Science-policy platforms in global environmental governance: the case of the UNCCD SPI

Abstract

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is one of the so-called ‘Rio Conventions’, three multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) ensued from the ‘Earth Summit’ of 1992. Unlike its two ‘sisters’ (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity), the UNCCD presents a peculiar twofold ‘environment and development’ soul. Such a nature is reflected not only in the mere policy aspects dealt with within and by the Convention, but also in the challenges faced by the UNCCD’s mechanisms with respect to providing scientific advice to the Conference of the Parties (COP). In light of this, the recently established UNCCD Science-Policy Interface (SPI) could be perceived as a promising platform to address some of the long-standing science-policy problems affecting the Convention and to improve the dialogue between the scientific community and policy makers with regard to issues of desertification, land degradation and drought. Using the analytical lenses of the ‘linear model’ and the ‘honest broker of policy alternatives’, two ideal-types proposed by Pielke (2007), this study focuses on how the SPI process came about by critically analysing how the structural features of the UNCCD had an influence on the platform. The research is complemented by a comparison of the SPI with other science-policy platforms existing in the global environmental governance arena, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS).