The global inter-network governance of UN policy programs on climate change education

Abstract

This paper examines the hows and whys of the global inter-network governance of two United Nations intergovernmental organizations with a policy focus on climate change education. Study data include web-audits, social media analyses, and interviews with policy actors involved in the network governance of these policy programs. The research suggests how each organization is functioning via UN-specific forms of semi-structured network governance, in which non-state actors have increasingly played key roles, but alongside the continued influences of state actors and the hierarchical structures of the intergovernmental organizations. We also found that the two organizations under study are engaged in forms of ‘inter-network governance,’ including via joint reports, meeting collaboration, and intermediary policy actors. The drivers of this inter-network governance are also discussed, including historical siloing of education and environment in different national ministries, macro and micro forms of institutionalization of the collaboration between the two organizations, and the greater mainstreaming enabled by the prominence of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The study suggests the positive outcomes of the network and inter-network governance at play in the UN organizations, and how that has been key to the global development and mobilities of climate change in education policy. The study has implications for international organizational theory, network governance studies, and understanding the global governance of climate change in education policy.