Citizen participation : a sine qua non for effective design of the national environmental policy in Ethiopia

Abstract

This study aimed to critically analyse the National Environmental Policy design process and citizen participation in Ethiopia, and to develop a framework that can improve citizen participation. At the outset, the study reviews theoretical and empirical evidence to identify the main discourses on public policy and citizen participation and to identify areas where it can make a new contribution. In contrast to most of the previous studies, convergent parallel mixed methods research design was employed to yield reliable and valid evidence, allowing for a comprehensive evaluation and analysis of the National Environmental Policy design process and citizen participation in Ethiopia. The empirical investigation demonstrates that significant new environmental issues have gained higher recognition on the policy agenda. Nonetheless, the National Environmental Policy design process is dominated by an ideological, incremental, and elitist policy design approach, rather than by rational policy analysis. The process of generating and selecting policy options lacks the exploration of alternative policies and the evaluation of their consequences, with decisions often made under bounded rationality using a rule of thumb. The study reveals that several national and international legal and policy frameworks guarantee citizens' individual and collective rights to fully participate in the policy design process. However, these policies do not clearly define the minimum norms and standards, and levels at which citizen participation can be implemented. Furthermore, they rarely establish strong legal accountability for government agencies that violate these provisions. Contrary to the constitutional right, the implementation of the charities and civil society’s proclamation by the government has disempowered and hindered civil society organisations from initiating and supporting participatory programs. Despite the intention to consult citizens, the use of up-to-date informational and deliberative tools to facilitate dialogue with a broader and more inclusive representation of citizens from different demographics is lacking. The perceptions of public officials towards citizen participation and their familiarity with participatory tools were found to be limited. They rarely consider citizen participation beyond their immediate stakeholders. In general, the National Environmental Policy process is closed to egalitarian forms of policy design that provide substantive opportunities wherein citizens, alongside with state actors, engage in rational deliberation policy design process. This should be reinforced by a pragmatic, rational, participatory, and evidence-based policy design approach to overcome the trust deficit caused by lack of representation and an effective deliberation.