Environmental governance in Pakistan: Perspectives and implications for the China-Pakistan economic corridor plan

Environmental governance (EG), climate-resilient development, and environmental sustainability are interlinked phenomena. It is in this context that an evaluation of Pakistan's EG was carried out in order to establish policy insights into the environmental sustainability of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Plan 2017–2030. A questionnaire survey approach (targeting various stakeholder groups), using a multi-criteria decision analysis of ‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ method and an integrated EG framework were used. An important finding is that responsiveness was ranked as best and equity as worst EG themes for CPEC sustainability. Similarly, criteria transparency is considered to be the best aspect and criteria access to information/knowledge the worst. Other aspects scoring highly included e.g. monitoring and evaluation; stakeholder's communication and collaboration in governance processes; mechanisms to ensure that means and rationales of decisions making are transparent for eco-friendly development under the CPEC Plan; stakeholders' input integration in planning and policy implementation; stakeholders capacity building to deal with environmental and CC concerns of CPEC development. Criteria scoring poorly included e.g., effective mechanisms to resolve conflicts between federal and provincial Environmental Protection Agencies and implementation of environmental laws in letter and spirit, as well as marginalized stakeholders' participation in the decision-making process. In this context, the Government needs to establish an effective EG system to ensure environmentally friendly and climate-resilient development (CRD) in the country. •EG-climate-resilient development, and ecological sustainability are critical for CPEC sustainability.•Responsiveness is the strongest aspect of EG, while equity is rated the lowest.•Transparency is identified as the best criteria, but access to information/knowledge is considered the weakest.•Criteria like conflict resolution mechanisms and environmental law implementation scored poorly.