Divided into four sections, the discussion triangulates the FAROCCCA results with academic literature and additional interview data, and argues that both the ADB’s and APRF’s CCA and health effectiveness could be improved if they worked together. First is an analysis of areas where each organisation’s work could be improved, and second is a rationale for a collaborative approach including an outline of how it could be achieved. Third is an analysis of potential barriers to an ADB and APRF collaboration, and a final section analysing FAROCCA’s performance and suggesting options for future research.
Improving regional organisation effectiveness supporting CCA and health
Through the APRF, with support from WHO and UNEP, governments across the region can meet to discuss climate change and health issues, reflecting “their national interests and foreign policy priorities” ([
68], p. 3). While this may appear positive, and similar to commentary about WHO more broadly (e.g. [
6]), its potential is not being realised. While the lack of CCTWG meetings is indicative of low prioritisation of climate change and health, the re- endorsement of the CCTWG at the Ministerial Meeting of the APRF in October 2016 (researcher’s observation) suggests it is other factors that have inhibited activity. As described in the results, project management for the CCTWG could be improved through inclusion of specific and measurable targets as well as a monitoring and evaluation framework. Without these, incentives are lacking for government officials to invest in CCTWG discussions. The lack of incentives weakens linkages between the key personnel across the region, thereby undermining the peer-pressure based incentive structure used by the APRF.
Similarly, Biermann et al. ([
69], p. 52) argued that “precisely state[d] goals, criteria and benchmarks for assessing progress” make international treaties more effective, and Dahle ([
70], p. 40) found that a “lack of clear goals and tactics” can undermine initiatives. The APRF’s member governments and secretariat have recognised the benefits of an action-oriented approach [#06, #17]. Thus, the APRF has been encouraging its members to develop EHCPs and NEHAPs [
66], but this approach has not yet been applied in the context of the CCTWG. Lack of targets and review framework make measuring progress challenging, thus constraining opportunities for process or system adjustments to reflect poor progress or changes in the external environment. These are areas of weakness that the APRF should address.
While the APRF’s CCTWG has struggled, the ADB has designed its own climate change and health project. The ADB designing the project was problematic because Southeast Asian government officials tend to view project design as a key aspect of achieving climate change-related outcomes [#20]. Additionally, perceived legitimacy is very important in Southeast Asia, where non-interference in individual countries internal affairs is a recognised ideal [
11,
12]. In the ADB’s SRCC example, limited involvement of key government agencies in initial project design appears to have reduced its legitimacy in the eyes of key stakeholders, leading to discord and distrust and undermining the SRCC focus area of capacity building. From a resilience thinking perspective it makes sense to make changes in order to accommodate the needs of the RO’s clients (where it doesn’t undermine the ROs core identity and operating principles). Additionally, linked to multi-lateral development banks, such as the ADB, not having in-house technical capacity, and not being “well equipped to deliver at the local level” [#01], a consultancy firm was employed to manage the SRCC project, adding in additional levels of hierarchy and further reducing flexibility [
71]. The ADB’s perceived legitimacy, which can impact on ability to achieve project outputs and outcomes, was negatively affected both by the use of an outside agency to implement the project, and by the need to control project design.
Another issue affecting the operational landscape is convergence of the mandates of the two organisations [10, Article 3, 13, p. 14, 50, Article 36(2)]. For ROs with membership and mandate overlaps, either coordination and cooperation, or duplication and competition for resources can result [
68]. For the ADB and APRF a conscious coordination effort is important, because without it, future resource competition is likely for a combination of three reasons. Firstly, the ADB’s adaptation funding is predominantly externally grant-based [#12], as is the case for the SRCC project [
62], so if the APRF seeks CCA and health funding it will bring the two organisations into competition, in line with Nolte’s [
68] argument that a key to coordinated regional governance is mandate differentiation. Secondly, as part of their results-oriented approach the APRF has discussed seeking donor funding [#02], and thirdly, there is a strong possibility that any funds sought would be for climate change and health because of the increasing global prioritisation of CCA and health [
8]. Despite the importance of collaborating, and the nine years since their mandates converged, cooperation to date has relied on individual initiative. For example, [#14] reported that brokering a relationship between the ADB and APRF is a constant problem, and that one individual had been ensuring continued communication between the two but is now constrained from doing that. From a resilience thinking perspective, this highlights a lack of institutional responsiveness to changing circumstances, and institutionalising and codifying ADB and APRF coordination would be a way to manage the risk of future inter-organisational resource competition. Resilience thinking also confirms that lack of certainty about whether the APRF will seek funding is not a reason for inaction in this area.
