What is the relationship between environmental work and building civil society?
Democracy, good governance, transparency, and accountability can only be achieved with civil society participation. Hence, building the capacity and organizational skills of community-based environmental organizations, especially those that are directly involved in environmental rights advocacy and environmental rights monitoring, will help position environmental rights as an important matrix in the promotion of democracy and good governance. It is through this building of civil society that democratic values will be entrenched in natural resource governance, service delivery, and public budgeting exercises. What kinds of hurdles have environmental organizations run up against? The current economic, social, and political problems have resulted in a number of hurdles for environmental organizations. In times of crises like these, environmental issues are not taken seriously by politicians and communities. Priority is given to “bread and butter issues” and the environment, unfortunately,
