Easton Simenti-Phiri

Participatory governance has widely been emphasised as essential to achieving SDG 13. However, recent studies have tended to focus on climate change impacts or global-level politics and governance, to the exclusion of providing practical country-level multi-actor climate governance solutions. Our study bridges this gap by examining the determinants of effective participatory multi-actor climate change governance. The objectives were to examine the current state of Zambia’s climate change governance and policy environment, to examine the elements required to actualise participatory multi-actor climate change governance, and to develop a Climate Action Coordination (CAC) Model of participatory multi-actor governance. Using semi-structured interviews with policy-level actors and a survey of implementation-level actors, we find that Zambia’s current climate governance architecture is characterised by intricate political, policy, institutional, and coordination challenges. Despite these complexities, our study reveals that effective participatory multi-actor climate change governance is contingent upon a deep understanding of the prevailing political dynamics and the effective navigation of political interference by climate actor institutions. Within such a political context, a multi-tiered governance institutional framework is essential, anchored on both an influential political authority and robust multi-level technical autonomy. Our results also identify various determinants such as: broad stakeholder inclusion; clarity of roles; decentralisation of decision making, with safeguards to limit policy reversals; harnessing of indigenous knowledge; alignment to the broader national development agenda; adequate financing; leveraging the influence of global commitments; and establishing parliamentary oversight mechanisms, among others. We synthesised these determinants into a practical CAC Model that cuts across the different administrative and sectoral tiers of climate change governance. Our study is unique as it offers a broad, multifaceted, and practical consideration of the determinants of climate change governance. This is particularly useful for a country like Zambia that has embarked on ambitious environmental and climate change sector reforms.
•We obtained data from the makers and implementers of environmental and climate change policy in Zambia.•Climate change policy uptake requires wide multistakeholder inclusion in formulation processes and implementation.•Success of climate governance is contingent upon understanding and navigating prevailing political dynamics.•Robust climate change governance is a precursor and necessity to achieving effective climate action.

Traditionally, financial risk management is examined with cartesian and interpretivist frameworks. However, the emergence of complexity science provides a different perspective. Using a structured questionnaire completed by 120 Risk Managers, this paper pioneers a comparative analysis of cartesian and complexity science theoretical frameworks adoption in sixteen Zimbabwean banks, in unique settings of a developing country. Data are analysed with descriptive statistics. The paper finds that overally banks in Zimbabwe are adopting cartesian and complexity science theories regardless of bank size, in the same direction and trajectory. However, adoption of cartesian modeling is more comprehensive and deeper than complexity science. Furthermore, due to information asymmetries, there is diverging modeling priorities between the regulator and supervisor. The regulator places strategic thrust on Knightian risks modeling whereas banks prioritise ontological, ambiguous and Knightian uncertainty measurement. Finally, it is found that complexity science and cartesianism intersect on market discipline. From these findings, it is concluded that complexity science provides an additional dimension to quantitative risk management, hence an integration of these two perspectives is beneficial. This paper makes three contributions to knowledge. First, it adds valuable insights to theoretical perspectives on Quantitative Risk Management. Second, it provides empirical evidence on adoption of two theories from developing country perspective. Third, it offers recommendations to improve Quantitative Risk Management policy formulation and practice.

Using survey data obtained through semi-structured questionnaires which were administered using a multi-stage random sampling process, this study sought to undertake an experimental application of the Benefit Incidence Analysis (BIA) socio-economic evaluation tool on 117 rural farming households in Chongwe District of Zambia. The sampled households were receiving agricultural support through the Government-financed Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP). Specifically, this experimental study of the usage of BIA on agriculture-related spending in Zambia  was aimed at proving possible replication of the usage of BIA for evaluating socio-economic and distributional impacts of financing for Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices. Results prove that BIA assessment variables such as income/expenditure quintiles, education status, gender and age are also applicable to and essential in evaluating CSA initiatives. Despite this study proving applicability to CSA assessments, undertaking a BIA is highly technical and data intensive. Such an undertaking would heavily rely on the timely availability of complementary economic and financial data and an intermediate to advanced level of technical capacity in order to administer the analysis.

Combining a three-pronged document review approach with semi-structured and in-depth interviews, this study provides a critical assessment of the emergence and progression of inclusion of climate change and incidental phenomenon in Zambia’s development policy. Specifically, the study seeks to trace these issues within each and every National Development Plan (NDP) published by the Government since Zambia’s independence in 1964. Results, synthesized from the different data sources, show that NDPs have progressively incorporated environmental issues from as early as the 1960s, with more recent consolidation of climate change and its increased inclusion beginning in the early 2000s. Practical implications of these results are presented in this paper, but mainly suggest: (i) the need to learn from past NDP best practices and contextualise them to the current complexion of the country; (ii) formulation of a handbook of implementation for climate change as an accompanying volume to the NDPs; (iii) importance of determining the climate change-industrial development trade-off; (iv) harnessing the dual correlational effect of international stimuli and domestic political forces on climate change inclusion in NDPs; (v) use of domestically-defined climate change mainstreaming and policy formulation tools; and (vi) adoption of a holistic climate change performance indicator methodology for formulating climate change related KPIs.