Adapt or Perish_Climate Change Governance in Africa

Adapt or Perish: The Governance of Climate Change in Africa Triggers of Institutional Adaptation to Meet the New Challenge of Rising Hydro-Meteorological Disasters in Africa, 1995-2010 Comparative Insights from Mozambique, Uganda and Senegal Arame TALL PhD Candidate African Studies Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies April 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS AKNOWLEDGEMENTS PREFACE

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INTRODUCTION PART I: BACKGROUND CHAPTER 2: TRIGGERS OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE CHAPTER 3: WHY CLIMATE CHANGE REQUIRES NEW OR ADAPTED INSTITUTIONS? PART II: METHODS CHAPTER 4: METHODS PART III: RESULTS CHAPTER 5: CROSS-COUNTRY CLASSIFICATION RESULTS CHAPTER 6: SENEGAL CHAPTER 7: UGANDA CHAPTER 8: MOZAMBIQUE PART IV: DISCUSSION 31 33 59 104 105 133 134 144 200 254 312 7

CHAPTER 9: CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS 313 CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION, TOWARDS A THEORY OF INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION TO MEET THE NEW CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE 331 BIBLIOGRAPHY 347

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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis was a long odyssey. It would have never come to completion without the support and constant encouragement of the following individuals and institutions. I stand before them in deep gratitude. Mame Boury and Mamadou Tall, without whom I would have never come this far; I am grateful to the assistance of Ms. Anita Twesigomwe in the search, compilation and archiving of the newspaper clips that underpinned my events analysis for Uganda. I am thankful for the assistance of Lucia Jorge in the search, compilation and archiving of the newspaper clips that underpinned my events analysis for Mozambique. In Senegal, archivist Sammy Laris was of invaluable support to unearth, compile and catalogue newspaper clips on government responses to climate-related disasters between 1995-2010. I am indebted to Filipe Lucio of the World Meteorological Organization for his insightful comments on the Mozambique chapter, and to Alessandra Giannini of Columbia University for her time reading through the Climate Change chapter. UNDP-GEF and UNDP Mozambique country Program on Climate Change Adaptation supported and funded my fieldwork in Mozambique from March-May 2011, as part of the project document development for the Mozambique Coastal Adaptation project. The SAIS PhD Committee provided the bursary that enabled research in Senegal and Uganda. I am indebted to the Senegalese Red Cross National Society for providing the logistical support and manpower that greatly facilitated the Climate VCAs in Senegal. Last but not least, I am thankful to all of my PhD committee members, who have taken the time to read and comment on the various versions of this manuscript; I thank them for their time and intellectual generosity. 3

PREFACE On August 28 2011, following two days of heavy uninterrupted rainfall, sudden landslides on the slopes of Mount Elgon in center-east Uganda buried twenty-six people alive at once in the district of Bulambuli. Ten more lives were claimed in the landslides of the days after. These followed the national landslides of just the year prior, which killed over three hundred people, in a country that had only seldom known landslides in the past. In Mozambique, Indian Ocean cyclones and tidal incursions, increasingly frequent in recent years, have displaced entire coastal communities along Mozambiques two thousand five hundred (2,500) kilometer-long oceanic interface, forcing them inland and depriving them of a much-needed livelihood, which the ocean had provided them with hitherto, compelling them to adapt to a new life as agriculturalists. West of the continent, in Senegal, a formerly drought-ridden country of the Sahel until the end 1980s, flooding has been progressively claiming more lives since the mid-1990s, creating damage only faintly estimated by official reports. All across Africa, climate-related disastershereafter referred to as Hydro- Meteorological Disasters (HMDs) have been on the rise since the 1990s; and their impacts have begun to wreck havoc in communities at the frontlines in Africas rural areas and urban centers alike1. Many attribute this increase in the frequency and magnitude of climate-related disasters in part to global anthropogenic Climate Change2, and contend that with more climate changes to come a result of the inertia in the climate system (mostly

1 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2007/2008, Fighting climate

change: Human solidarity in a divided world (New York: McMillan, 2007), 75-88. 2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and

Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. M.L. Parry et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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resident in the oceans), which will continue to react for many more years to current- day atmospheric carbon stocks we are already committed to more HMDs are expected to occur, with sizeable impacts over Africa3. In the continent least prepared to address the impacts of climate-related changes, these new threats are a major source of concern. How are African countries governing the new challenge of a fast changing climate? Which institutions and policy frameworks have countries endogenously devised to confront rising HMDs? How have relationships within society, between governed and governors in Africa, changed or been reshaped as a result? How are they likely to change in response to continued climate fluctuations? Fundamentally, what makes African countries take Climate Change seriously, and place the issue high on the political agenda? The present dissertation seeks to answer this last essential question. We already know a lot on what needs to be done and have plentiful advice readily available for governments regarding the design of institutions effective for Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), including establishing early warning systems, embedding institutions mandated to tackle climate risks under powerful ministries and so forth (see World Resources Report 2010-11)4. However the other side of the causality arrow- what MAKES governments adopt these effective institutions, uptake all of this advice and engage in institutional change to better address and deliver on the new demand for effective CCA-DRR policies that is where a critical gap in understanding lies, one which this dissertation seeks to address. As the issue of Climate Change moves to the fore of national, African and international agendas, a framework is urgently needed to understand the complex 3 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to

Advance Climate Change adaptation (SREX), Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Field et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 8-9. 4 World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and World Bank. World Resources 20102011: Decision Making in a Changing ClimateAdaptation Challenges and Choices, ed. P. S. Angell et al. (Washington, DC: WRI, 2011), 70-79.

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interactions between climate and societies in Africa, and attempt to predict how precisely African societies, livelihoods and governance structures will respond to increasing climate variability. To answer this question, we focused on rising HMDs as a proxy for Climate Change impacts in Africa, and investigated national governments policy responses to HMDs during the period 1995-2010, when HMD frequency began to increase over Africa. In each of the country cases where we conducted research, Mozambique, Uganda and Senegal, we then asked: what prompted governments to adopt the policy and institutional frameworks that they did to address rising climate risks? Positing disaster management as a public good, we analyze why some countries across the continent have provided the public good of disaster prevention, towards the fulfillment of their constitutional mandate of protecting citizens against all crises, including climate ones; whereas others have not. What this dissertation unravels is that in many instances, institutional adaptation to meet the new challenge of Climate Change is an issue eminently path-dependent. In the countries of Africa where high-frequency HMDs in recent years have wrecked havoc (accidents of history), therein governments have had no choice but to address the issue. When the imperative of adaptation met convinced leaders and trusting donors willing to support the countrys newfound desire for effective national policies, plans and management of climate risks, therein the governance of Climate Change was improved. Thus the desire for change has to come from within, stemming from a strong national demand for improved CCA-DRR, which in turn led to the development of endogenous institutions to seriously confront rising climate risks and manage new climate opportunities. Under these circumstances, effective CCA-DRR institutions have obtained. Understanding these political underpinnings of policy and institutional change is an important pre-requisite for all the activists and programs promoting Climate 6

Change adaptation on the continent, and expecting governments to uptake these programs. Climate Change is one of the defining issues of our time. In the words of the UNDP, no issue merits more urgent attention or more immediate action5. This is so even more for developing regions such as Africa, projected to bear the brunt of its impacts in the 21st century. A framework is urgently needed to understand how Climate Change will impact the human, socio-economic and political systems of developing regions, as well as incentive structures within them for institutional change. This dissertation contributes an important stone to that edifice. 5 UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008, 1

