END OF DISCUSSION FORUM ON SEA: Watch the video!

Hello,

this is Jiri Dusik from UNDP. I was engaged in several SEAs funded by the EU prior joining UNDP and was happy to see a growing interest to apply SEA in development cooperation after adoption of the OECD/DAC guidance.  But lately, this interest seems to somewhat decline which is a pity since SEAs can - when done well - bring a lot of addded value to strategic decision-making.

I am hence very happy to see this renewed discussion within EU development cooperation. Will be glad to contribute during the next 4 days when I am in the office - hopefully long enough to see some exchange going.

Jiri

Hello all,

My name is David Annandale. I am a freelance consultant, working on SEA and environmental safeguard procedures around the world (mostly in Asia and Africa). I note Juan and Jiri's concern that perhaps SEA is losing its currency. I work with a range of donors, and if anything, I think there is an increase in donor interest. IF there is a problem, it is with the takeup of SEA by newly developing countries. My view is that there is considerable work to do in persuading decision makers that SEA is of benefit. I would like to see alot more research/publication focusing on specific SEA benefits ... which I see as focused on reduction of economic and reputational risk. I have my own case study examples, but would really like to see more documentation of benefits!

This is Paolo Toselli from Timor Leste EU Delegation. I have recently been introduced to the world of SEA because in Timor the EU delegation will soon launch a SEA (end 2018 or beginning 2019). We must be honest in recognizing that Timor Leste Government is not concern about SEA at the moment. Our strategy is therefore to tailor a SEA to those specific issues that have had or could have a positive reaction from Government and other development partners. For example land degradation and soil erosion are issues that will capture the attention. Same is water availability because it is an acute problem in rural area during dry season.   
In practice it means to chop SEA and limit SEA to those few arguments that are common interest. Is this adaptive strategy changing the nature of the exercise or a valid solution to overcome the "low ownership and participation" of Governments?
 

Dear Paolo,

We dealt with very similar challenge when introducing SEA in Indonesia as part of Danida support there. Our SEA approach was exactly as you suggest. In sensitive cases (e.g. SEA of Presidential Master Plan for Economic Restructuring - MP3EI)  we proceeded through the following steps:

1. We identified key concerns of decision-making actors (those having influence on adoption or implementation of the proposed plan) and also of the wider stakeholders concerned about impacts of the proposed policy/plan.

2. We started SEA by focusing it on concerns of key decision-making actors - hence establishing political legitimacy of SEA (as this process tried to asnwer concerns of influential actors) and we tried to proactively feed in information for their informal debates (that were actaully much more improtant than formal administrative stepsin drawing up the proposed policy/plan).

3. We use these initial analyses to involve outside stakehodlers having stake/interest in issues examined. Their engagement was justified because it was a fair thing to do, and because they possed know-how that could benefit the assessment process.

4. As the decision-makers became more familair with SEA and found some of these debates useful, we gradually exanded analyses to other improtant issues that were raised by wider stakeholders.

Obviously, it was a multi-step process - but this is fine since all guidance documents on SEA acknowdge that we must not follow some rigid procedural blue-print. We always need to adjust our SEA approach to fit the realities of decision-making. If you wish, I can try to locate the guidance that we prepared for this process.

Hope this helps

Jiri

In response to Paolo's question ... I think that one of the real strengths of SEA is to force (encourage?) governments to look forward beyond the standard political cycle ... and thereby to pinpoint longer term resource problems and infrastructure needs. For example, perhaps if the South African government had undertaken a SEA of water resource planning a decade or so ago, this could have pointed to the shortage problems that it is currently facing. Another example is a SEA that was done in Mongolia 4 years ago in the mining sector. Using GDP growth scenarios, this focused attention on infrastructure needs (ie water supply, energy needs, transportation infrastructure) in 30 years time.

Hi, I’m Rodrigo Jiliberto. As most of you I’ve been working on SEA several years and in particular in Latin America. I find this a very interesting discussion.

In the forefront I’d like to agree with Juan’s statement that SEA is a benefit in its own right.

However, our perception about how successful a SEA is has been depends very much about do we means an SEA is. In my experience results depends very on the degree of institutionalization of the environmental issue in each country. It is not easy for not SEA practitioners to understand the purpose and the benefits of and SEA.

The more developed is the environmental policy and practice in one country, the more the local authorities will appreciate a strategic oriented SEA, which is able to contribute to find more sustainable development ways. This has been for instance my experience in Colombia or Chile, so they will interiorize the exercise.

On the other one side, when you face less experienced environmental policy country, the authorities will be interested in impact oriented SEA, and the probability them to be frustrated will increase. Because they will not get what they expected; a clear cut environmental information for decision making. I remember very well a SEA on the national metal mining plan in El Salvador, a significant group of local authorities wanted from de SEA a white and black statement about positive future environmental impact of the metal mining industry in the country, a result which is not only far away from a standard SEA, but impossible to deliver in this case because of the huge data lack in the country.

In any case, to apply SEA in countries where SEA it is not institutionalized, which is most of the cases for the cooperation aid, implies sometimes overwhelming pedagogic effort. In general I’d agree with the very open approaches already suggested, which include,  as an initial step, a clear definition about what do national authorities expect from the SEA. However not conceived as an non critical objective setting, but a point of departure to transform, in general weak or in relation to SEA distorted demands, in a strategic environmental oriented demand/objective agreed by all stakeholders.  

Juan, I understand the purpose to promote SEA in the aid framework, somehow the EU cover its sustainability responsibility when giving financial support to third countries and this is fine of course. The complexity began with the fact that SEA is an institutional sophisticated tool, degree of sophistication that it is not easy to find in the receiving countries. The point for me is how to perform SEA overcoming this gap, and at the same time leaving some experience over which the country can build upon.

I keep in mind your recommendation to use or explain SEA in the Spanish speaking world using the term analysis. Assessment look like auditing. By the way I teach at the university the use of strategic environmental analysis in territorial planning in this sense, because it is incorporated in the plannign process.

The training Towards Sustainable Development: Greening EU Development Cooperation will take place on 7 and 8 June in Brussels. The training includes a session on practical tools and approaches to integrate environment and climate change at the various stages of the operations cycle covering the SEA.

The Methodological and Knowledge Sharing (MKS) Programme provides assistance to DEVCO in order to deliver training on operational aspects and innovative capacity development activities, including support to the development and content of the capacity4dev platform.  In this framework the Programme may offer the possibility to develop a tailor-made training on SEA.

Dear colleagues

I am Miguel Coutinho. I've been involved in SEA for at least 15 years. My initial focus was in the preparation of SEAs in Portugal but more recently I was involved in the coordination of SEA processes in Brazil, Guyana and Indonesia.

From these experiences I would say that the main challenge of SEA is to explain to the social actors involved what is the main objective of the SEA process. Why do we do SEAs? For many reasons... But if we want to find the most relevant one, I would say that we want to improve the quality of the decison making process, and consequently, at the end, we hope to come out with a better decision. For that is is essential to create the right mood with the institutions involved, especially with the government body resposible for the decision, and it is necessary to act in the right moment. The right mood and the right moment because to improve a decision, the decision has to be changed!

I would point out scoping (focused, strategic, participated,...) as the other critical issue to assure SEA success. But without the right mood and moment SEA becomes an exercise without any impact.

I'd like to add to a comment made two days ago by Juan about SEA for budget support. Folks involved with EU programming may like to know that the World Bank undertakes occasional SEAs of what it terms "development policy loans (DPLs)". 40% of the WB's financing is for DPLs, and this is straight budget support for different sectors, based on agreements made with governments about very specific policy reforms. For example, the WB has provided significant budget support to Mozambique and Vietnam in recent years, where the loads are linked to policy reforms in the "green growth and climate change sectors". The DPLs are usually multi-year tranches, where release of funds is contingent on agreed reforms (such as the introduction of feed-in tariffs). The SEAs identify environmental and social concerns associated with the reforms, and these concerns influence the design of future tranches. The Bank has been developing a specific methodology for undertaking these SEAs.

Of all interesting and useful comments I would like to reinforce the need of using primary data when planning a SEA.
In Timor Leste, Development Partners and NGOs have for years established that the rate of deforestation is 1.7% yearly. This data is not supported with evidences. This high value of deforestation is purposely used because it draws attention (and a bit of drama) into the discussion of the environment in TL.

