Conceptualising a Governance Framework for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction in Small Island Developing States Through a Systematic Review

Abstract

The world is far from meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement of limiting the rise of global temperature to below 1.5 °C, with dire consequences for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in particular. If SIDS are to address their climate vulnerabilities through policy-induced resilience building, they need to have a robust governance framework in place that coherently addresses climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. What would such a governance framework look like? To address this question, we carried out a systematic literature review of papers published between 1992 and 2023. Our review reveals that the governance around climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction is relatively weak in SIDS. However, the analysis of barriers and enablers unveils the contours of a proposed three-tiered governance framework, the application of which needs to be contextualised: Tier 1 comprises three key pillars: Policy Planning, Institutional Arrangements, and Laws and Regulations; Tier 2 identifies the principles of transparency, accountability, equity, legitimacy, and subsidiarity; the core pillars and the principles are nested within a broader Tier 3 comprising democratic processes (rule of law), religious and cultural values, and political commitment. In order for SIDS to fight the existential threat of climate change, the proposed framework will allow SIDS to better understand their climate governance framework and deliver low-carbon, climate resilient development within the broader ambit of sustainable development. This framework also addresses the weakness in previous studies, which consider dimensions, principles, and enabling an environment of good governance on equal footing. We illustrate this framework using the analogy of the lotus flower.

1. Introduction

Even if we stop emissions of greenhouse gases today, global surface temperatures will continue to increase at least until mid-century [1]. Despite global commitments to keep warming below 1.5 °C (or at least below 2 °C), these limits will be exceeded within the 21st century. Unless deep reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions occur in the coming decades, we can anticipate a global temperature increase of up to 2.7 °C [2]. While all countries will suffer or are already suffering from increases in global temperatures, some countries are more vulnerable than others. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are amongst the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite accounting for less than 1% of total GHG emissions [3,4]. For example, from 1970 to 2020, SIDS lost an estimated USD 153 billion due to weather, climate, and water-related hazards—a significant amount given that the average GDP for SIDS is USD 13.7 billion [5]. Single extreme weather events can cause damages up to 20% of GDP or more. For instance, cyclone Pam in 2015 caused losses and damages equating to 64% of Vanuatu’s GDP [6]. For Mauritius and Seychelles, Ref. [7] estimates climate-related economic losses at over 30% of GDP. Other impacts are more difficult to estimate in financial terms, but are no less severe, including impacts on health, both physical and mental; or so-called non-economic losses and damages, such as cultural or spiritual losses [3,8].

Given their high vulnerability to external shocks, including climate change and natural disasters, SIDS seek to build resilience and adapt [9]. Climate change adaptation (CCA) is defined as the adjustment in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects or impacts [4]. Adaptation seeks to reduce the vulnerability of communities, regions, or activities by changing processes, practices, or structures to moderate or offset potential damages, or by taking advantage of opportunities associated with changes in climate. CCA is thus closely related to disaster risk reduction (DRR), which the IPCC defines as “both a policy goal or objective, as the strategic and instrumental measures employed for anticipating future disaster risk; reducing existing exposure, hazard or vulnerability; and improving resilience” [10] (p. 1763).

Building resilience against external shocks, including climate change and natural disasters, needs to be rooted in the broader ambit of integrated policy planning for sustainable development [11,12,13,14]. Given that climate change is a collective action problem, governments have an important role to play from the perspective of supporting the coordination of multiple agents vertically and horizontally within the state [15], accordingly, good governance is one of the key enablers which allow governments and other actors to meet this challenge [16,17]. Consequently, good governance is understood herein from a broad perspective and encompasses institutional setup, rules, regulations, and practices, to adequately respond to climate change and disaster risks.

From a policy-induced resilience-building perspective, an appropriate climate governance framework would enhance the ability of institutions and agents to contribute in the integrated policy planning process of conceptualising, formulating, implementing, and monitoring of long-term resilience-building policies, strategies, and action plans so that socially just outcomes are achieved. Whereas the vulnerabilities of SIDS have been studied in quite some detail [4], we know less about how SIDS are addressing climate resilience and which types of governance architecture are in place [18]. In this present paper, we address this gap and examine the governance mechanisms that SIDS are using to address CCA and DRR. We specifically focus on how climate governance (understood to also cover natural disasters) is framed, conceptualised, and theoretically understood in a SIDS context through a systematic literature review of climate governance in SIDS.

A clear understanding of what constitutes an appropriate climate governance framework is an essential condition for SIDS to respond efficiently and effectively to the challenges of climate change. In Section 2 of this paper, we discuss the broad topic of governance before connecting it to CCA and DRR. We then explain why a systematic literature review is deemed an appropriate methodology for this research and how we conducted our review. Two questions guided our review: (1) What are the key components, principles, and preconditions of an effective CCA/DRR governance framework for SIDS as evidenced by the academic literature? and (2) Are these components, principles, and preconditions equally important? In Section 3, we present the results of our review. We then discuss our findings in the context of the larger literature (Section 4) and finally conclude with Section 5.

2. Materials and Methods

Good governance incorporates all processes of social organisation and social coordination for resolving common challenges [19,20,21]. As such, governance is applicable for addressing collective action problems, such as the loss of biodiversity, climate change and other environmental challenges [15]. It has at least three inter-related framings [22]: (i) it involves international cooperation through non-sovereign bodies outside the state system; (ii) it is synonymous to public administration, i.e., effective implementation of state policy; (iii) it is also the regulation of social behaviours through networks and other non-hierarchical mechanisms.

Until the 1980s, governance theory was principally concerned with the central institutions, processes, and structures of the state. The state and government remain central in governance, which “encompasses notions of how political and administrative decisions get made, how governmental systems work, and why both formal and informal institutions matter in how things get done and how states relate to societies” [23]. Ref. [24] places emphasis on managerial or technocratic competence or, conversely, on cooperative, consensual decision making. Ref. [22] takes a similar stance, whereby governance is defined as the government’s ability to make and enforce rules, and to deliver services.

As mentioned earlier, climate change is a collective action problem, hence finding adequate responses depends largely on the ability of government to establish a sound climate governance system. However, government is not the sole actor in addressing this collective challenge. New theories and practices have integrated private and voluntary organisations as well as public ones in the activity of governing [21,22,25]. The management of global and local environmental degradation as collective action problems has also given rise to new approaches to governance. The government remains important, however, given its primary role of leading the policy planning process and implementing policy instruments, including legal and regulatory frameworks within the broader ambit of the constitution; this does not mean that everything needs to be centred on government. In fact, governance also considers how individuals and organisations interact, how they are organised and make decisions, and the ways in which they intervene to address common challenges [26,27]. Hence, there is a need for the climate governance framework to cater to the coordination and inclusiveness of different groups of stakeholders to contribute, first, in the framing of the climate challenge, and, second, in working together to find socially just, long-term solutions.

In addition, governance at the national level is intertwined with and influenced by international governance [22,28]. In the case of climate change, the provisions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its instruments, such as the Paris Agreement, need to be translated into national policies and strategies, and legislation. Thus, we witness a growing number of laws, policies, and regulations [29], as well as litigation across the world [30].

Furthermore, there are a number of indigenous and exogenous challenges to effective governance for climate change adaptation in SIDS. These include limited human and institutional capacities to develop and implement adaptation policies, strategies, and plans, including coordination of stakeholders across different sectors and geographical scales and low levels of financing, which can make it difficult to develop and implement long-term adaptation strategies, among others [31]. Additionally, the impacts of climate change are often exacerbated by external factors, such as globalisation and trade.

To take stock of existing governance frameworks in SIDS, their benefits, and also barriers and challenges to governance, we carried out a systematic literature review. Systematic literature review allows for making sense of large bodies of information and it strives to comprehensively identify, appraise, and synthesise all the relevant studies on a given topic [32,33,34]. Systematic review selects and synthesises documents based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria in order to answer a specific research question [32,33]. Systematic literature reviews are distinct from other approaches to research synthesis in that they incorporate an explicit layer of methodological systematisation, adding transparency and reproducibility to the review process [34]. Although common in fields like healthcare, systematic review has also been applied in adaptation research [33,34,35,36,37].

There are different frameworks for carrying out a systematic literature review, but the overall approach is always the same: First, a database is searched with a systematic searching strategy based on keywords. Second, the (usually very large) number of articles is filtered with a list of inclusion and exclusion criteria to identify the articles to be reviewed in depth. Third, the articles retained in Step Two are coded and relevant data is extracted. Fourth, that data is analysed with appropriate methods [34,38].

To identify relevant research papers on governance of CCA and DRR in SIDS, we searched the ScienceDirect database using the following search string in the topic field: (“climat* chang*” OR “global warming” OR: “disaster risk”) AND (adapt* OR resilien* OR cope OR cop) AND (govern* OR manage), as well as a list of SIDS names plus Indian OR Caribbean OR Pacific OR Ocean*. We limited our research to papers published in English between 1992 and 2023. We used 1992 as our starting point because the UNFCCC was negotiated and signed in 1992. The end point corresponds to the time of writing.

While limiting our search to a single database might seem like a limitation, we believe that the focus on the ScienceDirect database is justified. First, our search string yielded a high number of articles, 7530 in total (see Figure 1). Extending our search would have posed feasibility issues. Second, as evidenced by the high number of articles, most academic journals are indexed in ScienceDirect. Adding another database would presumably have added duplicates rather than original research. Third, it is common for systematic literature reviews to focus on a single database [33,39,40].

We screened the titles and abstracts of the 7530 articles to identify the papers that met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. We were interested in papers that examined climate change and/or DRR in SIDS (including island territories) from a governance perspective. Hence, we retained articles if they focused explicitly on or covered aspects/dimensions of governance of CCA and/or DRR such as policies, institutions, and management in countries/territories on the UN list of SIDS. Articles had to be about human systems with an empirical focus and having enough details for analysis. In contrast, we excluded papers that concerned countries/territories not on the UN list of SIDS and those not focusing on governance or aspects/dimensions of CCA and DRR. Similarly, we excluded articles focusing on mitigation, individual measures, concepts/theories not related to governance, perceptions, or those with too little details for analysis. First, we read through the titles of all 7530 articles to match the titles against our inclusion and exclusion criteria. This allowed us to eliminate 6673 articles. Second, we read the abstracts of the remaining 857 articles, which allowed us to further reduce the sample to 37 articles. The 37 articles represent the empirical database for our analysis.

The data extraction and analysis are crucial steps in the systematic literature review process since they imply selecting and interpreting the data that are needed for the study. In order to analyse these 37 papers in a systematic way and extract all relevant information, we established a coding scheme (see Supplementary Materials). This coding scheme captured the following information:

(i).

General description of our database. As a first step, we were interested in simply mapping where and how governance has been studied. The elements of interest include which SIDS have governance of CCA and DRR and have been studied, with respect to which types of hazards, impacts, and sectors. Geographical distribution helps to identify any trends across the SIDS studied and across SIDS regions and to establish linkages, if any, with the types of hazards, types of impacts, and sectors of interest. (To classify SIDS into regions, we used the United Nation Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States classification. It recognises SIDS as a distinct group of 39 states and 18 Associate Members of United Nations regional commissions that are distributed in three geographical regions, namely, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea (AIS). https://www.un.org/ohrlls/content/list-sids, accessed on 26 June 2023.)

(ii).

Governance mechanism and dimensions. The governance mechanisms and the dimensions of governance are key elements of the study. The literature review sought to identify the levels at which governance was studied (local, national, regional, and global) and the key stakeholders (community, public sector, private sector, and civil society) that were involved. We also examined whether the governance systems were government-centric, decentralised, or polycentric, and how it was exercised.

(iii).

Barriers and enablers of good governance: Barriers and enablers are the two sides of the same coin; they aim to capture elements that hinder or enhance good governance of CCA and DRR. Barriers and enablers were identified in our review to provide information regarding the framing and conceptualisation of governance. The analyses of root causes of barriers and triggering elements behind enablers are, therefore, used as pointers in the governance framing and conceptualisation process.

3. Results

3.1. Mapping Scholarship on Climate Governance in SIDS

In order to address our research questions and to understand the key components, principles, and preconditions of effective CCA/DRR governance framework for SIDS, we first carry an overview of the academic literature. Specifically, by first mapping the articles retained for analysis, we better understand how SIDS in different geographical regions have articulated climate governance mechanisms. This first step corresponds to part (i) of our coding scheme described earlier.

Geographical Differences-Hazards, Sectors and Actors

Thus, we first map scholarship on climate governance in SIDS, that is, explore the geography, hazards, sectors, and actors studied. In a second step, we identify the enablers and barriers of good climate governance. This allows us to identify relevant information for our governance framework and their classification under key themes. Some of the themes identified—long-term policy planning, institutional arrangement, legal framework, political economy, and power—are very much anchored in the academic debate. Further, the review helped identify new themes, such as equity (social and gender), colonial legacies, and religious and cultural values. The analysis of these themes, through our database (see Supplementary Materials), allows for an understanding that not all the key elements of effective governance are on the same level; they are in fact multi-dimensional and cross-dimensional.

The low number of papers (n = 37) that was retained for the systematic literature review indicates that governance of CCA and DRR in SIDS is not widely studied. In particular, DRR receives limited attention. Out of the 37 papers retained, 20 focused on both CCA and DRR; 16 on CCA only; and only one on DRR only. Similarly, only 12 papers focus on a single country or territory, whereas two-thirds, 25 papers, examine more than one SIDS. Such cross-country studies can focus on more than one SIDS region (i.e., the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean). In terms of geography, we find a relatively even distribution among the three regions: papers cover Caribbean SIDS only, n = 10; AIS, n = 10; Pacific, n = 5; and the remaining papers that cover studies carried out in the three regions, n = 12. However, a closer look at the coverage reveals that some SIDS have received greater attention than others. Solomon Island, Trinidad and Tobago, and Seychelles have each been the subject of four studies; Maldives, Mauritius, and Comoros Islands were covered by three studies each; and Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Kiribati, Barbuda, and St. Lucia covered by two studies each. Another observation is that within the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea (AIS) region, which is the most heterogeneous among the three SIDS regions, there are discrepancies across the sub-regions. Out of 15 studies focused on the AIS region, 14 examined SIDS in the Indian Ocean region, only one focused on the Atlantic, specifically São Tomé and Príncipe, and none examined the South China Sea region where Singapore is located. The data generated here highlight that SIDS are diverse and scattered in three regions and sub-regions. Despite their commonalities, they are contextually different, indicating that the application of the governance framework needs to be contextualised.

In terms of hazards studied, 12 papers focused on single hazards and 22 covered multiple hazards. For three papers, the hazards were not specified. Within studies covering single hazards, cyclone was at the top of the list with six papers; followed by storm surge, two papers; Sea Level Rise, two papers; flooding, one paper; and tsunami, one paper. We did not find any specific regional trends in the hazards studied; rather, cyclones, storm surges, flooding, and droughts were more or less evenly distributed across the three SIDS regions. Overall, two studies on tsunamis were performed in the Pacific region [41,42]. The impacts identified are: infrastructure loss and damage (including coastal erosion) (n = 8), ocean acidification (n = 4), ocean/air temperature rise (n = 5), salt water intrusion (n = 2), damage caused to biodiversity (n = 2), damage caused to agriculture (n = 1), coastal squeeze (n = 1), damage caused to reef (n = 1), change in rain pattern (n = 1), and socio-economic impacts (e.g., livelihoods and development issues) (n = 8). The impacts were also more or less evenly distributed among the three SIDS regions. The total here does not amount to 37 due to double counting because seven papers covered more than one impact and the types of impacts are not mentioned in nine papers. We also looked at the sectors studied. Since CCA and DRR cut-across multiple socioeconomic sectors, it is important to identify those sectors. Tourism (n = 15) was most studied followed by fisheries (n = 14), infrastructure (including coastal zone), and health (n = 3).

We also find that over half of the papers (n = 19) depicted a government-centric system, whereas only eight papers reflected a polycentric context. In two papers, a system of village/community leadership prevailed, and in eight studies the governance system was not mentioned. Again, we find no specific regional trend regarding the distribution of the government-centric or polycentric type of governance system across all three SIDS regions. Governance has been studied at different levels: national (n = 12), local (n = 3), community (n = 2), multiple levels (n = 19), and involves a range of actors.

Ref. [43] identified three groups of actors, namely, national and subnational governments (state actors’ domain), private sector (market actors’ domain), and communities (social actors’ domain) that are involved in climate change governance. Through specific bridging arrangements, these actors interact, incorporate, and mobilise joint actions that seek to address the weaknesses of an actor while simultaneously exploiting the strength of the others. However, a concise analysis of hazards and sectors impacted reveals that the governance of CCA and DRR is framed by political economy and the power dynamics among stakeholders, owing to their intrinsic environmental and financial vulnerabilities. Ref. [44] explicitly conceptualises governance as a struggle between pluralist interest groups, and vulnerability exists because people cannot influence decisions affecting their lives [45]. Governance is thus stymied by attempts to consolidate power [16], and striving for effective governance is to a large extent formed by the interplay between economic gain and social justice. This is an important element of our governance framework.

While the lack of funding and financial capacity is one of the most frequently cited barriers in the articles studied, a closer look at the root causes reveals that it is in fact an issue of the capacity of institutions to access funding and implement projects. For instance, Ref. [46] highlighted the fact that SIDS tend to be too general, providing scarce information about specific actions to be financed and their costs and direct access to funding remain low. The ability of concerned institutions to formulate and implement scientifically driven policies, supported by a robust legal framework, are key to accessing funding from multiple sources, including, government, private sector, and climate funds. Based on this literature review, we now turn our attention to framing the main pillars of climate governance.

Another pertinent outcome of the literature review is the set of barriers that hinder or enablers that promote climate governance.

Table 1. List of barriers and enablers in climate governance in SIDS.

Elements of Barriers/Enablers	Brief Description of Barriers/Enablers	References
Barriers
Institutional Arrangements	(i) The inadequacy or, in certain cases, the lack of institutions hinder the delivery of tasks that are essential for good governance. (ii) Strongly influenced by colonial past	[16,47,48,49]
Policy Planning	(iii) Lack of long-term planning (iv) Inappropriate land-use planning (v) Weak cross-sector policy coherence	[20,49]
Legal Framework	(vi) A weak legal framework results in the lack of institutional mandates, roles and responsibilities, and institutional arrangements (vii) Lack of gender equity and monitoring of project implementation as the consequence of a poor legal framework	[50]
Enablers
Institutional Arrangements	(i) Accountability enhances trust and clarifies roles and responsibilities of different actors (ii) Subsidiarity ensures effective measures through bottom-up approach (iii) Democracy is an essential tool for realising social, ecological, and relational inclusiveness (iv) Religious and cultural values also support the implementation of effective adaptation measures	[51,52,53,54,55,56,57]
Policy Planning	(v) Use of backcasting method (vi) Stakeholder inclusiveness (vii) Networking (viii) Coherent cross-sectoral policies and synergies (ix) Accountability ensures coherence (x) Transparency ensures target setting, monitoring, and access to information (xi) Political will is essential to advance adaptation	[20,46,55,58,59,60,61,62]
Legal Framework	(xii) Legitimacy for actors and institutions to exercise their mandate (xiii) Equity (social and gender)	[16,41,50,56]

summarises these barriers and enablers. As mentioned in the previous section, barriers and enablers serve as pointers to identifying the different elements of a sound climate governance framework, which are discussed in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3 below.

3.2. Three Pillars of Climate Governance

As can be seen from Table 1, the barriers and enablers point to three main pillars of governance, namely: Institutional Arrangements, Policy Planning, and Legal Framework. For effectiveness, these three pillars need to be supported by a number of principles and pre-conditions that are also identified in Table 1. The pillars are discussed in this section, while the principles and pre-conditions to good climate governance are discussed in Section 3.3.

3.2.1. Institutional Arrangement

Given that climate change and disaster risks have impacts across all natural and human-made systems, the need for adequate institutional arrangements to coordinate institutions and individuals vertically and horizontally is observed as a prominent feature of good climate governance in the literature. The lack of appropriate institutional arrangements hindered several tasks necessary for enhancing climate resilience, including long-term planning (n = 13), coordination (n = 10), mainstreaming CCA and DRR in key sectors (n = 10), and accessing, mobilising, and using climate finance (n = 6). The total does not amount to 37 because some papers (n = 6) cover more than one dimension. The data indicate that adequate coordination structures and institutional arrangements are required for the design, conceptualization, formulation, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of long-term integrated and coherent policies for CCA and DRR.

In SIDS, the institutional arrangements and structures are typically an inheritance of colonial pasts. As a result, our review clearly points out how colonial inheritance acts as a barrier to effective governance [49]. This relates to the prominence of top-down institutional approaches which is characterised by weak institutional arrangements. Weak institutional arrangements and structures in turn further trigger other deficiencies (n = 9), such as ineffective or non-participation of key actors in the policy planning process, including those at grass-root level and civil society. This lack of representation also leads to poor communication, lack of ownership [47], and social cohesion [48]. The absence of a coordinating mechanism jeopardises a collaborative process through which stakeholders at all levels can meaningfully contribute to addressing the serious threat of climate change [16].

3.2.2. Policy Planning

Through the literature review, Policy Planning emerges as the cornerstone of good governance (n = 11). It is a very important process that coherently frames the course of action and long-term targets. Inadequate or lack of long-term policy planning (n = 6) is a recurrent weakness. For instance, according to [20], short term planning horizon and political cycle results in difficulties for integrating adaptation policy with mid- and long-term climate projections. Ref. [63] affirm that the impact of natural disasters is magnified by inappropriate land-use planning and trace back the cumulative risk of hazard to deficiencies in previous decisions about land use, land development, and building standards. Ref. [22] highlights the fact that lack of policy coherence between sectors usually results in conflicts over resources and incentives between sectors or departments. This hints at the lack of cross-sectoral, integrated policy planning. Top-down institutional approaches to land-use planning generally do not accommodate community responses to climate variability and change [49,60].

Lack of integrated policy planning is also closely linked with poor mainstreaming that is reported in the literature. Poor mainstreaming of CCA and DRR in economic sectors of relevance to SIDS (n = 7) is a major sign of poor governance [55,60,64]. Low level of mainstreaming results in or reflects disparate cross-sectoral policies and strategies, implying lack of policy coherence and policy integration [55]. In some cases, the governance mechanism that is in place is inherited from the colonial period and has never been adapted to a SIDS context. It is therefore unsuitable for addressing collective action problems. Ref. [60] exemplifies this by stating that legal, economic, demographic, sociocultural, planning-related, and environmental drivers compounded the accumulation of exposure and vulnerability over time. Saint-Martin is given as an example wherein the historical social and political dynamics involving unsustainable development and settlement patterns, weakness of local institutions, population mistrust in public authorities, high social inequalities, and environmental degradation maintained a maladaptive trajectory. An important observation here is that all these are non-climate (or non-natural disaster) drivers of maladaptation. Coherent cross-sectoral policies can also allow SIDS to move away from a project-based approach towards a programmatic one, allowing countries to propose programmes and establish links with wider development purposes [46,58].

Policy incoherence (n = 4) calls for a more creative type of management, requiring new ways of thinking, prioritisation, and changes in resources and land uses. This transformative type of governance can be construed as a mechanism through which complex adaptive systems attain synergy between conservation and creativity, thereby conferring more resilience in the face of current and future shocks than offered by existing governance [62]. Management and adaptation options should adopt an inclusive approach which offers enhanced opportunities to develop and implement transformative adaptation solutions, particularly in remote and regional areas where centralised management does not extend [61]. While corroborating the need to change the existing obsolete governance mechanism, Ref. [60] emphasises the relevance of backward-looking approaches to support forward-looking climate adaptation, favouring a backcasting rather than a forecasting approach. This entails breaking path dependency through the alignment of local institutional capacities with national risk reduction policies, the promotion of social justice, and involvement of local communities in decision making. Networking can contribute to social resilience and for designing approaches that account for the multi-level or polycentric nature of governance required to perform critical tasks for adaptation [59]. Additionally, policy coherence (n = 3) can be improved through the promotion of nature-based solutions which requires harmonisation between multiple actors, including those involved in land-use planning, land drainage, agriculture, and economic operators, among others.

3.2.3. Laws and Legislation

Another import element of governance that came out of the review is ‘Laws and Regulations’ (n = 6). They are crucial in setting the rules for a fair playing field for stakeholders to interact and act. A weak legal framework results in the lack of clear roles and responsibilities of institutions and stakeholders, lack of clarity of institutional arrangements for coordinating and enabling the inclusive participation of multiple stakeholders, and the mandate for long-term integrated policy planning for resilience building. Another barrier associated with a weak legal framework is the ineffective allocation of power, meaning how power is held and exercised by actors in key institutions. One paper also mentions the lack of gender equity and monitoring of project implementation as the consequence of a poor legal framework [50]. Overall, the papers advocate that an effective legal framework must set the legal and institutional pathways for good governance of CCA and DRR.

3.3. Principles and Preconditions of Good Climate Governance

3.3.1. Principles

While policy planning, institutional arrangement, and legislation, are considered as the three pillars of governance, there are other elements identified in the literature review that pertain more to the enabling environment that is required for good governance. We refer to these sub-dimensions as the principles underlying the pillars of governance. These principles are transparency, accountability, equity, legitimacy, and subsidiarity. Transparency is a key principle of good governance; it enables the establishment of meaningful climate targets, tracking progress, informing policies, and mobilising financial support for increased climate ambition. It is very important for stakeholders to have access to information to clearly understand the decision making process and the rationale behind decisions taken. This is in line with the Enhanced Transparency Framework, which is a mandatory mechanism established under the Paris Agreement to allow transparent monitoring and reporting. Hence, transparency serves the dual purpose of transparently informing both local and international stakeholders. However, to create a context that is conducive to good governance, accountability mechanisms in climate change framework legislation are necessary conditions for building trust between and within nations, providing clarity about the roles of the different actors involved in legislating and implementing climate policies [51,52,54]. Accountability also ensures policy coherence [55].

In addition to defining clear roles and responsibilities, good governance requires that key actors and institutions have legitimacy to exercise their mandate. The right and acceptance of an authority is usually addressed through the legal framework [16,41].

Another key principle which comes out of this systematic literature review is the notion of equity. It is important to ensure equity in process and outcomes, as well as ensuring that all the principles of sustainable development are applied, including intra-generational and inter-generational equity. Equity is also directly linked with climate justice since natural disasters disproportionately affect the most vulnerable communities. This is also why the principle of subsidiarity is core to the governance of CCA and DRR. It infers that adaptation decisions and associated governance responsibilities should occur at the lowest level at which they can be performed competently, which positively impacts policy integration [55]. These key principles are summarised in

Table 2. Principles of governance of CCA and DRR.

	Dimensions of Governance	Relevance
1.	Transparency	Provision of access to information and openness of procedures and processes
2.	Accountability	Accountability mechanisms in climate change framework legislation are necessary conditions for building trust between and within nations, providing clarity about the roles of the different actors involved in legislating and implementing climate policies
3.	Equity	It is important to ensure equity in both process and outcomes, as well as ensuring that all the Principles of Sustainable Development are applied
4.	Legitimacy	The right and acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a regime
5.	Subsidiarity	Adaptation decisions and associated governance responsibilities should occur at the lowest level at which they can be performed competently

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

.

3.3.2. Preconditions

In addition to the pillars and principles, preconditions are also necessary for good governance to prevail (n = 14). They act as drivers and their absence impairs the governance system. They are democracy and the rule of law (n = 4); religious and cultural values (n = 6); and political commitment (n = 6). What constitute the core pillars and principles of good governance need to be anchored in democracy (the rule of law). In fact, representative democracy is an essential tool for realising social, ecological and relational inclusiveness [52]. Good governance and the rule of law are mutually supportive of each other as in a virtuous circle. For instance, effective land administration systems enable the implementation of land policies and sustainable development [63].

Religious and cultural values also support the implementation of effective adaptation measures. In fact, long traditions of interacting with, learning, and observing the environment have enhanced the adaptive capacity and social resilience of islanders [53,56]. This has been confirmed by studies on bottom-up adaptation in small island communities which have shown that adaptive capacities are strongly influenced by local, social, and cultural considerations [57].

Additionally, political will is essential to advance adaptation [46,65]. The lack of high-level political commitment and national leadership are in fact detrimental to CCA and DRR [20]. Politicians, themselves, can sometimes be a barrier to national adaptation policy due to the mismatch between the time horizons of adaptation and the political and management practices of government departments [20]. Political commitment at the highest level is therefore a key element in the success of policy coherence that should not be overlooked [55]. This literature review has found that by addressing the mismatch between political will and coherent policies, political leaders can ensure the smooth implementation of their programmes. An example is how effective land administration systems enable the implementation of land policies to fulfil political and social objectives and to achieve sustainable development outcomes [63].

4. Discussion

Governance is acknowledged as being central for the mainstreaming of CCA and DRR at all levels and in long-term integrated planning. Yet, studies reflect significant deficiencies in governance architecture in SIDS. These point to the need for better understanding of governance as it relates to CCA and DRR, which, in turn, points to the need for a robust framing and conceptualisation of governance that will allow its critical evaluation. Based on our systematic review, we propose a three-tiered governance framework. The three tiers are nested as shown in Figure 2. The first tier (Tier 1) comprises three core dimensions namely, Policy Planning, Institutional Arrangements, and Laws and Regulations. The second tier (Tier 2) consists of the principles that establish the enabling environment for efficiency and effectiveness of the Tier 1 dimensions. The principles include transparency, accountability, equity (including with respect to gender), legitimacy, and subsidiarity. These principles are in line with the preamble of the Paris Agreement. The two tiers are further nested within a broader set that contextualises their application (or country context). The outer set (Tier 3) comprises the manifestation of democratic processes (rule of law), religious and cultural values, and political commitment.

The three-tiered framework is inspired by the lotus flower which is composed of three layers of petals. The inner-most layer of petals encircles the seed pod that contains the seeds for regeneration of the lotus plant. The symbology of the inner-most layer of petals protecting the seed pod is that of resilience and renewal over time. Hence, the inner-most layer of petals and seed pod is analogous to the three core pillars of the proposed governance framework. The second layer of petals supports (or protects) the inner-layer and seed pod and is analogous to the five principles that underly the core pillars. The degree to which these principles are applied will determine the efficiency and effectiveness to which the core pillars are applied. Finally, the outer-most layer of petals of the lotus flower represent the broader systemic conditions that dictate how and to what extent the principles can be applied in a given context. The outer-most layer of petals comprise the flower’s receptacle that holds the entire structure of the flower.

The lotus flower analogy is used to conceptualise the proposed three-tiered governance framework as a new tool that can be used by SIDS to reconcile the key elements of the governance mechanism for CCA and DRR. The novelty here is that it identifies and places the key elements of effective governance on different levels; the three tiers clearly delineate a hierarchy between the different elements of a sound governance framework for CCA and DRR. One example to illustrate its application is in the land-use planning process, which if not performed in an integrated or sustainable way, leads to mal-adaptation. Democracy requires institutions to be transparent and accountable. Transparency ensures that stakeholders are aware of issues that affect them and of decisions being taken about these issues. Accountability opens the door for their participation when the legal framework provides for it. Legislation also determines the extent to which equity in participation in democratic processes underpinning integrated policy planning is achieved. The beauty of the lotus framework, in analogy to the lotus flower, is that it can flourish in different waters, as long as it is contextualised. It is a symbol of resilience.

Policy is a common element of a governance framework to effectively address CCA and DRR, and it is also mentioned in previous research [41,54]. For instance, coherent policies are important for SIDS to identify and assess their vulnerabilities and hence better clarify their financial needs for adaptation action [54]. However, for this to happen, it is imperative that proper vulnerability assessments are carried out to establish an evidence-based approach to integrated policy planning. This would require a shift from the quantification of the vulnerability of a site or a region to assessing the vulnerability of a set of selected variables to specific stressors [41]. This approach focuses on the sensitivity of a given system to different stressors and identifies a threshold at which the system can be considered as damaged. Then the susceptibility is measured in terms of the system’s sensitivity and exposure to stressors. The system’s ability to modify its vulnerable conditions by adapting and responding to changing circumstances is then estimated.

Evidence-based policy planning, in the ambit of good governance, can also help in addressing the problem of mobilising climate finance for adaptation and DRR. In fact, according to [66], SIDS can go even further in capitalising on proper vulnerability assessments. Based on his work in watershed areas in Antigua and Barbuda, he unveiled how vulnerability is economised through climate resilient development. His findings shed light on the construction of ‘adaptation economies’ which are economies that can capitalise upon climate challenges within areas of highest vulnerability through fee-for-climate services.

Coherent policies and effective institutions mutually support each other. Coherent policies are formulated, implemented, monitored, and evaluated by effective institutions. The papers highlight the fact that climate change, being a collective action problem, the solution should be multi-pronged, requiring the contribution of multiple actors across sectors (i.e., horizontally) and all levels of society (i.e., vertically). Most papers, however, depict a government-centric type of climate governance, wherein government has the primary role of leading the policy planning process and setting the legal and regulatory frameworks including the constitution.

A robust legal framework is equally important to allow for key institutions to operate within clearly defined boundaries and mandates with demarcated roles and responsibilities. It is expected to provide the equitable allocation of power to government and other actors. Climate action becomes inclusive by engaging a wide range of stakeholders in the process of designing policies that are fair and accessible and equitably distributes policy impacts. This results in an adaptable and scalable approach that provides economic, environmental, and social benefits [67]. There is a tendency towards inclusive governance which calls for explicit efforts to engage with public–private and formal–informal stakeholders; each with their own needs, priorities, political interests, and decision making processes. Inclusiveness is pertinent, especially for SIDS, because in addressing adaptation and DRR, it is important to avail of all potential support, both locally and from foreign sources, while harnessing opportunities and co-benefits.

Our systematic literature review provides a snapshot in time of how CCA and DRR are studied and theoretically understood in SIDS. We reviewed 37 papers in detail and this relatively low number shows that governance of CCA and DRR in SIDS is not widely studied, highlighting the same previous concern by [18] and further justifying the present research. Out of the initial 7530 papers initially identified, most did not meet the inclusion criteria because they focused on assessments of single projects or other non-governance aspects.

We also note that only 12 papers examined governance in a specific SIDS, which is indicative of a gap in research on country-level governance in specific SIDS. Such country-specific research would be helpful as country contexts are different and matter for policy and governance, as noted in key international agreements like the Sendai Framework [68] and the Paris Agreement [69]. Of note, while we find an overall balance across the three SIDS regions, we also see that some SIDS are not studied at all (at least through a climate governance prism). Such geographical biases were already remarked on in prior research [33,35] and still exist today. Of course, these biases may also reflect the small number of studies retained and result from the limits of our approach; our systematic literature review focuses on the literature published in English and recorded in the ScienceDirect database. Hence, we potentially miss out on sources of data in other languages and databases. For example, work on Lusophone or Francophone SIDS, in particular, may be published in Portuguese and French, respectively.

5. Conclusions

Good climate governance is crucial for SIDS in building their resilience against the adverse impacts of climate change. Yet, as we see from the high proportion of studies focused on deficiencies in the governance mechanisms in SIDS, there is still ample room for improvement. Our study reveals three pillars of governance upon which SIDS need to improve. These include policy planning, institutional arrangement, laws and regulations. These core pillars need to be founded on the principles of transparency, accountability, equity, legitimacy, and subsidiarity. In turn, the pillars and principles operate in the macro-level context of the rule of law, cultural and religious values, and political commitment. However, the literature tends to place all of these elements on the same footing. Whereas they are all important, they operate at different levels.

We instead propose that these elements operate at different levels; not all of these elements have the same bearing on the ways CCA and DRR are governed. Therefore, we used our systematic literature review to conceptualise a framework for good climate governance in SIDS in three tiers. The first tier (Tier 1) contains the three core pillars (or dimensions) of governance. It contains the Policy dimension, wherein policies need to be cross-sectoral and coherent. Policies also need to guide decision-makers, including through long-term planning. The Institutional Arrangement dimension is needed to ensure a participative approach where all stakeholders (horizontally and vertically) are parties to the process, and their views are not only considered but discussed to find trade-offs and compromise. It also entails parting with remnants of colonial past that hinder SIDS administrations. Having adequate Laws and Regulations (the third dimension) is also a determining factor that ensures the effective functioning of the other two pillars. For these pillars to function effectively and efficiently, there should be a culture of transparency, accountability, equity, legitimacy, aligned with the principle of subsidiarity (the principles underlying the good functioning of the three pillars of governance). In turn, the pillars and principles of governance are nested in the rule of law, and political commitment, and religious and cultural values.

Climate change is a collective problem, and the solution depends mostly on the ability of key stakeholders to work together and ensure a certain level of resilience against the adverse impacts of climate change. However, this is dictated largely by political economy and power dynamics among stakeholders. In SIDS, and other developing countries, the political economy and political dynamics are often rooted in post-colonial inheritances such as structure of government; public institutions; judicial system, including the country’s constitution; and post-slavery economic systems, including access to land and resources. Good governance is the cement that connects and holds the building blocks of a resilient society. It is not about a set of actions that are applied as recipe but a culture that needs to be instilled. The proposed framework sets the contours of the governance mechanism in dotted lines but the dots need to be linked through future studies in specific countries’ contexts. Hence, the proposed conceptualisation and framing of governance for CCA and DRR provides the foundation for assessing the effectiveness of governance frameworks in SIDS (and elsewhere) which can inform national adaptation plans and disaster risk governance strategies.

It would be interesting for future research to explore the extent to which the constitutions of SIDS are still framed by their colonial past. Future research can also focus on how the lotus framework can help to capitalise on cultural and religious values for more effective governance of CCA and DRR. Another potential avenue lies in application, and how our lotus framework can enhance the capacity of SIDS to access and use climate funding efficiently through more effective governance. Whereas our study has focused on the governance literature in SIDS, we venture to speculate that the lotus framework can be viewed as a generic framework for climate and DRR governance. Future research can also be directed at testing this speculation. The lotus framework can also serve as a useful template for developing an assessment and evaluation framework for governance of CCA and DRR.