Governance and regulatory strategies beyond the state: stakeholder participation and the ecological restoration of Ogoniland

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn June 2016, the Nigerian government finally launched the massive ecological restoration programme of Ogoniland in the Niger Delta. This restoration programme is based on the 2011 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland Report which found that the ecological and consequential damages caused by oil exploration activities in Ogoniland were severe and virtually unparalleled elsewhere in the world. The state-based regulatory system had failed over the years to ensure the restoration of Ogoniland. The report therefore recommended that the ecological restoration of the said environment (which, according to UNEP, could ‘prove to be the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken’) be driven broadly by a multi-stakeholder governance approach. This UNEP proposed partnership between state and non-state actors represents a good example of environmental governance beyond the state aimed at long-term eco-restoration. This article is therefore a contribution to the discourse on emerging trends in eco-restoration governance strategies by providing a critical analysis of the UNEP-led multi-stakeholder participatory approach to eco-restoration governance in Ogoniland. It critically appraises the potency of UNEP’s stakeholder-driven governance model as a requirement for a successful eco-restoration exercise, especially against the backdrop of, and as a better alternative to, the traditional state-driven approach.