ELRI’s environmental governance programs are aimed towards developing inventive approaches to solving and or mitigating new or entrenched environmental problems and changing tools and economies.  ELRI views “governance” here as including the range of legal and other techniques employed in both the private and public sectors to foster environmental protection. Such governance tools include, not only conventional regulations (legal or customary), but environmental assessments, information disclosure, market mechanisms, economic incentives, and public policies and programs that promote voluntary environmental stewardship.
ELRI ensures that environmental governance programs operate at the international, federal, state and local levels. Thus the key objectives are to:

• Develop and foster innovative government and business approaches to environmental protection.
• Safeguard and strengthen the implementation environmental laws.
• Introduce policymakers and practitioners to innovative ideas from the academia.
• Build the capacity of judicial officers on the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws.
• Develop effective environmental, health, and safety governance structures for new technologies in environmental management.

Climate Change and the resulting variability represent one of the most serious emerging environmental threats to coastal areas. How to cope with it in a coordinated manner has consequently become a hot topic of discussion between institutions, governments and various stakeholders. Effects of climate change include sea-level rise, extreme climate events, increase in the occurrence of natural disasters, habitat destruction, possible saltwater intrusion into groundwater system, adverse effects on crops and fisheries, and increase in vector-borne diseases.

ELRI’s work strategy in this area is focused on proffering recommendations for good governance. In this regard, it advocates for the development of a climate change policy framework. This becomes imperative for economic growth, sustained peace and security, and human development without which most of government’s development goals like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be attained. Developing countries are tasked with the responsibility for designing and adopting governance frameworks that will support and guide appropriate policies, legislations and institutional arrangement based on climate science, rule of law and the general principles of the international climate change regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. ELRI therefore is committed to ensuring that such governance system provides the requisite organizational and institutional capacities as well as coherent actions that are based on transparency, accountability, equity and participatory approaches.

Coastal erosion is described as a natural process along the world’s coastlines that occurs through the actions of currents and waves and results in the loss of sand residue in some places and accretion in others. The rates of erosion tend to be higher in areas where soft sandstone or mudstones are dominant depending on geological type rather than hard substrates such as basalt or granite. Despite the differences in erosion potential along the world’s coastlines, scientists predict that there have been dramatic increases in coastal erosion over the last two decades. These incidents are expected to continue as sea level risesand storm frequency and severity increases.

Rather than occurring over the same time scale with sea level rise, erosion of beaches and coastal cliffs is expected to occur in large bursts during storm events as a result of increased wave height and storm intensity.  Erosion will have significant effects on coastal habitats, which can lead to social and economic impacts on coastal communities.

In this regard, ELRI’s programs in this area are targeted  at enhancing public and institutional attention on the need for sound environmental management of our coastal areas and also proffering appropriate policies and relevant viable laws aimed at promoting coastal adaptive and mitigation strategies to ensure protection of human life and the environment.

As urbanization continues to take place, sanitation and waste management issues are giving rise to major public health and environmental concerns in developing countries Nigeria not excluded. In several cities in Nigeria, a typical  sanitation and waste management system displays an array of problems, including low collection coverage, irregular collection services, crude open dumping and burning of refuse in a way that pollutes air and water, providing a   breeding ground for flies and pests, and leaving room for  informal waste picking or scavenging activities.

ELRI’s programme on sanitation and waste management seeks to identify strategies that can effectively reform the waste management systems. In this regard we seek to analyze policies, standards, planning methods, management and review processes that can be utilized to replicate such strategies across the country.

The relationship between women, children and the environment stems from the natural and social status in the society. Women for instance have the primary responsibility of rearing children and managing the household. Thus, in their interaction with the environment they engage in activities that can make or mar the environment

Much as women play a key role in managing environmental resources, they do not have managerial control and are most times deprived of opportunity to participate in decision making.

ELRI seeks to promote changes in policies regarding women’s participation and contribution in decisions and laws regulating environment. ELRI’s strategy lies in the utilization of capacity building and policy analysis to provide the context in which policy makers can view women and children as economic parameters in the sustenance of the environment

ELRI’s has developed a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tool kit that seeks to provide stakeholders with better means for learning from past experience, improving service delivery, planning and allocating resources on developmental projects, and demonstrating results as part of accountability to key stakeholders. ELRI understands that there is a strong focus on the need for projects outcomes for project initiators, thus, its M & E strategy seeks to provide appropriate information on project outputs for effective assessment of project impact. To this end, its M & E tools are:

These tools are not exhaustive, as the choice of which is appropriate for any given context will depend on a range of considerations. These would include the uses for which M&E is intended, the stakeholders who have an interest in the M&E findings and the urgency of the information required.