Effective coordination between ROs with mandate and membership overlaps means cooperating collaboratively in pursuit of the same goals, reflecting the importance that modern organisation theory places on communication processes. Because it is more than information sharing, this type of coordination requires incentives and frameworks [
72], such as institutions to coordinate decentralised governments’ efforts [
73]. Developing incentives, frameworks and institutions takes time, money as well as other resources. For this reason, there is a risk that investing in coordination may reduce an organisation’s effectiveness in the short-term more than its effectiveness is enhanced in the long-term. Despite the costs and potential risks, coordination benefits include reducing duplication of effort, such as the seaports built every 40–50 km along Vietnam’s central coast because of poorly coordinated provincial planning [
74]. Investing in a collaborative and cooperative endeavour with another organisation needs to be well planned and formulated to ensure the costs are reasonable and able to be recouped.
Similar to the Vietnamese example above, poor ADB and APRF coordination of CCA and health support means duplicated effort in national agencies responsible for health and climate change concerns. For example, national agencies, such as the Vietnamese Health and Environment Management Agency and Cambodia’s Preventive Medicine Department, that work on APRF initiatives, are also working on the ADB’s SRCC project. If the ADB and APRF collaborated, and provided a single interface, it would significantly reduce the time and human resource investment for these national agencies to participate in, and administer, the projects. While collaboration would require an ADB and APRF investment, it would not violate either organisation’s charter or otherwise undermine their organisational identities, but would provide benefits for national environment and health focal agencies.
Choosing to collaborate
Stemming from their complementarity, there are five reasons for the ADB and APRF to collaborate on CCA and health, despite incentivisation and framework costs. First, it would be drawing on experiences from other parts of the world. For example, to resolve mandate overlap issues, including duplication of effort, European ROs have focussed on developing common approaches in their work [
75]. Second, as per the results in section “Initiatives 7.2” the ADB has project management expertise that the APRF lacks. In contrast, the APRF brings a visionary approach and methodology to building national ownership of health and environment concerns. Third, there are existing inter-organisational links. For example, members of national governments across Southeast Asia are involved in initiatives originating from both organisations, ADB personnel attended the APRF Ministerial Meeting in Manila in October 2016 [
64], ADB consultants have attended APRF Health Impact Assessment TWG meetings [#14], and the ADB provided financing when the APRF was established in 2007 [#02]. Fourth, in line with Scott’s “mutual dependency” [
35] and Brosig’s rational choice [
76], the ADB strength in financial resource acquisition could be partnered with the APRF’s high levels of perceived legitimacy and long-term expertise in public health and climate change from across the region [#14]. Finally, a CCA and health collaboration would formalise the convergence of the two CCA and health mandates. A summary of the reasons for the two organisations to collaborate is included in Table
2, below:
Table 2
Reasons for an ADB/APRF collaboration
1 | Complementary Strength | ADB brings project management strengths | APRF brings vision and an ownership-building methodology |
2 | Complementary Strength | ADB has access to significant direct and grant-based finances | APRF has higher levels of perceived legitimacy, and brings ‘in-house’ expertise in public health and climate change |
3 | Historical and contemporary links | Existing inter-organisation links, such as the same national level personnel involved in both initiatives as well as ADB personnel attending APRF events |
4 | Risk management | A collaborative partnership would formalise a convergence between the mandates of the two organisations, thus helping to manage the risk of future inter-organisational competition for funding |
To ensure success, a detailed work plan defining organisational roles and responsibilities and the goals of the cooperative effort will need to be developed. To satisfy the framework requirement of Resurreccion et al. [
72] and Saito [
73], each organisation should assign coordination responsibilities to one department, incentivised with reporting requirements that include assessment criteria. Building on the similarities between their climate change and health mandates, and thus simplify initial coordination complexities, the CCTWG should be the entry point for an ADB-APRF collaboration. As an initial collaborative step, the CCTWG and the ADB’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department could foster cross-membership, and work towards a standard administrative interface, such as established between the European Union and the Council of Europe [
77]. There is a clear window of opportunity for this, as the CCTWG has not met since December 2013, and is in need of re-invigoration following its re-endorsement at the APRF’s 2016 Ministerial Meeting. Collaboration will allow the ADB to trial an alternative model of supporting national CCA and health measures, collaborating with national governments both to define the terms of their relationship and to set priorities, thereby enhancing the ADB’s perceived CCA and health input-legitimacy (e.g. [
24,
25]). With the CCTWG as an entry point, the organisations can each contribute in their area of strength, and early collaboration success re-invigorating the APRF’s CCTWG would support further collaboration on other Southeast Asian environment and health concerns.
