New ways of thinking about governance are challenging our basic understandings about how we organise ourselves in a world that is increasingly characterised by uncertainty, ambiguity and unpredictability, and about how we should organise ourselves (emphasis added). Through consideration of developments in East Africa under the auspices of a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-administered project, the Partnership for Development of Environmental Laws and Institutions (PADELIA), two important considerations clearly stand out.