Management of environmental issues in the Nigerian oil-producing region: A framework for stakeholders’ collaboration

Environmental issues from oil production have left inestimable environmental degradation and impacts to the lives of people in the Nigerian oil-producing region (NOPR). Research to date has suggested the importance of stakeholders’ collaboration in managing environmental issues. However, little research has been conducted to understand roles of stakeholders in developing a framework for stakeholders’ collaboration in the NOPR. This research produces a framework for stakeholders’ collaboration to expand knowledge in the development of a collaborative environmental management in the NOPR. The research aim was achieved based on four objectives; 1) identified recommended practices for stakeholders’ collaboration in managing environmental issues and established how they could be applied in the NOPR; 2) investigated stakeholders’ perception of collaborative roles in managing environmental issues in the NOPR; 3) designed a framework for stakeholders’ collaboration for managing environmental issues in the NOPR through the synthesis of outcomes of 1) and 2); and 4) validated the designed framework by identifying the critical success factors for its application. In achieving these objectives, interpretive research was applied, and it was underpinned by stakeholder analysis methodology to provide a coherent research design. Furthermore, the Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework and the theory of common pool resource were extended to inform the interpretation of collaborative roles of stakeholders in managing environmental issues in the NOPR. Adhering to the theoretical suggestions of stakeholder analysis / IAD framework and to allow a robust investigation of stakeholders’ collaboration, this research focused on the qualitative investigation of roles of the key stakeholders–i.e., Nigerian government agencies, multinational oil companies and host communities. While analysis of selected documents of the key stakeholders was conducted to explore the roles of stakeholders, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a select heads of departments and managers to examine their perception regarding their collaborative roles and critical success factor for stakeholders’ collaboration. While selective manual coding was used for the document analysis, narrative analysis assisted with NVivo 11 was used for the semi-structured interview analysis. The findings from both the document analysis and the review of recommended environmental management practices were synthesized to develop the framework for stakeholders’ collaboration. Policy review and development; strategic environmental management, systematic implementation of environmental management strategies and periodic review of management practices and policies were identified as key components of the framework for stakeholders’ collaboration. Findings from the framework validation derived from the semi-structured interviews show that critical success factors of stakeholders’ collaboration in managing environmental issues in the NOPR are primarily driven by socio-economic interests and political will as well as compliance to environmental management policies. Furthermore, it was found that ignorance and lack of commitment, among other barriers, can hinder stakeholders’ collaboration in managing environmental issues in the NOPR. This research suggests that due to the diversity of stakeholders’ roles regarding their institutional interests and complexity of environmental issues in the NOPR, successful stakeholders’ collaboration would depend on the concerted commitment and genuine collaboration across stakeholders.