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION When the cyclones come, all my cassava harvest is destroyed. I cant go fishing because the cyclone comes from the sea. I rebuild the roof of my house with coconut tree leaves, but if the cyclone persists for days, the roof flies off again and rains flood into my house. What am I to do against all these calamities? I would like to open a small shop selling pastries in front of my house, to have the means to buy a zinc roof to put over the heads of my family, but means to start up are limited. God, please help us. - Cyclone afflicted resident of Macuacuane Village, Pebane, central Mozambique

1.1 Problem Statement 1.1.1 Climate Change & Rising Disasters in Africa

Climate Change will very likely lead to an increase in the frequency of heavy rainfall events worldwide6, with medium confidence that anthropogenic, or man-made, influences have contributed to the intensification of extreme precipitation on the global scale7. We also now know with quasi-certainty that Climate Change will bring over most land areas a warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures on the global scale8, with warmer and fewer cold days/nights, and warmer and more frequent hot days/nights. Warm spells and heat waves will very likely be more frequent as well, with impacts on all sectors of human activity, from agriculture to water resources, human health, industry and tourism9. More intense tropical cyclones are also likely10. Finally, it is likely that currently observed extreme coastal high water and rise in mean sea level are a result of anthropogenic Climate Change, and will continue to rise as Climate Change ensues. Climate Change impacts related to changes in patterns of extreme events, based on projections to the mid- to late 21st century, not withstanding any changes or new 6 IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, 8-12 7 IPCC, SREX, 13 8 Ibidem 9 Ibidem 10 Ibidem

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developments in adaptive capacity, are hence significant and non negligible11. Though the attribution of single extreme events to anthropogenic climate change versus natural climate variability is challenging, it can be affirmed that a changing climate leads to changes in the frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extreme weather and climate events, and can result in unprecedented extreme weather and climate events12. Thus with Climate Change, a new era of more erratic fluctuations in weather and climate patterns is to be expected, including on the continent of Africa, where impacts of such likely changes in climate and weather are most feared, due to the continents limited means to withstand them, as well as the high dependence of a large majority of its population on natural climate factors temperature and rainfall chiefly for livelihood and development. Indeed, in Africa impacts of a changing climate on local communities dependent on climate for their livelihoods and sustenance are large sources of concern. An average 57% of Africas active population is employed in a rain-fed agricultural sector that is highly sensitive to rainfall and temperature fluctuations. Only 6.8% of arable land in Africa is irrigated13. Furthermore, increasing population densities in ill-planned settlements at the peripheries of Africas urban centers, in Dakar, Accra, Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg, are directly exposed to the vagaries of changing rainfall patterns14. When climate-related hazards strike in Africa, they generate human development setbacks that have monumental social ramifications15. They jeopardize progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and generally force poor households to forfeit meager assets in the process of coping with climate 12 IPCC, SREX, 11 13 Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, FAO Statistical Yearbook 2009, (Rome: FAO, 2009),

11 IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, 17-18

accessed April 04, 2012. http://www.fao.org/economic/the-statistics-division-ess/publications- studies/statistical-yearbook/fao-statistical-yearbook-2009/en/ 14 Pelling, Mark and Ben Wisner: Disaster Risk Reduction: cases from Urban Africa. London: Earthscan, 2009 15 Tall, Arame, Climate forecasting to serve communities in West Africa, Procedia Environmental Sciences 1 (2010): 421-431, accessed online December 1, 2011. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18780296

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related disasters16. This has prompted UNDP to declare that Climate Change is hampering efforts to deliver the MDG promise17. The projection that, with Climate Change, Africa will be faced with more frequent extreme weather and climate events is a worrisome prospect. In light of all of these reasons, Africa has been identified by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change as the second region most vulnerable to Climate Change impacts in the world, immediately after the Arctic polar zone, and before small island nation states and Asian/African mega-deltas; Africa, because of the continents low adaptive capacity and projected climate change impacts18. More frequent climate and weather extremes are not just a future scenario in Africa however- many African countries have already begun facing them in recent years. Over the decade of the 1990s alone, Africa as a whole has experienced a surge in the number of heavy rainfall events and floods hitting the continent19. This constitutes a sharp contrast with the prolonged droughts of the 1970s-80s, leading many scientists to observe that a greening is occurring in areas such as the Sahel, which suffered from severe droughts for two decades and now enjoys plentiful rainfall on average. This return of the rains has been far from a being a welcome godsend however. When the rains returned, they came back with full force, carting along a plethora of flash floods, water-borne epidemics and dry spells scattered between the bouts of plentiful but ill-distributed rainfall. Recent empirical evidence emanating from across Africa confirms this assertion: between 2007-2009, disaster interventions across Africa have increased by a factor 16 As noted by Emmanuel Skoufias, poor households are typically less equipped to deal with shocks [] In the

absence of an effective public safety net system [as is the case throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa], poorer households may use coping strategies that ultimately prevent them from ever escaping from poverty [] for example, selling their productive assets, such as draft animals, or taking their children out of school. World Bank, World Development Report 2003: Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World (Washington D.C.: Oxford University Press, 2003), 1088 17 UNDP, Human Development Report 2007-08, 28 18 IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, 13 19 International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), World Disasters Report 2009: Focus on Early Warning, Early Action (Geneva: IFRC, 2009), 172

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of 820. In 2007 alone, the continent experienced close to 30% of the worlds hydro- meteorological disasters the majority of which were flood and flash flood disasters, causing about 2 million victims in East and Central Africa during the January floods, and more than 2.6 million victims between West and East Africa during the July-August floods. In 2007, floods in Sudan, where damages were thoroughly documented, caused more than US$ 300 million in damages, whereas in Madagascar cyclone Indhala caused over $240 million worth of destruction21. In 2008, floods destroyed homes, infrastructure and crops, killing over 300 people in West Africa22. Droughts, floods, pest infestations, rising sea levels, storms and cyclones are increasingly reducing opportunity and wrecking havoc in communities all across the continent23. Whether a partial manifestation of anthropogenic Climate Change as suggested by a growing number of climate scientists24, or a consequence of higher localized human vulnerability caused by higher exposure (for instance increasing human densities in low elevation coastal zones in Africa; see McGranahan et al.)25, weaker safety nets and social protection26 and declining agrarian fortunes27, or yet the mere spurious outcome of better disaster reporting on the part of African countries; an upward trend in climate-related disasters is noticeable across the continent, as evidenced by the significant rise in the number of reported climate-related disasters since the mid-1990s (see fig. 1.1).

