Darren Swanson

Policy adaptability in practice: Lessons learned in the application of the Adaptive Design and Assessment Policy Tool (ADAPTool) to examine public policies in Canada in the context of climate change

Abstract Designing public policies to effectively address comingled economic, social and environmental issues is a fundamental challenge facing sustainable development policy-makers in the twenty-first century. Raising the stakes is the added challenge of doing so in today’s complex, dynamic and uncertain conditions. Policies that cannot perform under such conditions run the risk of not achieving their intended purpose and hindering the ability of individuals, communities and businesses to cope with and adapt to change. To explore the principles of adaptive policies, a four-year empirical investigation was launched in Canada and India to extract practical insights from complex adaptive systems literature and to study the characteristics of policies that have been effective under changing socio-economic and environmental conditions. Seven core principles for creating adaptive policies were identified and a practical policy analysis tool was developed to help policy-makers translate the principles into tangible recommendations. This paper presents the results of applications of the ADAPTool (Adaptive Design and Assessment Policy Tool) by four provincial governments in Canada on policies aimed at supporting climate change adaptation efforts. Lessons learned from the applications are discussed.

A water-energy-food security analysis tool for mining in Suriname: operationalizing the Mining Policy Framework of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development

The Plan of Implementation coming out of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development highlighted how the contribution of mining and minerals extraction to sustainable development could be enhanced (UN, 2002, para. 46). Motivated by the summit and its plan, a number of countries came together through a voluntary partnership to establish the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF), and its secretariat was then established in 2005 within the Canadian government’s international development agency. The IGF provides a platform for national governments with an interest in mining to work together to advance the priorities identified at the 2002 summit. It is the only global policy forum for the mining and metals sector with the overarching objective of enhancing capacity for good governance in the sector. The forum continues to expand: 55 countries are now members of the IGF, with France, Germany, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Netherlands and Rwanda all joining in 2015. In 2015, the secretariat of the IGF was moved to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a research policy think tank based in Canada. The institute had previously served as the regional partner for the global Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development initiative in 2000, and in 2009 the institute was invited to join the core administrative group of the International Bar Association’s Mining Law Committee, for which it prepared a Model Mining Development Agreement. In 2013, the IGF finalized its Mining Policy Framework (MPF) to advance good governance in mining practices in its member states. The MPF provides a compendium of activities that the IGF member countries have identified as best practice “for exercising good governance of the mining sector and promoting the generation and equitable sharing of benefits in a manner that will contribute to sustainable development” (IGF, 2013). These best practice standards are organized along six key pillars: