UMass Boston Center for Governance and Sustainability
Information on the purpose of your organization
Established in 2011 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Center for Governance and Sustainability seeks to be an agent of change for better governance across scales and geographies. To this end, the Center engages in rigorous and applied scholarship on real-world policy challenges related to the environment, development, and sustainability, advances inspirational education, and promotes honest dialogue among a diversity of stakeholders.
- Our drive to excellence and relevance in scholarship means that our research always has a dual function: to advance the state of knowledge in the field of global governance and to generate analysis that is immediately and practically useful for policy-makers seeking to reform the international institutions for environment and development.
- Our commitment to teaching goes beyond the classroom in an effort to train the next generation of leaders for sustainability governance.
- We aim to be an honest broker of productive dialogue. Our projects further frank exchanges of ideas among diverse stakeholders around the globe
In the present geopolitical scenario, we seek to ensure that environment and development are perceived as interrelated foundations for the well-being of current and future generations. After our first two years as a Center, we confirm our commitment to become a leading global authority and convening body that brings academic expertise to the policy world in order to improve the capacity to respond to contemporary global challenges.
Information on your programmes and activities in areas relevant to the subject of the Summit and in which country or counties they are carried out.
Core Research Projects
Environmental Conventions Initiative: Launched in 2013, this research effort assesses the implementation of global environmental conventions. The Initiative focuses on evaluating 10 agreements and comprises three major analytical and outreach strands: data analysis, creation of a policy space, and capacity building. The main output of this project will be the Environmental Conventions Index, an empirical instrument, which measures implementation over time for major global environmental conventions.
Science-Policy Interface: This initiative engages scientists and policymakers in identifying and analyzing models for science-policy interfaces at the local, national, and global levels. The outcomes of this work include policy briefs and recommendations to the UN Secretary-General?s Scientific Advisory Board. Our research also includes country-based projects that analyze the scientific dimensions of specific environmental policies.
Institutional Complexity: This project analyzes the institutional reform of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other international environmental governing bodies. Under this initiative, the Center explores various topics regarding governance and the UN system through partnerships with the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and analysis of UNEP, UNEP New York, and the Academic Council of the United Nations System.
Global Resilience Partnership, Integrated Landscape Management for Resilience in the Horn of Africa: In collaboration with the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N) at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, the Global Resilience Partnership confronts the challenge to find innovative solutions and systemic approaches to climate and population change in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and South and Southeast Asia. The Center?s team project will examine the root causes of persistent poverty and environmental challenges across landscapes.
Global Environmental Governance (GEG) Project: Established in 1997, the GEG Project serves as a rigorous analyst and honest broker in the field of environmental governance. Convening policymakers, scholars, and practitioners, the GEG Project examines in detail the topics of UNEP reform, global environmental conventions, climate change, and land and forest governance.
Post-2015 Governance Initiative: Governments and scholars alike seek to better understand the role of global policy goals as governance instruments. This project investigates the efficacy of these instruments and the lessons and policy recommendations from previous global goals. It also analyzes the connection between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other governance instruments.
Global Redesign Initiative: Following a global summit, the World Economic Forum (WEF) produced a document based on its Global Redesign Initiative (GRI) that frames a productive debate on the organization of the international system. The Center created The Readers? Guide to the Report of the World Economic Forum?s Global Redesign Initiative to engage world leaders in a fundamental reconceptualization of the future of global governance.
Information on activities at the national or international levels
The Center for Governance and Sustainability has an important international presence. Our core team represents 16 countries and nine different universities and we account with important partnerships with institutions across the globe, including Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), ATREE (India), Yale University (USA), UN Environment Programme (Kenya), University of Djibouti (Djibouti), University of Sussex (United Kingdom), the Federal Office for the Environment (Switzerland), North-West University (South Africa) and GRID Arendal (Norway).
With all of these institutions we develop the research projects defined in the previous section.
The Center has closely followed the process around the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since our participation in the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development Conference we have developed different research initiatives and publications associated to the topic. Furthermore, one of our Center's Co-Directors, Dr. Maria Ivanova, is one of the members of the UN Secretary-General Scientific Advisory Board and she has been working closely in the input that this body has provided the UN.
Organization have an annual report? (YES/NO) (should contain financial statements and a list of financial sources and contributions, including governmental contributions)?
Yes -
ProgressReportFinalLR20131001.pdf
List of members of the governing body of your organization, and their countries of nationality
Dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies
David Cash - United States
Co-Directors
Maria Ivanova - Bulgaria
Craig Murphy - United States
Senior Fellows
Araya Asfaw - Ethiopia
Harris Gleckman - United States
Stanley Johnson - United Kingdom
Louis Meuleman - Netherlands
Copy of the constitution and/or by-laws of the organization (WORD or PDF only), or a weblink to it
UniversityofMassachusettsBoardofTrusteesBy-Laws.pdf