20 IFRC, World Disasters Report 2009, 172 21 The Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), Annual Disaster Statistical Review, The

numbers and trends 2007 (Brussels: CRED, 2008) 22 Braman, L., Early Warning, Early Action, an Evaluation, Report to the IFRC/Red Cross Red Crescent Climate

Centre (2009), Accessed April 4, 2012 http://www.climatecentre.org/downloads/File/ewea_an_evaluation_of_ifrc_west_and_central_africa.pdf 23 UNDP, Human Development Report 2007-08, 73 24 See IPCC, SREX; and IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, 13 25 McGranahan, G., D. Balk and B. Anderson, The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones, Environ Urban 19 (2007): 1737 26 Ellis, Frank, Stephen Devereux and Philip White, Social Protection in Africa, Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009 27 Bryceson, D. F., The Scramble in Africa: Reorienting Rural Livelihoods, World Development (2002): 725739

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Fig. 1.1: Number of climate-related disasters reported in Africa since the 20th century: A sharp increase from the mid-1990s (based on EM-DAT data; source: author). Note: Are classified as climate-related disasters: floods, pest infestations, droughts and storms/cyclones.28

These Hydro-Meteorological Disastershereafter referred to as HMDsare the principal object of this dissertation. Using rising HMDs as a proxy for projected CC impacts in Africa, we ask: how are African countries currently addressing the challenge of a changing climate? Which governments are doing what in the face of rising HMDs, and what policies and institutional frameworks have they endogenously devised to address the new challenge? Which factors have prompted them to adopt the policies that they did? In instances where policy change has occurred, what has triggered it? In general, what factors prompt a country to become a climate disaster averter, versus a disaster responder or a firefighter? Vulnerability. Hazard * Vulnerability 28 We follow here the definition of a Disaster as the conjugation of a naturally driven Hazard and human-induced

DISASTER= Capacity The character and severity of impacts from climate extremes depend not only on the extremes themselves but also on exposure and vulnerability. Exposure and vulnerability are key determinants of disaster risk and of impacts when risk is realized (IPCC, SREX, 2012). A disaster can thus be conceived of as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses, which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. It results from the combination of hazards, conditions of vulnerability and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce the potential negative consequences of risk (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2009)

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We circumscribe our analysis to HMDs that have occurred between 1995 and 2010, period when HMDs have begun to rise in Africa (see fig. 1.1) and over which more reliable data is available. We analyze what African countries have done hitherto to address these disasters, as a means to understand their response patterns and surmise how they may continue to manage HMDs into the future and rise up to the new challenge of Climate Change, as impacts become more pronounced over the 21st century. Against the context of changing climate risks and rising extreme weather events, projected to only keep rising in the 21st century, understanding the policies in place to address impacts of currently occurring HMDs in Africa is a pressing issue, important to appraise national responses to the impacts these disasters are already exerting on local livelihoods, societies and political systems, and to attempt to predict outcomes if climate disasters continue to rise. On the ground, across Africa, communities and countries have already begun to contend with climate changes we are committed to, while bracing for those yet to come. Therein lies the relevance of studying how one of the worlds most vulnerable regions to climate change and variability is already impacted and will continue to be impacted by global Climate Change, and what endogenous institutional solutions are being attempted to thwart its most immediate and damaging impacts on vulnerable communities. 1.1.2. CC Governance: Climate Shock Management & Constitutional Design Despite the magnitude of the Climate Change challenge, and its implications for human development in Africa, it is unfortunate to note that scholarly work on national climate change adaptation policies has been severely wanting. Not enough political scientists have addressed the issue of Climate Change adaptation, which has been by and large left to climate scientists, geographers and physical science 13

researchers; whereas if the latters prediction of steadily increasing climate extreme events turns to be accurate, we may be witnessing over the next few decades some of the largest reversals in human development ever witnessed29. This is even more surprising in light of the findings of the World Banks global track study, which concludes that by 2020, the annual costs of adaptation for developing countries will range from $75 billion to $100 billion/year. Of this amount, the average annual costs for Africa would approximate $18 billion/year30. Just as when the Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) threat emerged on the continental scene in the decade of the 1990s, the 21st century is witness to the new Climate Change threat, and we do not know what to make of its projected impacts and opportunities, nor how to analyze and forecast its consequences on already fragile African political and social systems. A framework is thus urgently needed to understand the impacts of Climate Change on Africas vulnerable communities and countries, and devise preventive policy solutions realistic in the context of existing governance structures. In this thesis, we bring Climate Change back into the realm of policy scrutiny. We delve into the systemic factors that spur governments to take Climate Change seriously, and confront it effectively to climate proof their development gains and engage on a track of climate-compatible development. Our approach to test our framework is to look into how already occurring climate changes impacting African countries are currently managed, as a way of understanding patterns of response, and predicting how they will likely impact and be managed into the future. Looking into the past to predict how the future will likely unfold.

2010), 19-25.

29 UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/08, 1. 30 World Bank, Economics of Adapting to Climate Change, Synthesis Report (Washington DC: The World Bank,

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We focus on one manifestation of Climate Change to do this: climate-related extreme events; and hone in specifically on how countries at risk are currently addressing these, as a means of inferring how they will respond to future climate hazards, assuming a perfect line of continuity in the disaster management (DM) policies in place. In the cases where the perfect line of continuity is broken, we look into the systemic reasons that led to a change in DM policy, in order to derive insights into what factors prompt governments to adopt better policies to improve their management of climate shocks. Two strategic reasons prompt us to focus on the governance of climate-related hazards as a proxy to analyze the governance of Climate Change in Africa: 1) A confident projection for Africa that future Climate Change will be an exacerbation of current climate variability. As such, gaining a better understanding of how governments currently respond when climate and weather fluctuations occur (i.e: climate-related hazards) allows us an introspection into how governments will most likely respond to future hazards again assuming a line of continuity in governance of these climate risks. 2) A reasoned possibility that Climate Change will lead to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events. There remains a lot of uncertainty regarding whether climate-related threats will increase with CC; current scientific evidence suggests this (IPCC 2007). The death toll and social, economic and psychological damages generated by climate-related or hydro- meteorological disasters at their current frequency levels are enough however to put their governance of as a serious object of study, even if future scientific breakthroughs do not demonstrate/project an increase in their frequency.

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What we already know is that Africa is characterized by institutional and legal frameworks that are, in some cases, insufficient to deal with environmental degradation and disaster risks (see Sokona and Denton, 2001; Beg et al., 2001)31. What we have yet to find however is how much degradation and risks will countries in Africa absorb before they engage in meaningful institutional reform? What are the general triggers of such institutional reforms? A fundamental related question of interest is what can be done to curtail the impacts of CC on African countries, by these countries themselves, and ensure effective governance of Climate Change risks and opportunities, in order to thwart their negative impacts on the development endeavor. A preliminary answer seems to be: build resilience to current climate-related disasters, since they will likely only go crescendo with CC32. As we will find soon, our preliminary findings however indicate that only a very small minority of Africas fifty-countries is doing so. Most importantly however, we are interested in knowing why countries in Africa adopt the climate disaster risk management policies that they do. What prompts or deters states from adopting socially beneficial climate disaster risk reduction (CCA- DRR) policies? Which factors determine African governments response to Climate Change? Is it limited knowledge or technical expertise on national vulnerability to climate risks? No additional financial resources to tackle climate risks and opportunities? Or simply no political buy-in to govern climate change and avoid its detrimental consequences? We get to these reasons and detail them in our country findings chapters. 31 In IPCC, Fourth Assessment Report, 453-4.

