{"id":7805,"date":"2022-05-13T01:50:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T23:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frient.de\/?p=7805"},"modified":"2024-12-06T14:40:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:40:56","slug":"environmental-peacebuilding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frient.de\/en\/artikel\/environmental-peacebuilding\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental Peacebuilding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is not only climate change that has a negative impact on the environment. Economic actors\u2019 business activities may often bring about irreversible collateral damage on natural habitats. If this is the case in fragile and conflict situations conflict and violence may be exacerbated. A conflict-sensitive and rights-based approach to business activities are essential to ensuring that social and environmental impacts do not negatively affect marginalized populations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental challenges, particularly those linked to business activities, are part of a complex web of actors, interests, and stresses: not the sole root cause of conflict. They are often connected to unaddressed grievances and human rights violations ensuing from scarce resources, increasing inequality, political oppression, dispossession, displacement, and a discriminatory political economy.[i]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental peacebuilding must address these root causes. A holistic approach that combines conflict-sensitivity and a rights-based approach is key to adequately understanding and addressing these challenges.[ii]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda calls for a multisectoral approach to sustainable development, inviting business actors to consider their role to contribute to sustainability and peace\u2014as further outlined by the 2020 report on business and conflict by the Business and Human Rights Working Group.[iii]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rights-based approach to environmental challenges is one that is grounded in international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting them. It analyses and seeks to redress inequalities which lie at the heart of people\u2019s grievances. Such an approach when applied by business actors is not merely an obligation but part of a process to sustainable business engagement and peace. As a central document the Aarhus Convention[iv]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0sets apart three procedural rights relating to the environment, namely the right to access to information; participate in decision-making; and justice[v]<\/strong><\/a>\u2014echoing Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration.[vi]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0When states, legitimate local authorities, and business actors uphold these rights, they foster resilient, just, peaceful, and inclusive communities, which in turn creates enabling business environment for all.[vii]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sustainable business engagement necessarily also includes a conflict-sensitive approach.\u00a0[viii]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0This requires a sound understanding of context-specific intergroup tensions, gender constructions, and potential divisive issues\u2014which often include environmental challenges\u2014and the two-way interaction between activities and the context.[ix]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Conflict sensitivity requires actors, including businesses,[x]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to act upon that understanding to avoid negative impacts on social relations and to avoid fuelling further division.[xi]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The following case study illustrates how a well-intentioned project subsequently failed on its own terms \u2013 illustrating how necessary both approaches are to business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s been done<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cAddax Bioethanol SL\u201d project in Sierra Leone\u2014product of a policy push to attract foreign direct investment by the government of Sierra Leone and supported by numerous development finance institutions (DFIs)\u2014was meant to set the bar for good practice in agriculture and renewable energy projects. Established in 2010, it aimed to produce ethanol from sugarcane for the European market, while providing jobs and supplying electricity for the national power grid. Instead of constituting an example of best practice, however, civil society organizations soon reported negative impacts of the project on the local population, including environmental pollution, food insecurity, the violation of land rights, and a consequent increase in local conflicts and violence.[xii]<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following pressure from human rights groups, human rights due diligence measures, including multistakeholder dialogues, were implemented while the project remained under Addax ownership.[xiii]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0However, the project lacked a thorough conflict and context analysis, resulting in increasing intra-and inter-community conflict. The land lease, for instance, was negotiated between local authorities, such as Paramount Chiefs, and company representatives, without direct involvement of the landowners and land users.[xiv]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0Though not uncommon, this practice exacerbated already existing conflicts between the local chiefs and communities as well as inter-community relationships. Multistakeholder meetings, a Farmer Development Service and vegetable gardening programmes were not enough to mitigate negative impacts on livelihoods in the communities, including loss of income, growing inequality, and increasing frustrations around a perceived lack of transparency. Consequently, as business activities contributed to people losing access to their land and subsistence as well as clean water, tensions and (domestic) violence increased.[xv]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0The company and DFIs were not prepared to compensate for those unintended impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Addax project illustrates, a conflict-sensitive and rights-based approach to business activities throughout the project cycle and changes in ownership are necessary to avoid negative impacts on women and men, the environment, and peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental peacebuilding should be obligatory for all actors, including business. Business actors and their financial supporters (including DFIs) should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n