TOOL T-22 | Assessment | Module 6: Grievance Redress System

Governance Gap Mapper

WHEN TO USE At project inception for novel technology types; when concerns arise that fall outside the mandate of existing institutions.

How to Use It

1. List all institutions with potential jurisdiction over the project: national agencies, LGUs, regulatory bodies, environmental agencies.

2. For each institution, identify: (a) their formal mandate, (b) whether that mandate covers this project type, and (c) their current capacity to receive and respond to community concerns.

3. Identify any concern types for which no institution has a clear mandate, these are governance gaps.

4. For each gap, identify: possible workarounds, whether the gap requires formal policy resolution, and who is responsible for raising it.

5. Document the gap map and share with the project team and relevant agencies.

6. Track whether gaps are resolved or persist as the project progresses.

Purpose

To identify where institutional mandates are unclear, overlapping, or absent for specific project types, particularly novel technologies (floating solar, offshore wind) where no established regulatory pathway exists. Governance gaps are SE-GRM risks: if no institution has a clear mandate to receive a concern, the concern has nowhere to go.

Field Rationale

At Laguna Lake, concerns about the floating solar project fell between agencies: the Laguna Lake Development Authority had jurisdiction over the lake but not over solar development; the Department of Energy had jurisdiction over solar but not over lake governance. Neither agency was well-positioned to receive or respond to community concerns. This created an institutional void that communities experienced as abandonment.