Author and Institution:
Laurance L. Delina, Independent Consultant
Outline:
Climate change has emerged as a key global issue, and an increasing number of organisations are seeking to address it in various ways. These “climate change organisations” are found at different levels – from the international organisations of the UN system through national ministries, and down to local government and community organisations.
There is recent and growing recognition that information and communication technologies (ICTs) play an important role in climate change monitoring, mitigation and adaptation. This presents a strategic challenge to climate change organisations; the more so since – to date – there has been little analysis of how these organisations should build ICTs into their strategic thinking.
This paper therefore provides guidance for local, national and international organisations responding to climate change on how to build “informational governance”: the effective response that both incorporates ICTs into a strategy for external climate change action, and which utilises ICTs as a tool for the internal planning and implementation of organisational climate change strategy.
It does this by identifying the key factors required for effective informational governance, i.e. for effective strategic use of ICTs by climate change organisations. Those factors are categorised as arrangements (organisational presence and structure, and climate-ICT initiatives); frameworks (focus, strategy and resources); coordination (horizontally/vertically, internationally, and with other stakeholders); and accountability.
These are presented in the form of questions that climate change organisations can ask themselves in order to identify current challenges and opportunities, to build a firmer foundation for effective informational governance, and to thus enable a better climate change response.
