| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
This empirical research has analyzed the multi-stakeholder process instigated by the World Commission on Dams (WCD) and also continued by its follow-up institutional arrangement, namely the Dam Development Project of the United Nations Environmental Program.
The research has yielded the following results. First, the research has revealed that the multi-stakeholder approach has become a favored method of norm-creation and knowledge-sharing in recent years regarding the issues of global governance, particularly in the areas related to sustainable development. Typical examples include the initiative taken by the World Bank on extractive industries, and the World Commission on Dams, which was also proposed by the World Bank in response to the pressure from civil society organizations. Second, the research has found that the multi-stakeholder approach is most frequently adopted during the course of organizational changes within intergovernmental organizations. For instance, the World Bank ha
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s adopted this method in response to the demand made by transnational networks consisting of human rights and environment NGOs highly critical of the Bank's development projects. Third, the responses by inter-governmental organizations have been Janus-faced. For instance, while the World Bank has tried to set its own regulatory policies addressing both social and environmental concerns raised by civil society organizations, and has also instituted a mechanism to ensure accountability regarding the implementation of its own policies, and furthermore has tried to "mainstream" these concerns into its development policies, it has also shied away from adopting the specific recommendations which had resulted from multi-stakeholder deliberation processes. This is the most important finding of this research, because it reveals the limitation of the multi-stakeholder approach; the multi-stakeholder approach may work effectively as a method of creating common knowledge among diverse stakeholders, but may not work effectively as a method of standard-setting, because corporations prefer self-regulation as opposed to external regulations, and the governments of developing countries prefer to have the latitude to set their own policy priorities such as attracting foreign capital for the purpose of economic development. Less
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