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Key responsible actors
The leading trends in decision-making for adaptation
in the seven countries of the Western Balkans were
determined by examining the key responsible actors
in the relevant policy documents. Policy documents
express the highest level of power in decision-
making on climate adaptation. For this reason, it
is necessary to analyse the level of involvement
of different stakeholders in the drafting of these
documents, their interests, mission and capacities.
In most of the countries, the key responsible actors
in drafting documents relevant to climate change
adaptation were ministries for environment.
Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina appear to have
neither an office nor an assigned staff member
that regularly works on climate change issues.
Only Montenegro has a separate Department
for Climate Change, while Albania and Kosovo
1
have (sub)sectors for climate change. However,
none of these departments or sectors have clearly
indicated mandates in relation to climate change.
Only in Croatia was the key responsible actor an
institution other than the ministry: namely, two
civil society organizations, which could contribute
the interests of a wider audience, including non-
experts and the general public, to policy design.
Civil society organizations in other countries do
not seem provide direct contribution to the design
of the most relevant climate change documents. In
these countries, where the ministries play the key
roles in drafting relevant documents, influence on
the policies is kept somewhat centralized within
the hands of government bodies, where the same
institutions contribute to both the creation and
implementation of policies.
Vulnerability assessments
Decision-making on the distribution of resources
for adaptation depends on the vulnerability
assessment, in the sense that it will determine
who or what is eligible for resource allocations for
future adaptation measures (Sova
et al.
, 2013). This
applies in the Balkans, where populations identified
as “vulnerable” have a chance to be included in the
adaptation measures.
According to the analysis of documents pertaining to
climate change in the Balkans, adaptation measures
refer mostly to policy changes from a technical
aspect, rather than referring to any action directed
towards vulnerable groups. Public involvement is
generally limited to awareness-raising activities. In
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo,
1
Montenegro and FYR Macedonia, communication
strategies are mostly aimed at educating the public on
the facts of climate change rather than at participation
in or decision-making on adaptation measures. Even
for vulnerable groups such as agricultural producers
and farmers, participation is passive and focused
primarily on receiving information. They are not
considered in the action plans.
In Croatia, the adaptation regime recognizes the need
for a multilevel approach to this issue: “multilevel
governance is defined as decision-making through
a dynamic inter-relationship within and between
different levels of governance, steered not only by
the public, but also by private and other interests”
(Keskitalo 2010; Hooghe and Marks, 2001). A timely
execution of this approach in other Balkan countries
– and to some extent even in Croatia – could bring
forward the mutual interests of all actors and offer
effective adaptation. If the vulnerable groups were
included in the action plans, their later involvement
could be increased and secured.
Politics of adaptation
In recent years there has been a trend towards only
engaging experts in adaptation (Sova
et al.
, 2013),
which is mostly reflected in the adaptation actions
of the Balkan countries analysed for this Outlook.
In relation to the analysis from the vulnerability
assessment above, it is clear that “non-experts”
are only given a passive role and not included in
decision-making with respect to the implementation
of adaptation actions (with the exception of Croatia
to some extent).