Constraining factors
There are a number of hurdles requiring negotiation to make a CCA and health collaboration viable. First are the existing coordination difficulties between the ADB and APRF [#14]. Institutionalisation of coordination requirements is more durable than relying on individual initiative, and will avoid coordination gaps when no-one takes personal initiative. Coordination reporting requirements will help ingrain coordination habits, thus helping to gradually overcome resistance. Second, the ADB has a lack of flexibility in how it deals with national government agencies [#13, #14]. However mandate convergence shows that ADB objectives can shift, and the ADB does work with outsiders, thus with suitable arguments institutional support is likely to be forthcoming. Third, the APRF visionary approach only includes health and environment ministries. This is problematic because, for example, in Vietnam the planning ministry decides on national funding priorities [#22]. Therefore the APRF’s ability to support the development of national environment and health ownership is constrained because key decision-making ministries/bodies are not involved, and may not have a good awareness of environment and health concerns. For example, Resurreccion et al. [
72] argued that Vietnam’s planning and investment ministry does not have climate change expertise, and Myanmar’s energy ministry mandate is energy security, with climate change just a minor consideration [#21], leaving little space for CCA and health concerns. Fourth, relatedly, the APRF faces funding constraints, with available funds “mostly used for the travel of participants from developing countries to come to these meetings” [#02], leaving little room for increasing the number of ministries involved. Collaborating with the ADB could help relieve some of the APRF’s budgeting limitations allowing, for example, involvement of other key ministries.
This research used a modified form of FAROCCCA, which was originally developed to assess ROs supporting CCA in small island developing states. Its use in this research shows it can be adjusted across geographies and is not discipline-specific. There were some limitations in the use of the modified FAROCCCA. The researcher being an outsider minimised the likelihood of researcher bias, however the lack of depth of relationships with interviewees meant that the perceptual information gathered was limited. Several of the modified FAROCCCA’s sub-components included perceptual indicators, but the structure, systems and processes sub-component was most affected, with seven of eight indicators being perceptual. In order to assess these without loss of assessment objectivity the modified FAROCCCA could be used by an officially sanctioned independent evaluator. Other than this observation, use of the modified FAROCCCA provided significant insights into the APRF’s and ADB’s CCA and health endeavours. While many of the results were expected, others, such as the ADB’s monitoring and evaluation results, were surprising. The legitimacy results suggest that FAROCCCA could be further modified to include more nuanced legitimacy indicators.
This research into the role of ROs supporting adaptation and health across Southeast Asia should stimulate and inform debate about the most effective ways for regional engagement with CCA and health issues. Four options for future research are identified here:
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As many Southeast Asian countries are confronting decentralisation issues [
78‐
80], future research could investigate the possibility that the CCTWG could support the strengthening of decentralisation programs, though its focus on CCA and health.
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Organisation sanctioned re-application of the modified FAROCCCA including the use of the perceptual indicators would provide additional information on the organisations’ input legitimacy.
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This research highlights regional organisational legitimacy implications as an area for further investigation.
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Some individuals naturally seek to coordinate and work with others, but it is not a universal trait. Future research into coordination should include not just suitable mechanisms, but also how to identify and attract individuals who will enhance the outputs and outcomes of those coordination mechanisms.