Environmental management and institutions in   OECD countries : lessons from experience

Lovei, Magda; Weiss, Charles, Jr.

Environmental management and institutions in OECD countries : lessons from experience

Lovei, Magda | Weiss, Charles, Jr.

The lessons from the country members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) summarized in this report should help developing and transitional country governments find effective ways and mechanisms to protect their populations and natural resources from the effects of environmental pollution and degradation. The report points out that the first and most important underpinning of effective environmental management is the commitment of policy makers to address environmental problems, and an effective mechanism of consensus building to set realistic and achievable targets. It also warns, however, that institutional development is a gradual process that should rely on national characteristics, traditions, and culture, rather than emulating complex foreign models. Environmental management practices and the underlying regulatory and institutional frameworks in OECD countries have gradually evolved from an ad hoc, sectoral approach that reacted to emerging problems by mitigating the consequences of environmental damages after the damages occurred towards a proactive and integrated approach that recognizes the need to introduce environmental considerations into economic decisions while analyzing potential environmental impacts across all media. The decades-long experience of OECD countries has also resulted in increasing recognition of the need to influence the actions of microlevel enterprise managers and consumers through incentive polices rather than mandatory and uniform technological measures.

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