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United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-

2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters (Geneva: United Nations, 2007). Accessed March 29, 2011. http://www.preventionweb.net/files/1037_hyogoframeworkforactionenglish.pdf

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1.2. Research Question and Hypotheses 1.2.1. Research Questions My dissertation aims to answer the fundamental question: How are countries in Africa governing rising Hydro-Meteorological Disasters (proxy for Climate Change), and what factors determine African governments response to climate shocks? The goal of the present research is to test whether X (hypothesized Independent Variables) causes Y (adoption of socially beneficial institutions to meet the new challenge of CC). Is GDP/capita, disaster frequency or an accident of history (hypothesized Independent Variables) the main driver of the observed differences in climate risk management institutional frameworks across Africa, or do alternative hypotheses hold more explanatory power? What makes African countries take Climate Change and its associated risks seriously, and place it high on the political agenda? Extensive literature exists on what needs to be done, with widespread policy advice, guiding interested governments in the adequate design of institutions effective for Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), including establishing early warning systems, embedding institutions mandated to tackle climate risks under powerful ministries and so forth (see World Resources Report 2010-11)33. However we have yet to understand what MAKES governments adopt these effective institutions, uptake all of this advice and engage in institutional change to better deliver on the new demand for effective CCA-DRR. 33 World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, United

Nations Environment Programme, and World Bank. World Resources 20102011: Decision Making in a Changing ClimateAdaptation Challenges and Choices, ed. P. S. Angell et al. (Washington, DC: WRI, 2011), 70-79.

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Our general question has two sub-components: 1) How do countries in Africa confront rising HMDs? What policies have African governments experimented with to confront rising climate-related disasters between 1995-2010? What is the current institutional architecture in place to govern climate-related disasters at national-level? Where is climate finance coming from and flowing to? 2) What factors prompt governments in Africa to effectively govern climate- related risks? What factors prompt/deter a State from adopting socially beneficial institutions to address the new demand for climate change adaptation disaster risk reduction (CCA-DRR)? What incentives make countries adopt policies that prevent HMD impacts and climate disaster-proof development gains? What are enabling and limiting conditions? Under which institutional, political and socio-economic circumstances does a country adopt CCA-DRR measures? What have been the pathways for pressure/change? More generally, what makes governments adopt socially beneficial policies and institutions? What are obstacles to achieving socially beneficial institutions in the context of Africas governance? These two subsets serve as the research questions I will be specifically investigating. 18

1.2.2. Hypotheses RQ1: Which policy responses have African countries provided to govern rising HMDs in 1995-2010?

H1.1 : Most African countries satisfy with ex-post response when they are hit by HMDs, because they do not have or apply pre-defined procedures for disaster management.

H1.2: Current national climate adaptation/disaster management policies are not aligned with priority local adaptation needs on the ground, because a disconnect exists between national policy-making on CCA and local realities.

RQ2: What factors prompt States to establish institutions for effective

CCA-DRR?

What incentives prompt States to adopt the policies and institutional frameworks that they do in response to rising climate-related risks? Here, we probe the incentives and pressure channels for effective CCA-DRR in the context of Africas governance. An incentives analysis will enable such a probing, with a deep look into the incentives systems that modulate the reality of African governance of CC. Our working hypotheses are as follows. H2.1: Climate-related disasters reshape political relationships at the sub- national-level, because they create new channels of pressure from the base that make the government pay attention to the needs of local citizens. 19

H2.2: Severe past disaster(s) prompt(s) governments to engage in ex-ante preparedness for HMDs, since wherever there have been multiple severe disasters, national leaders have reformed national climate-disaster management policies/institutional frameworks. H2.3: Donor pressure drives policy change in national climate disaster management, through increased funding earmarked for CCA-DRR.

H2.4: Government capacity matters, because poor countries are not able to carry out ex-ante disaster preparation. This last hypothesis runs as follows: State capacity (fiscal) determines the type of disaster management policy in place in the country. Wealthier, more capacitated countries engage in ex-ante disaster preparation and generate better disaster outcomes, whereas poorer, weaker countries only respond to disasters and manage disasters poorly. H2.4-a: Government Capacity is positively related with Disaster management policy (yes, capacity does matter) H2.4-b: Capacity does not matter as much as Institutions do (strength of relationship between Institutions and Disaster Policy more significant than strength of relationship between Capacity and Disaster Policy).

The present thesis is dedicated to responding to these specific research questions and testing the above-outlined hypotheses. Figure 1.2 summarizes our main hypotheses.

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Cyclone Flood Drought Storm Landslide

Competing Independent Variables (cause): Dependent Variable (effect): HMD frequency/ magnitude Donor pressure for improved CCA-DRR Climate Finance: Aid earmarked for CCA-DRR State capacity: GDP/ capita Dedicated leadership Key political bastion at risk Extensive Media coverage of disaster impacts Institutional change in the management of climate risks: adoption of socially benevicial institutions to address the new challenge of CCA-DRR

Climate Hazard Hits

Figure 1.2: Hypothesized Independent Variables, and pathway of cause and effect.

1.3. Methods In order to test our hypotheses, we focus on one analyzable sub-set of projected Climate Change impacts for Africa: risks of extreme weather events, which if un- buffered, translate into large-scale disasters. Our hypothesis-testing is rooted in empirical evidence emerging from across Africa, with cases from Senegal, Uganda and Mozambique, where we analyze the performance of current governance schemes at the national, sub-national and local levels to manage climate risks and address the adaptation needs of communities at the frontlines of Climate Change impacts, as a proxy for assessing how well these systems will manage exacerbated climate risks in the future, assuming perfect policy continuity.

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We circumscribe our analysis to the period beginning in 1995, when a consistent rise in HMDs began to be observed in Africa (see fig. 1.1), up until 2010, when enough reliable data is available in each country. A three-phase research and analysis plan enabled us to answer our research question: phase 1 of this research is dedicated to identifying policies in place to confront HMDs across Africa, while phase 2 zooms in at community-level to assess the adequacy of national policies to address local adaption needs, and phase 3 delves into an incentives analysis of why a given policy in each country came to be. We used a mixed design (of both quantitative and qualitative methods), involving two units of analysis: the household and the nation-state. We avoided the ecological fallacy by drawing conclusions in each of the parts of our analysis that only apply to the units of analysis under consideration in that part. For instance, the goal of phase 1 is to identify the various policies in place across Africa to address climate-related disasters; the conclusion from that first part were then used to select cases illustrating each type of policy. The goal of this endeavor differs from that of phase 2s, which seeks to assess which of the policies categorized in phase 1 is most aligned with local communities adaptation needs, zooming in on households within communities that were severely hit by disasters (hence the change in units of analysis). The insights reached in this section were only applied to the communities under consideration. Finally, we returned to the nation-state in our final analysis phase to identify what factors in the context of Africas governance reality could incentivize governments across Africa to adopt the latter policy. The different goals of each research phase justify the different units of analysis. 1.3.1. A note on Sampling Selection of country case studies: Country cases have been selected based on a continent-wide classification of the different climate-related disaster management policies in place at the national-level. 22

For the purposes of this research, we have hypothesized three distinct climate disaster management policy types across Africa: 1) The Policy of ex-post response to disasters (the Firefighters): countries choosing not to, or unable, to address disasters until they occur. Countries in this category solely respond to disasters after they have occurred, mobilizing any personnel available and sending them to disaster sites. For this reason we label them: the Firefighters. Official emergency response in the countries of this category is characterized by amateurism and improvisation, and there are no pre-established well-rehearsed procedures to follow. 2) The Policy of ex-ante preparedness for disasters (the Prepared Firefighters): Countries in this category have experienced a paradigm shift in their strategy to address disasters and have transitioned from responding to disasters only after they occur, to preparing for them before they occur (ex-ante preparation) so as to ensure more efficiency and swiftness in relief operations. 3) The Policy of pro-active disaster prevention allying ex-ante preparedness for disasters AND Disaster Risk Reduction (the Disaster Preventers): Finally countries in the third category have shifted the focus away from the disaster events towards the prevention of disasters. They focus on pre-empting disasters by reducing disaster risk/vulnerability so that hazards may not turn into disasters, using weather forecasts, early warning systems, risk/vulnerability mapping, and other related tools for climate risk management. We delve in-depth in the methods and results our cross-continental classification of African countries by climate disaster management type in chapters 4 and 5. Following our classification of all of Africas fifty-three countries, we selected a country case study from each policy type and use that country to make inferences for the entire policy group. This approach is inherently prescriptive: we am trying to arrive at a policy that can be recommended to African governments, and others 23

across the developing world scrambling to find strategies to address the challenge of climate adaptation, with an extensive explanation of the particular circumstances under which the latter policy generally arises and is implemented in a country. As one may notice, we worry about case selection. Our preliminary cross- continental classification of countries by climate-disaster management policy type in Africa serves as an attempt to use objective criterions to select the cases studies we consider in this research. As cautioned by Adam Przeworski in his contribution to the Symposium on the Role of Theory in Comparative Politics34: We are often told to find cases that are as similar as possible, in as many aspects as possible, and then find a crucial difference that can explain what one wants to explain. In so doing however, we rig our research to reach the results we want to reach. There is a need to worry about selection, and try our ultimate best to eliminate selection bias when selecting cases and making inferences in a world that is often not exogenous [...] Is the mechanism by which our observations are produced independent of what we are trying to explain or not? Unless we pass that test, we will be making biased inferences. Our outcomes will be due to selection, not treatment. Use objective case selection criterions.

The independent mechanism that we devised to generate our country cases is encapsulated in the first part of our research: an identification of all the policies in place across Africa to address mounting hydro-meteorological disasters. The typology of policies we defined guided our country case selection process, and one country was selected to illustrate each policy type. Once selected, we delved into our country cases and used them as case studies. The only biases that were introduced when selecting between different country options within the same policy group were personal preferences on ability to conduct research in certain countries relative to others (more in Methods chapter); as well as a concern to keep selected countries as comparable as possible (similar on at least n variables) across policy types to rule out a number of competing independent variables that could explain differing institutional outcomes.

34 Kohli, Atul, Peter Evans, Peter J. Katzenstein, Adam Przeworski, Susanne HoeberRudolph, James C. Scott and

Theda Skocpol, The Role of Theory in Comparative Politics: A Symposium, World Politics 48-1 (1995), 1-49, 17.

24

Thus I got to my three principal country cases: Senegal (representing the climate disaster responders policy group), Uganda (to infer for the Disaster Prepared Firefighters group) and Mozambique (representing the effective climate disaster averters). On this basis, we conducted our cross-country comparison of triggers of institutional adaptation to meet the challenge of rising climate-related disasters. Then, in each country we asked: how were climate related shocks governed in 1995- 2010? Which national policy was in place, what was the institutional/governance landscape: how was management of climate-related hazards organized? How well did the national policy in place address local adaptation needs? What are constraints/enabling conditions prompted the government to implement the climate disaster management policy solution that it did? Selection of community case studies: In order to fully understand the impacts of disasters on communities, we also carried out extended fieldwork in the most severely impacted communities within my principal country cases. Random selection was used to select amongst different climate disaster hotspots communities most severely impacted by HMDs in each country case. Within the selected communities, a significant sample of the population was surveyed (an average of 30% of all households in each target community), following a community-based Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) methodology toolbox that uses both a standard questionnaire gathering data about my key variables under study, as well as extended focus group interviews with male and female members of the community. Again households were selected using random sampling (every 6th household on our way, walking). We get more in depth into the VCA methodology and results of these community- level data mining in the Methods chapter as well as in country chapters. Then in each community we asked: what are local needs for adaptation to rising HMDs, in excess of local capacity to cope with their impacts? How relevant and 25

adequate are local and national plans/policies in place to meet these local needs for adaptation? Based on answers to these questions, we reach a final assessment of adequacy of current governance schemes to manage climate related risks, one that is both quantitative and qualitative. 1.4. Preliminary Findings What we have found is that communities at the frontline across Africa are already bearing the burden of coping with increased climate-related shocks, such as floods, drought and cyclones, which currently exert a heavy economic and human toll on already marginalized communities. Extreme-weather events, fruit of both intrinsic and anthropogenic disruptions in the continents highly variable climates, are an immediate threat to development in these communities and countries, and are likely to become so for many others as climate variability increases and unpreparedness, as well as dependence on climate factors, persists. What this dissertation reveals is that institutional adaptation to meet the new challenge of Climate Change in Africa is often an issue eminently path-dependent. Only when accidents of history occured in this case, high-impact HMDs that have hit countries of Africa with increasing frequency in recent years, wrecking havoc and leaving governments with no choice but to adapt or perish has institutional change ensued to deliver more effective governance of the Climate Change challenge, setting the country on a new track and institutional pathway. More generally, this thesis offers us a theory for why governments adopt societally beneficial policies and establish coherent institutional frameworks. The path forward for effective mangement of climate risks is political incentives that ensure that DRR-CCA is placed high on the national agenda, and institutionalized within a coherent national framework for Climate Change adaptation in order to give a real chance for Climate Change risks to be effectly governed in Africa. These incentives have to come from within, however, stemming from a strong national demand for 26

improved CCA-DRR, which in turn leads to the development of endogenous institutions to seriously confront rising climate risks and manage new climate opportunities. As our country cases will evidence, the national demand for effective national institutions to confront the CC challenge can only be country-driven. Once this national desire is formed, donor support in the development of coherent national policies and institutional mechanisms are needed. However, national driving of this process is an essential needed pre-requisite. Understanding these political underpinnings of policy and institutional change is an important pre-requisite for all the activists and programs promoting Climate Change adaptation on the continent, and expecting governments to uptake these programs. 1.5. Plan The present thesis is organized in four parts. Part 1 introduces the conceptual foundations of this research, part II details our methodology and experimental design, part III exposes results and country findings and the final part brings together comparative insights and conclusions emanating from cross-country analysis. In part I, we introduce concepts, and attempt to build a common understanding of the implications of Climate Change for Africa, and why it is an urgent problem, increasingly gaining prominence on national agendas across the continent. We first conduct in chapter 2 a literature review of the hypotheses that explain institutional change in general, and institutional change in response to climate shocks in particular, and strongly pin our research against the extensive theory of institutional change in Africa; before then going in-depth into the scientific basis of Climate Change (its causes, key concepts, consequences, projected impacts over Africa and uncertainties) in chapter 3. 27

Part II offers a detailed exposition of the experimental design and methods we have used to conduct our comparative analysis of climate-related disaster management policies across Africa. Chapter 4 thus exposes in detail our research design and methodology. In this part, we delve into the methods utilized to conduct our cross- country comparison of climate-related disaster policies across Africa, and present the results of this classification, basis of my country case selection. We will see a map of Africa shaded in three different colors: red for the large majority of countries that are solely disaster responders; yellow for the handful of countries that are on the track of disaster preparedness for effective response to HMDs when these occur (the Prepared Firefighters); and finally, green for the six countries that qualify as effective disaster preventers and have shifted focus away from disaster events to combating the underlying factors of disaster risk and vulnerability. Part III, the crux of this research, presents our results and encapsulates country chapters. Chapter 5 displays the results from our Africa-wide country classification by disaster management policy. Chapter 6 presents the findings from the RED policy group- Senegal serving as the principal case study to illustrate this policy type. Chapter 7 is dedicated to the YELLOW policy group, principally centered on findings from Uganda, whereas chapter 8 presents the findings from the GREEN policy group, represented by Mozambique. These country chapters summarize the insights and findings emanating from each country case, with inferences made for the entire policy group regarding the incentives that generated the specific policy type in place. Finally, part IV, the closing section of this research, draws the conclusions emanating from our cross-country comparison of disaster management policies to address rising HMDs in Africa. Chapter 9 comparatively presents the insights coming from our country cases, and outlines what the most optimal policy to address rising HMDs in Africa appears to be. We end with a closing chapter that draws the conclusions and perspectives that our comparative research offers for 28

better governance of Climate Change risks and opportunities on the continent, and for the curtailing of its socio-economic impacts. All in all, our dissertation will have generated: 1) A continental assessment of what Climate Change brings and implicates for African policy-makers and ordinary citizens; 2) An innovative methodology to assess local communities adaptation needs, in excess of their local capacities to cope the climate adapted version of the Red Cross Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments (VCAs); 3) A cross-continental picture of the different policies in place to address rising climate related risks, as well as an assessment of these policies based on their ability to respond to community adaptation needs; 4) Policy solution(s) for African countries to address the risks and opportunities created by Climate Change, as well as recommendations on where to invest the new influx of climate finance and optimal institutional arrangements to put in place in order to effectively govern climate risks. These solutions are rooted in the successful experiences of other African countries and in the reality of Africas governance incentives; 5) A deeper, more-contextualized understanding of how the projected socio- economic, political and cultural impacts of Climate Change will concretely play out in African countries, through which pathways of cause and effect, and with what implications for development prospects on the continent of Africa. A final note on conceptual definitions: All throughout this thesis, we will define and redefine. This is an attempt to build common ground and understanding, in order to bridge two very different epistemic communities that each have their own research agendas, approaches and conceptual frameworks as well as research customs, yet which my topic brings together: the classic development/social science (political science, anthropology and economics) community and the global climate/environmental change natural scientists. These two research communities 29

seldom work jointly. Despite intensifying efforts to bridge them, they remain two separate communities of practice. Thus, we will be painstakingly throughout this thesis attempt to clarify each concept we use, as a way forward to build a common understanding of the topic of climate change national institutions and institutional adaptation.

30

PART I:

Theories of Institutional Change: New Institutionalism Revisited Towards a Theory of Institutional Adaptation to Meet the New Challenge of Climate Change Governance in Africa 31

In this first part, we conduct a literature review of the hypotheses that explain institutional change in general, and institutional change or adaptation for effective Climate Change governance in particular, and strongly pin our research against the theory of institutional change in Africa. We then go in-depth into the conceptual linkages between Climate Change Adaptation (identifying and preparing for likely future changes in climate/weather patterns), Disaster Risk Reduction (concerned with managing the root causes of disasters), the Development endeavor in Africa (dedicated to poverty alleviation and building community resilience) what we coin as the Triple bottom line of CCA- DRR-Development and Governance (sets of actors/networks, rule making systems and formal and informal rules that steer societies towards collective goals). Here, we attempt to understand why the challenge of Climate Change Adaptation requires new or adapted institutions to meet the triple bottom line of DRR-CCA-Development in Africa. This thesis addresses the fundamental question of how policies/institutions get changed. Much literature exists on institutional change, notably with multiple case studies over Africa. In our thesis, we test institutional change theory on the new quandary of institutional adaptation to meet the climate change challenge, in all of the case countries where we conducted research. What brought about change in institutions in place to address the new issue of Climate Change in these countries? Does this process of institutional change confirm existing theory on sources of institutional change? Do the theoretical hypotheses hold? Firstly, we review the literature on institutional change however and its founding precepts, before we move on to apply institutional change theory to our analysis of Climate Change institutions in Africa. 32

CHAPTER 2: THEORIES OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: INSTITUTIONALISM REVISITED 2.1 Institutionalism vs. New Historical Institutionalism A focus on institutions as explanatory variables for societal outcomes is not new. Indeed, the study of institutions or Institutionalism dates back to the early 20th century after World War I, when American political scientists began systematically studying European political systems, comparing concepts such as: presidential vs. parliamentarian systems, federal vs. unitary, the structure of political parties, the origins, nature and impact of democratic, socialist and fascist regimes35. The focus of that body of literature however was formal legalistic, and did not factor in informal and dynamic variables as: interest groups, public opinion, political parties, process variables, input functions, decision-making and the processes of change (see Wiarda in Rustow and Erickson)36. When the world changed again after WWII, and the newly independent nations of Africa and Asia emerged onto the world scene, a new framework was needed to account for processes of political change in the new nations of the third-world, as compared to the development process. The field of political development was born as a response to this need. For many decades after that, as deep-seated ideological battles raged between Modernization theorists (see Almond and Verba37, Lipset38 and Rostow39) and Dependencia neo-marxists (see Samir Amin40, as well as Huntingtons 1968 critique 35 Rustow, Dankwart A., and Kenneth P. Erickson (eds.), Comparative Political Dynamics (New York: Harper

Collins, 1991) 36 Ibidem 37 Almond, Gabriel A., and Sydney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963) 38 Lipset, Seymour M., "Some Social Requisites of Democracy", American Political Science Review 53 no. 1 (1959):

69-105

39 Rustow, Dankwart A., Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model, Comparative Politics 2-3 (1970):

337-363 40 Amin, Samir, Imperialism and Unequal Development (New York: Monthly Review, 1977)

33

of developmentalism41, Gunder Frank42 and Cardoso43), the focus on institutions was lost. However, institutions were again brought back onto the table in the decade of the 1980s, as a response to neo-classical economic theory, which was perceived as a-historical. This literature that reenacted institutionalism was coined the New Institutionalism, and came to the fore in the late 1980s with dynamic proponents such as Douglas North and Mancur Olson. The new school of thought placed very strong focus on historical processes as explanations for institutional outcomes, which have bought the body of literature its name of Historical Institutionalism. New historical institutionalism is concerned with explaining through case studies and process tracing why a particular historical outcome occurs, then generalizing from it. North44 and Olson45 highlight the importance of institutions, among others. The work of Engerman and Sokoloff46 emphasizes the historical roots of institutional differences (often tracing it back to colonization). Two competing explanations however need to be distinguished within Historical Institutionalism: structural explanations of institutional change, and agent-based explanations of institutional change. Both approaches explain through case studies and process tracing why a particular historical outcome (social or political) ensues. Fundamental epistemological differences exist however in the assumptions and methods of these two approaches. Table 2.1 summarizes the differences between the two different explanations of sources of institutional change. Table 2.1: Agent-based vs. Structuralist Institutional Change Theories under Historical Institutionalism

41 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven : Yale University Press, 1968) 42 G. Frank, Andre, Latin America: Underdevelopment and Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970) 43 Cardoso, Fernando H., and Faletto Enzo, Dependency and Development in Latin America, trans. by Marjory M.

Urguidi (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1979) 44 North, Douglass, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge 45 Olson, Mancur, Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development, American Political Science Review 87 (1993):

University Press, 1990)

46

567-76 Stanley L. Engerman, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development among New World Economies," Economia 3 1 (2002): 41-101

34

Explanation of institutional change

AGENT-BASED Institutional Change Theory (Quantitative equilibria for mutual profit-maximizing among rational players explain institutional outcomes) Institutional outcome is most often the result of rational purposeful behavior by players History as the outcome of rational and purposeful behavior based on the idea of equilibrium, not a result of historically pre-determined outcomes Institutional change ensues from: - Agents desire for improved societal performance (or campaigning on this platform), aligns private interests with public ones, leading to socially efficient outcomes - Local demands that determine new political opportunities/constraints at the local level forcing national leaders to put local demands on the national agenda

STRUCTURAL Institutional Change Theory (Path dependence, and accidents /randomness explain institutional outcomes)

Main theorists

Arguments

Most often systemic, structural and accidental factors determine institutional outcomes Accidents of history and randomness (conjunctures), as well as path dependence, lead to particular institutional configurations Examples of conjunctures (accidents of history) are: Exogenous conjunctures: - Economic crises - Agendas of international funding agencies promoting democracy - Colonial domination/arrival - War / revolution - Natural disaster (North) Endogenous conjunctures: - Weak military capacity of a regime (Theda Skocpol) - Existence of a well-capacitated government body to manage issue - Factor endowments / countrys geography (Engerman/Sokoloff) or being an area of low population density (Herbst) or low mortality (Acemoglu et al.) - Informal behavior (e.g.: gossip in Scotts Weapons of the Weak) Catherine Boone Barrington Moore, Theda Skocpol, Sam Grindle Huntington: the precursors To a certain extent Acemoglu & North, Geddes, Herbst, Englebert, Mancur Jonson also Olson: the main advocates NB: Different from the old formal legalistic Institutionalism, focused on the comparative analysis of legal systems and structures Institutional invention is Institutions (rules of the game) constrain the possible, and has been enacted behavior of organizations (players in the in countries of Latin America. game), both politically and economically. In Individual agency matters turn, institutions are humanly devised. This (mostly when politicians have apparent tension between agency and campaigned on a platform of determinism is resolved with the theory of societal performance path dependence. improvement) and it needs to If the institutional setting and the state are be understood within the prism bad for the economy and for societal of behavioral science, and not performance at large, why don't the rational choice alone (Merilee individuals in society just change the Grindle) institutions for the better? The answer to this problem from North is that institutional change In Africa, local level is path dependent. Path dependence is based configurations of power and on the idea that it is problematic and interest matter and determine "costly" to change paths. Path dependence institutional outcomes (Boone) explains why economies get stuck in an Regimes choose the institutional framework that is not efficient institutional-building strategies or does not induce growth and at large that maximize their advantage improved societal performance. in particular (local) political 35 Institutional Change is overwhelmingly contexts. The result is differing incremental and Slow, as institutional institutional strategies of rural outcomes are in large part historically incorporation, or neglect, determined (path dependence). within even a same country. Within institutional framework, State building strategies differ

Arguments

Institutional invention is possible, and has been enacted in countries of Latin America. Individual agency matters (mostly when politicians have campaigned on a platform of societal performance improvement) and it needs to be understood within the prism of behavioral science, and not rational choice alone (Merilee Grindle) In Africa, local level configurations of power and interest matter and determine institutional outcomes (Boone) Regimes choose the institutional-building strategies that maximize their advantage in particular (local) political contexts. The result is differing institutional strategies of rural incorporation, or neglect, within even a same country. State building strategies differ because rulers face different challenges and opportunities (Boone, 2003). Thus, one of the critical ways to guarantee socially efficient institutional outcomes is through adequate political institutions which link the City to the countryside. As she contends, one of Africas top development priorities is to reform and strengthen the political institutions that link city and countryside. Local demands and political configurations will have to play a significant role in determining institutional change, substantive democracy in Africa will have to be bottom driven (Ake).

Institutions (rules of the game) constrain the behavior of organizations (players in the game), both politically and economically. In turn, institutions are humanly devised. This apparent tension between agency and determinism is resolved with the theory of path dependence. If the institutional setting and the state are bad for the economy and for societal performance at large, why don't the individuals in society just change the institutions for the better? The answer to this problem from North is that institutional change is path dependent. Path dependence is based on the idea that it is problematic and "costly" to change paths. Path dependence explains why economies get stuck in an institutional framework that is not efficient or does not induce growth and at large improved societal performance. Institutional Change is overwhelmingly incremental and Slow, as institutional outcomes are in large part historically determined (path dependence). Within institutional framework, organizations are afforded opportunities to enact incremental changes to the framework if they perceive higher payouts from doing so. Institutions modulate new opportunities that players seize to shape institutions Thus, Institutions are not necessarily or even usually created to be socially efficient; rather they, or at least the formal rules, are created to serve the interests of those with the bargaining power to devise new rules. In a zero- transaction-cost world, bargaining strength does not affect the efficiency of outcomes, but in a world of positive transaction costs it does (North, 1990) If economies realize the gains of trade by creating relatively efficient institutions, it is because under certain circumstances (very rare) the private objective of those with the bargaining strength to alter institutions produce institutional solutions that turn out to be or evolve into socially efficient ones Overly historically deterministic. Though Norths theory does leave agency to organizations, who can enact incremental changes within the institutional framework in so far as it maximizes their payoffs, it is constrained within larger framework of path dependence.

Limitations Overly case-specific, with limited external validity: How replicable are identified case-specific causalities to other cases?

36

In the next sections we go in-depth into the theoretical approaches of each sub-set of the New institutionalism body of literature, and the various factors they hypothesize constitute sources of institutional change, notably in Africa. We will then utilize these hypotheses in our analysis of sources of institutional change to explain institutional adaptation to meet the new CC challenge in African countries. 2.2 Definitions & relevance of Institutional theory Let us begin with a few definitions however to clarify our understanding of the institutional change literature. Rawls in his Theory of Justice defines a political institution as a common understanding about the rules of the game that define a political system acceptance of these rules entails that all parties subject themselves to these rules each knows that the other knows the rules all will abide by the rules because they know the others know the rules and will make him/her abide by them he/she was to stray away from them47. The latter part of this definition is particularly important. Douglas North, key pioneer of the body of literature on institutions, echoes Rawls definition in many regards, but taking an economic property rights approach to institutions. North posits that institutions indeed define the rules of the game, both politically and economically; they are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction48. These constraints can be both formal (rules, laws) and informal (behavior codes, cultural norms), and serve to reduce uncertainty and facilitate exchange in the presence of transaction costs. Transaction costs are in North's own words: "the costs of defining, protecting, and enforcing property rights"49. These transaction costs and institutions are the key to explaining economic growth or the lack thereof, and why growth has been so absent, rather than present, in the economies of the world, argues North. 47 Rawls, John, Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 47. 48 North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 3 49 Ibidem, 28

37

Applied to the issue of Climate Change, this definition of institutions makes us envisage the presence or absence of an institutional framework to address CCA as an explanation for societies effectiveness, or lack thereof, in governing CC and its critical impacts on vulnerable segments of society. This lack of common rules of the game to achieve the common purpose of addressing CC in this context defines societies ability or inability to effectively address the new risks and opportunities raised by CC. Finally, North distinguishes "institutions", which are the rules of the game, from "organizations", which are the actors, or players in the game. Hence, according to North, "it is the interaction between institutions and organizations that shapes the institutional evolution of an economy"50, and the achievement of societal goals at large one could add. Institutional change takes place in modifications of and changes in contracting, eventually leading to new "rules". This all happens "because individuals perceive that they could do better by reconstructing exchanges (political or economic)". Thus, institutions are the outcomes of the actions of organizations (players), the ones holding more bargaining power eventually establishing institutions (political and economic arrangements or rules of the game) that advance the interests of their creators51. In this sense, North asserts, institutions are not established to be socially efficient but rather to further the interests of those with more bargaining power52; and since institutions are path dependent (once established, they are very costly to change), they remain and perpetuate themselves indefinitely. This idea of path dependence is critical to the institutional change literature focused on structural determinants of institutional change, as we shall see in the next section devoted to the structural explanations for institutional change. 51 Ibidem, 73-82 52 Ibidem, 92-106 50 North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 6

38

Many authors have elaborated on Norths property-rights, new institutional economics approach to grow and give it more depth (Mancur Olson53, North and Weingast54), corroborated by country examples (Acemoglu et al.)55 and analyzed its veracity when it comes to explaining institutional change (Barbara Geddes and Jeffrey Herbst /Pierre Englebert vs. Merilee Grindle). We shall turn to these authors to gain a better understanding of the role of institutions in generating, or hindering, societal performance. Why are institutions important? What evidence is there that they are critical? North posits that first and foremost institutions are important because they secure private property rights, reduce uncertainty and give individuals incentives to invest/produce in the presence of transaction costs (costs of enforcing property rights)56. North in this sense brings a needed complement to neo-classical theory by introducing transaction costs; rare if not inexistent are the cases in which the conditions necessary for the invisible hand obtain57. This is because transaction costs exist and property rights are not self-enforcing and costless. Indeed, since Adam Smith, economists have constructed their models on the firm bedrock of the gains from trade. Specialization and division of labor are the key to the wealth of Nations. In constructing their models, however, economists have ignored the costs arising from such specialization and division of labor (i.e: transaction costs). These transaction costs underlie the institutions determining the structure of political-economic systems. What the neo-classical economic model assumes is that perfectly specified and costlessly enforced property rights will give incentives for individuals to capture the returns to society of investment at all the 53

Olson, Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development, 567-76

54 North, Douglass C., and Barry R. Weingast, "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions

55

Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England", Journal of Economic History 49 4 (1989): 803-832

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation, American Economic Review 91 (2001): 1369-1401 56 North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 6 57 Ibidem, 7

39

margins. However, such conditions have never obtained throughout history; many resources are closer to common property than exclusively owned. As a result the necessary conditions for achieving the equi-marginal efficient solution have never existedneither in the Roman Republic nor in the 20th century US or Soviet Union58. First, growth has been more exceptional than stagnation or decline, which suggests that efficient property rights are unusual in history. Secondly, transaction costs do exist; and a theory of institutions is required to fill the gaps in the neoclassical economic model. In this seminal work, Structure and Change in Economic History (1981), North proposes: a. A theory of property rights that describes the individual and group incentives in the system; b. A theory of the state since it is the state that specifies and enforces property rights; c. A theory of ideology that explains how different perceptions of reality affect the reaction of individuals to the changing of objective situations59. The example of 17th century Britain he gives in his 1989 piece with Wiengast60 is illustrative of Norths theory and drives home what he understands by property rights are not self-enforcing and costless. Indeed, in 1668 in Great Britain, wealth owners in Parliament, exceedingly losing patience with the Crowns encroaching on their wealth and private property and its arbitrary expropriation of their wealth whenever it needed added revenue (reign of the Stuarts under King James II at the time), led a revolution to change the power bargain between Parliament and the 58 North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, 8-9 59 North, Douglass C., Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981) 60 North and Weingast, "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England", 803-832 40

Crown of Great Britain. The result of this uprising, which came to be known as the Glorious Revolution, were new politico-economic arrangements (institutions) that ensured that: 1) The Crown could no longer expropriate wealth from private citizens; 2) Whenever it needed revenue the Crown would have to ask permission to Parliament and obtain clear, transparent and predictable tax revenue; 3) Politically independent courts were established to uphold the sanctity of private property rights and the rule of common law. Thus both Crown and Parliament committed themselves to set these institutions in stone, and never again change them. The result according to North and Weingast were phenomenal increases in the level of output and growth. Indeed by restoring confidence in the ability to invest without the risk of an arbitrary autocrat coming in to seize ones produce/output, Englishmen had an incentive to invest and to save their monies without fear that their pounds would be expropriated. This in turn led to the emergence of private debt markets to collect savings and redistribute them throughout the economy as loans, which led to money creation and overall to thriving of private markets and financial flows. The authors conclude that the departure in the historic record of British growth levels that resulted from the Glorious Revolution was even more significant than the growth hikes that occurred beginning in 1750 implying that more secure property rights and safeguards from arbitrary expropriation could have perhaps given business owners incentives to invest in new technology, and thus led to the Industrial Revolution. That is a theory that is still unconfirmed, but what North/Wiengasts study demonstrates is that good institutions that protect the private property of citizens have the powerful ability to incentivize investment and lead to growth. Similarly, applying this argument to the Climate Change issue, good institutions that clarify the rules of the game and roles of various organizations to address CCA, and sanctify these through enforcement by designated entities such as courts and legally mandated organizations to take leadership, potentially have 41

the powerful ability to incentivize the effective management of CCA and promote additional investments on the issue. Mancur Olson in his 1993 article Dictatorship, Democracy, Development, and to a certain extent in his early work on The Rise and Decline of Nations further elaborates on this point, giving a luminary game-theoretical illustration of how in practice the protection of property rights and clear definition of rules of the game does incentivize production. Olson, one of the pioneers of institutional economics, leads us to ponder upon the differences in productions levels in the presence of a roving bandit (such as the many bandit groups that roamed through ancient China in search of wealth to plunder) and in the presence of stationary bandit (a bandit who settles down, puts on a crown, maintains a monopoly over violence in his new domain and gets revenue by taxing his citizens). Olson maintains that in the presence of a stationary bandit, citizens have an incentive to produce because they know the bandit will protect them from the theft and violence of other bandits, and will only expropriate from them a fixed amount of tax revenue. In turn, in order to maximize his tax revenue, the stationary bandit has an incentive to invest in basic public goods for his citizenry to ensure that they produce as much as possible so he can derive even more tax revenue. This theory holds, and explains why there were no major rebellions and so much production has occurred under stationary bandits, from the early pharaohs up until Louis XIV before the 1789 French Revolution61. Olson states however that autocracy/stationary bandits/dictatorships are only second best options however; the reason being that the autocrat also has a rival incentive: that of extracting as much revenue as possible in the short time period he is guaranteed to be in power (short time horizon). When the time horizon of the autocrat is short, he will coerce his citizens, expropriating from them ever- unpredictable levels of tax revenue and giving them disincentives for investment and production. Although the autocrat does not maximize his revenue through this 61 Olson, Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development, American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 567-76 42

arrangement/institution, it satisfies his second short-term rationality and as a result growth is hampered. For this reason Olson concludes that DEMOCRACIES are the single best political arrangements because by ensuring that no one group becomes an autocrat (by definition what a democracy does), they guarantee less capricious and agreed-upon levels of taxation/state expropriation and provide incentives for investment, production and growth. Thus Democracy has not only moral appeals, but also under appreciated economic appeals concludes Olson62. This functional appeal of democracy is also an important aspect to keep in mind when deliberating on the effective governance of CC. What particular implication does this have? This assertion that good institutions matter for growth holds tremendous implications. Though originally written through the lens of economic growth, it applies to general questions of societal performance across all sectors, and begs the larger question: How then does institutional change occur to ensure that good institutions are implemented to favor growth and overall good societal performance? Many authors have addressed this question, and their ex