Das Projekt "Civil society for sustainability (CSS)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von DIALOGIK gemeinnützige Gesellschaft für Kommunikations- und Kooperationsforschung mbH durchgeführt. Objective: Civil society and its organisations (CSO) play a vital role in the implementation of sustainable development (SD). Civil society actors exhibit special features, they are to a large degree driven by visions or ideals, place a focus on common action, participate in and initiate discourses about SD in society, enhance social capital, and share a non-economical (non-efficiency driven) world view. Given these characteristics, CSOs show some specific shortcomings: a non-economical worldview leads to less efficient pursuit of SD goals and to a weak representation in political and economical decision-processes; initiating discourses often excludes evidence-based thinking, giving away chances for increased self-reflexivity and learning; and a lack of institutionalisation within existing institutional frameworks of governance provide not sufficient leverage to influence policy making. Apart from these more general shortcomings, there are numerous specific and context-related issues that would need to be researched in order to increase efficiency of CSOs. To foster sustainability from an analytical perspective, there are two aspects underlying (or overarching) all these context-dependent problems: - Degree of institutionalisation of sustainable development efforts within a local/regional context (socio-economical-political-cultural). Also therein, the degree of institutionalisation of sustainability-driven CSO in political/institutional decision structures (participative governance). - Sustainability knowledge and sustainability learning: getting sustainability across to people (the long way from head to hand).
Das Projekt "The development of indicators & assessment tools for CSO values-based projects in education for sustainable development (ESD)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von University Sussex durchgeführt. Objective: This project involves five very different Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) involved in Education for Sustainable Development in a very wide range of project types coming together to investigate two main aims, with academic assistance: - to develop more useful indicators to measure the impact of value/behaviour change elements in their ESD projects at the project level. This will enable them to better prioritise their resources across a wide range of project types. A considerable range of value-based projects will be considered, involving SMEs, communities and schoolchildren. The newly developed project level impact indicators will be related to those for other levels, e.g. regional, national; and those used in academic arenas. It will be necessary to particularly focus on the development of less established SD indicators such as ' well-being' which are can be strongly affected by spiritual/faith-based values and activities (Clark and Lelkes, 2005). Indicators for this have been difficult to quantify so far in mainstream discussions, but by focussing at project impact level we believe some can be defined and refined, with CSOs working with academics. Some schools of thought suggest that reinforcing local values will lead more effectively to behaviour changes, leading to larger SD impacts; without ways to measure, such ideas cannot be tested. - to improve the environmental impact of projects through advice at ground level. Three of the CSO participants in this proposal are faith-based whose projects generally focus on social issues more than environmental ones. The RTDs will be asked to outline possibilities to increase the projects environmental impact within their current context, leading to suggestions and guidelines for such CSOs to allow them to be more effective at environmental impact even when this is not their main focus. Researchers officers will work extensively in the field on CSO projects, with CSO staff, for both aims.
Das Projekt "Integrating civil, scientific and stakeholder knowledge towards African sustainable energy policy (SUSTAINERGYNET)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Organisation for International Dialogue and Conflict Management durchgeführt. Objective: Sustainable development is closely linked to the issues of Environment and Energy and their interdependencies. Sustainable economic growth and social development are only possible if secure, constant and equal access to energy sources is guaranteed. However, intensive energy use is likely to present serious implications for the environment and the climate. Especially in developing countries, promotion of sustainable energy options is necessary to tackle these challenges. In Africa, Civil Society Organisations (CSO) have been particularly active in addressing sustainable development and energy management within the last 15 years. While presenting important representatives for social needs and concerns, their effective impact on research policy agenda setting has however been considerably low yet. In line with the EU s commitments to strengthening civil participation and to promoting a global approach to the issue of sustainable development, SustainergyNet aims at promoting the engagement of CSOs in Africa in the field of research policy agenda setting concerning sustainable and efficient energy management. In this perspective, the project will elaborate and suggest ways on how to encourage and facilitate the cooperation between CSOs and RTD performers. This will be based on the assessment of current settings and frameworks that already exist, the formulation of recommendations and best practices and the presentation of a specific facility ( CSO Involvement Net ) that shall support CSOs towards actively contributing to research and policy processes.