAs and the promotion of regional cooperation in the field of capacity development on MEAs in South Asia. The meeting was organized as a preparation for the regional workshop in February 2005.
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Summary of the expert consultation on the local response to global risk, particularly climate change adaptation.
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| Jornals |
Fletcher, Stephen, Kawabe, Midori, Rewhorn, Sonja, Tan, Chun Knee, Emery, Andrew, Wakita, Kazumi, Sturgess,
Mark, Furukawa, Keita, Castle, Zoë and Flanagan Dufton, Felicity E. C.(2009)'International Learning Pathways for Coastal
Professionals: A Japan-U.K. Example',Coastal Management,37:2,154 — 169.
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| Newsletters |
The 2003 spring issue of Work in Progress, the UNU's newsletter on research conducted by, or of interest to the UNU, focusses entirely on Inter-linkages and its various research activities.
Highlighting the various research areas of the Inter-linkages Initiative, this issue of Work in Progress gives a brief but comprehensive overview through twelve articles. Nine of these articles focus on research underway or being undertaken by the UNU and its partner organizations, while the remaining three introduce endeavours undertaken by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, UNEP and the Rio Convention Secretariats to strengthen synergies among multilateral environmental agreements.
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| Working Papers |
This report highlights the effective countermeasures (adaptation) for climate change and other environmental problems at the community level in developing countries in Asia/Pacific Region from the viewpoint of social capital and indigenous knowledge. It examines the roles of stakeholders such as local communities and local governments in climate change adaptation in development assistance projects, and exploring the possibility of fusing indigenous knowledge with the latest technologies in considering the social capital.
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This working paper is highlighting the importance of effective communication strategies to increase the public awareness on climate change issues. The study was focused basically on the climate change campaign strategies at developed countries, in particularly Japanese “Team Minus 6%” campaign. Successful climate change campaign is attributed to its communication strategies and attractive content. The lesson learned from successful campaign can help to duplicate the experience at other part of the world. This paper will be useful for government, private corporation, NGO/ NPOs etc. at both developed and developing countries to implement effective climate change communication strategies.
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The Innovative Communities Initiative of GEIC has been looking for fostering conditions for efficient communal natural resource management and suggested six factors which contribute to the successful natural resource management. This paper
tries to reexamine such factors by introducing the concept of social capital. The solid waste reduction campaign in Nagoya in past case study is reanalyzed by the concept of cognitive and structural social capital. It leads to the conclusion that external situation. such as Fujimae tideland conservation campaign played critical role to promote the civil participation to the waste reduction campaign by strengthening the cognitive social capital of individuals. Similarly, the role of health delegates of district
is reframed as existing structural social capital in order to draw policy implication for further promotion of the campaign. Furthermore, each of the six factors is discussed by the relevant social capital to give them concrete form for further duplication and evaluation.
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The Innovative Communities Initiative, a joint project of the United Nations University (UNU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), looks at the concept of innovativeness as applied to a community, and explores its implications in managing the local environment. This paper explores the conceptual background and ideas that went into setting up of the Initiative.
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This paper takes the ecosystem approach and the interlinkages initiative, as it is applied to environmental institutions, and constructs an overarching approach to human and natural ecosystems that is based on the requirements and imperatives of the two approaches. This paper, thus, goes through the following outline: a conceptual elaboration of the ecosystems approach; interlinkages concept definition and explanation as it is applied to social institutions; the concept of interlinkages as a socio-ecological approach; and the implications of these to regional and local environmental policy design and implementation. The paper concludes with some ethical considerations essential to a socio-ecological framework.
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Although the Internet has brought about the most dramatic changes at the
individual level, it also has tremendous impact at the level of governments and
international entities like the United Nations. These changes are reflected in the
way these institutions view the participation of citizens and members in this new
domain, and how this perception affects the way they conduct the business of
governing, aiding and helping their constituents.
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This discussion paper reviews national coordination, multi-stakeholder
participation and the implementation of MEAs in the Asia Pacific region.
Institutional coordination and multi-stakeholder participation are
important crosscutting themes of Agenda 21. This paper’s central
argument is that integrating these two concepts will significantly
contribute to fulfilling the obligations and reaching the ultimate goals of
MEAs.
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In an effort to gauge national capacities to address linkages and identify opportunities for synergistic development between MEAs, UNU conducted a survey of the baseline conditions in countries throughout the Asia Pacific Region. This report uses the findings of that survey to present a preliminary review of challenges encountered by nations during the MEA negotiation and implementation processes and to make recommendations aimed at increasing synergies in their application by national governments.
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The negotiations on the Biosafety Protocol (BP) of the Convention
on Biological Diversity in Montréal in January 2000, have been exceptionally
arduous. After six meetings of a Biosafety Working Group between 1996 and 1999,
negotiations broke down at the subsequent Extraordinary meeting of the Conference
of the Parties in February 1999 in Cartagena. After this setback three Informal
meetings (Montréal, Vienna, Montréal) and a subsequent "resumed" Extraordinary
meeting (Montréal) were necessary until a compromise solution was achieved in the
early hours of January 29, 2000.
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The paper addresses theoretical framework of web-based simulation &
gaming PANGAEA that is developed for a treating tool of sustainable
regional development for professional planners’ training by UNCRD. PANGAEA as a tool for professional planner human resource development, uses four keys controlling factors for
achieving sustainable regional development namely, capacity, distribution,
pace, and efficiency. Also, PANGAEA has a package of hierarchical three layers of planning
systems reflected on these effects under different governmental, which are
institutions to generate their own public investment plans on regional
sustainable development.
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One of the major challenges facing policy makers dealing with global problems is to
ensure coherence between the obligations of the many agreements negotiated to deal with
them. Coherence between measures taken under the Kyoto Protocol to deal with climate
change, and those of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) governing world trade, is no
exception.
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With trade liberalization promising to bring tremendous
economic benefits to millions of people worldwide, it is only logical to conclude that by
bringing economic growth and thus wealth, this would also lead to better environmental
protection. The problem is that there is no guarantee that this link would be made. Even
the basic promise of economic growth through trade liberalization has been questioned
recently due to the declining terms of trade toward the South, which has now contributed
to a debt crises, payment deficits and more poverty.
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This paper looks at the future of how to get the process of trade liberalization going forward again in ways that fully takes into account the priorities of developing countries. The paper presents TEN steps which need to be taken in order to get back into a meaningful Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. Most need to be done by the governments members of the WTO. Some need to be initiated by the WTO Secretariat.
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There is a clear need for a change in attitudes towards sustainable lifestyles and consumption
behaviour of customers. Much of the initiative for this change will have to come from the
local level, spearheaded by three local stakeholders - the local government itself, business and
industry, and citizens groups/NGOs. The need for change will be effected by a range of tools
and strategies that will bring these stakeholders together.
The ISO 14000 series provides many of these strategies and tools to develop a better local
environmental management system. Of particular significance, as illustrated in this paper, is
ISO 14001.
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