Help
governance — English
The actions and manner in which a government or its representative person or authority executes control and authority over a certain constituency (people) or over the activities and actions of certain sectors of, or groups within, a population. In other words, it is the way in which policies or decisions of the government of the day are executed, controlled, enforced and monitored. “Passing the buck” commonly happens as far as the environment is concerned. Although a world heritage site such as the Cradle of Humankind falls under the ultimate jurisdiction and accountability of some UN agencies (in the case of a world heritage sites, that agency is UNESCO), the actual control and management of the site has been delegated to the national authority(ies) in South Afrcia, namely the national and local (or provincial) departments of the environment, science, technology, tourism and culture, which again passes the execution of decisions to local authorities and even to local community leaders and the communities themselves. Hence, the central government is seldom directly involved in the environmental, paleontological and archaeological conservation issues and the day to day management of the declared sites. However, ultimately someone or some authoritive body must accept accountablility. In the explanation above, environmental governance is used as an example, but more or less the same applies to any other aspect of life, for instance health, education, sport, housing, defence, social services, and so forth.
