25 September 2018
China’s environmental governance in transition might shed light on institutional solutions to tackle environmental challenges in Africa.

Dr Lingxuan Liu was invited to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting in Kenya to give an update on the NSFC-funded project on China’s environmental governance.

This project will identify the key challenges and examine the effectiveness of the transitioning environmental governance systems in China, thus providing both theoretical guidance and practical insights for both central and local governments during the transition. It also looks into the active roles of non-state actors in environmental governance, such as global environmental NGOs, local grassroots NGOs, national think tanks, and environmental consultancy in both public and private sectors.

The trip included a thorough project meeting with UNEP law division to discuss how to explore bottom-up compliance in environmental governance, how the project outcomes can be promoted through UN endorsement, and how capacity-building programmes can be facilitated among African countries at a later stage of the project.

The project team also met with a number of other high-level officers from UNEP, UN Habitat and World Bank, including Ms Joyce Msuya, Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director, to discuss further collaboration between the project consortium and UN system.