Horizontal Integration

Horizontal integration has two parts:

• First, there is integration between different policies and actions (e.g. transport plans take account of housing and environment concerns).

• Second, entities at a given level work with other entities at the same level. Local examples include government interactions and private citizen participation.
  • Locally, county councils have grouped together to prepare and implement River Basin Management Plans. These River Basin Management Plans link the government and people through public consultations. Private Citizens participate in residents' associations and Tidy Town committees. Residents' association members, who all live in the same estate, manage their local area with grass cutting and clean-up days. Likewise, Tidy Town committee members work to improve their towns with small scale projects like litter picking, planting and biodiversity projects.
  • Nationally, governments cooperate internally across different ministries and externally with NGOs and business organisations as shown below.
  • Internationally, governments cooperate with other governments on international treaties (e.g. the Lisbon Treaty within the EU) and more broadly with governments and NGOs on UN resolutions (e.g. The Future We Want resolution from the United National Conference on Sustainable Development). Governments also participate with other countries in organisations for specific purposes such as The World Bank and the United Nations.