Integrating Environmental Governance into Sustainable Urban Development in Bangladesh

Abstract

Environmental governance refers to the process of making environmental decisions, who makes them and how they are carried out. It includes formal and informal institutional arrangements for resource and environmental decision-making and management. This study examined the degree to which Barishal City Corporation (BCC) and Sylhet City Corporation (SCC), two divisional cities of Bangladesh, integrated environmental governance into sustainable urbanization. This study has collected data through questionnaire survey from 600 stakeholders (300 from each city corporation) along with key informant interviews from the government officials of the selected City Corporations. The study's findings show that environmental governance can pave the way to creating a sustainable city a reality. The ineffective enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, the lack of organizational coordination, responsibility, and responsiveness, and the deficiencies in resource mobilization are also identified as some of the few issues in this regard. This study argues that cities may be made sustainable by raising environmental awareness and changing the way of thinking of citizens and local government officials so that they believe everyone of them has a role to play in building a sustainable city. Creating sustainable cities cannot be legislated or decided: it must become a part of the life of every resident and organization in the city. The main drawback of this paper is that it only examines two of Bangladesh's twelve city corporations.