Institutional Capacity

this will serve as the priority for the organizations to implement the mission, and the agencies will strive to achieve the goals of sustainability. Hecht and Fiksel (2015) emphasize clear sustainability goals for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States. However, setting the mission for sustainability needs the cooperation of policy makers. Once the organizations set the missions, public organizations have the responsibility of implementing them. Developing countries can create a single administrative agency that will oversee all of the sustainability regulations. Establishing a clear mission for the agency with sustainable goals can make significant progress but will require the commitment of the administrators of the agencies to set the mission on environmental sustainability.

InstItutIonal caPacIty Public organizations require institutional capacity to deal with the complex problems of sustainability. One of the primary tasks behind building the institutional capacity is to build the organizations capable of implementing the environmental sustainability. The majority of countries do have organizations capable of dealing with the problems of the environment. The institutions need to have sufficient human, financial and technological resources to implement environmental regulations effectively. The environmental problems bring to the forefront the issues of the traditional bureaucracy’s inability to solve problems. This inability and problems have led to what Frederickson (1999) refers to as the “disarticulated state.” Meek (2008) identifies the lack of bureaucratic ability to deal with cross-jurisdictional problems. The bureaucrats lack the ability to collaborate, adjust, and reorganize to address problems that cut across boundaries. Therefore, the agencies responsible for environmental protection need to recruit the qualified and committed people for the effectiveness of policy implementation. An understanding of sustainability requires knowledge of natural and social sciences to comprehend the causes and solutions of the problem. Institutional capacity refers to “the extent that a country has in place the institutions and underlying social patterns of skills, attitudes, networks that foster effective responses to environmental challenges” (Global Leaders 2001, p. 9). This includes the capacities of a country to conduct research on environmental degradation and the steps taken to eradicate such a problem (Husted 2005). Husted (2005) claims that since the capacity involves human responses, it will be influenced by