Paper short abstract:

The regional and national efforts towards environmental governance can only be meaningful and effective if there is a robust devolution framework in place, which allows the local governments to play an active role in the management of environment and resources.

Paper long abstract:

The three East African countries of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda ratified the Protocol for Sustainable Development of Lake Victoria Basin in 2003 under the auspices of the East African Community (EAC), which among other things, aimed at improving the state of environmental governance in the basin. The actual implementation and enforcement of the Protocol takes place at the local government level, as the national governments support, monitor and provide the overall policy and legal instruments. Despite the different trajectories of devolution in the three riparians, there is failure to implement and enforce the Protocol by the local governments. In this article, I disentangle the puzzle: how and why the different trajectories of devolution in the three riparians lead to environmental governance failure at the local level. The findings reveal that what leads to failure, in the case of Tanzania and Uganda, is insufficient powers that are devolved to the local governments. In Kenya, sufficient powers are devolved to the local governments. The problem, however, is that the local governments have had insufficient time to develop the required capacities to implement and enforce the Protocol.

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