DEVT 3006 - Governance and Sustainable Development

North Terrace Campus - Semester 2 - 2018

This capstone course for the International Development Major explores the crucial link between governance and sustainable development. Sustainable development has emerged as the global norm and dominant approach to reconcile the goals of economic development, environmental quality and social equity. It has been enshrined in the post-2015 international development agenda as Sustainable Development Goals. Governance can be understood as the rules, mechanisms, processes and institutions through which important decisions are made and implemented. The course discusses the contested nature of both these concepts, and investigates how both are combined in local, national, regional and international policy-making about environment and development challenges such as poverty, global inequalities, loss of biodiversity, deterioration of global eco-systems, and the threat of climate change to human societies. Contemporary ecological problems and crises are predominantly a result of ineffective governance. Thus the main purpose of the course is to examine the ways in which state, private sector and civil society interact on national and international levels to address environment and development issues through better governance models and frameworks of sustainability. Major issues and concepts covered in the course include: policy making and policy analysis; reflexive governance and learning; gender and governance; governance of ecological conflicts and disasters; e-governance and sustainability; and global ecological governance in particular in regard to climate change. Major issues, such as global governance of climate change; e-governance and sustainability; and gender and governance, are explored through case studies from Australia and various other regions of the world.

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