ICTs for delivering climate-development strategies: an informational governance framework for local climate-development organizations

ABSTRACT

An increasing number of organizations seek to address the climate-development challenge in multiple ways. These “climate-development organizations” (CDOs) are found at different levels: from the international organizations of the UN system through national ministries to local governments and community organizations. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have also been recognized as playing an important role in climate-development. To local CDOs in developing countries, however, this presents not only technology access and capacity issues but also strategic and governance challenges; the more so since – to date – there have been few frameworks on how CDOs could effectively build ICTs onto their interventions and governance. This paper advances a conceptual structure that provides CDOs guidance on how to build better “informational governance for climate-development,” based on arrangements, frameworks, coordination, and accountability. This framework presents questions that organizations can use to achieve better informational governance for climate-development.

KEYWORDS:

• Informational governance
• climate governance
• climate mobilization
• ICT4D
• localization
• resilience
• Paris Agreement
• Sustainable Development Goals

Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges with thanks this journal’s associate editor, Dr. Blane Harvey, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. This paper expands on the author’s earlier paper on informational governance for climate change organizations commissioned by the University of Manchester in 2011, during which it received comments from Prof. Richard Heeks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laurence L. Delina

Laurence L. Delina is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Environment and Sustainability at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a Visiting Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University. His research interests are on the rapid mitigation of climate change, accelerating sustainable energy transitions, and climate mobilization. Laurence received his PhD from the University of New South Wales (Australia).