On the contrary I believe SEA has higher chances to capture momentum in Timor Leste if we use primary data. In fact EU has decided to launch a survey on the use of firewood that will feed evidences on a SEA on respiratory diseases. 

To answer to Juan question about the need of scoping studies, I would say that we can avoid lengthy preparation if we are sufficiently pragmatic and able to take advantage of windows of opportunities. 

Hello, my name is Eloisa Astudillo and I work in the Haiti Delegation on Urban development. We're planning to do a SEA on our current program, Urbayiti, which focuses on governance (supporting the government on drafting a national urban policy, relevant legal framework and capacities) and resilience (applying recent experiences and urban planning to improve access to basic services, mitigation infrastructure, and economic development). One of the challenges in the scoping will be to focus the SEA where it can have the most impact, as our project is multi sector and we work with both national and local governments, and the awareness of environemental and CC challenges in these sectors is uneven. Does anybody have experience with a more local approach to SEAs? 

 

I’d like to make a short comment about Paolo statement about “..the need of using primary data when planning a SEA”. I would not fully agreed with this, because it put the focus of SEA on the ability to reach some kind accurate statement about the environmental consequences of a plan or program. If SEA is about to improve strategic decision making, information is just one input of this complex process. In the case of Timor Leste he mentioned, I would say that the role of SEA in relation to information weaknesses is to problematize the information situation and to deliver option to move it forward.

Hello Joan (and all),

Thank you for your detailed response. Indeed, our initial focus is on the policy making processes around the national urban policy, and making sure that the relevant regulating outcomes include SEA principles (for instance, as you mention, that the regulation defining urban planning methodologies includes SEA principles to integrate CC and environmental factors). However, I'd like to broaden the scope of the SEA because there are other stakeholders, including local authorities and the ministry of interior that could benefit from the SEA in other areas than the urban planning. We are aware of the GCCA project, and we're working with our colleagues to take stock of previous experiences with SEA (energy sector and agriculture).

 

You mention integrating the SEA within the planning itself (the EU program will fund planning for 5 towns / cities). What do you mean exactly by that? 4 of these planning studies are currently being prepared by local authorities and UN Habitat, starting next week with bimonthly workshops involving local authorities and civil society. They will use the extensive work in risk cartography that has been done pre and post Matthew hurricane. Since inclusion in the bigger SEA or its own will not be possible timewise, I'd be grateful if you have some quick ideas or questions that could be used to ensure consistency with SEA principles. For the 5th, we will have more time to prepare and these principles would also be very useful.

In regards to your experience in Honduras, we too have planned extensive capacity building within the program, and some of it can be focused on SEA principles. We do plan to build capacities progressively, taking the time to apply them within the project, evaluate them, then build on them. This is part of the approach of the program (and why it lasts 5 years!).

I read with interest the info about the Integrated SEA approach being piloted by UN Environment and the NCEA for post-crisis situations. Is the document available anywhere?

Thanks in any case for the interesting discussion.

Dear all,

 

Very useful discussion!

Thanks to Juan and the team of the Mainstreaming Facility to trigger it!

And thanks to all participants for very interesting inputs.

I also strongly believe in the need to enhance the use of SEAs and other environmental assessment tools to strengthen the environmental dimension of EU cooperation;  and more importantly, to support partner countries to make the right -sustainable!- development choices and investment decisions.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the EUropean Consensus and the Paris Agreement mark a change of paradigm: the fusion of the developmental and environmental agendas!  They require a fundamental change in the way we conceive and implement development policies.... In short, in the way we do business.  Yet, all too often, it is still business as usual.  Our approaches have not evolved much and our agenda tends to be hijacked by emergencies and short term needs. 

Environmental Sustainability must be at the heart of decisions.  There is an urgent need to transform our development modes.

Six months ago, 15 000 scientists issued a  bleak 'second notice' to humanity, after an in depth assessment of the world's latest responses to various environmental threats: they warned that “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”

Our EU Development cooperation -and the new External Investment Plan- have an essential role to play in supporting developing countries to shift  away from this failing trajectory and adopt sustainable low carbon development pathways.   

Strategic Environmental Assessments can make a significant contribution to inform choices and put environmental sustainability at the heart of decision making. 

 

 

SEAs can help the EU and partner countries in many ways:

- to improve implementation of on-going programmes;

- to inform policy dialogue and policy reforms;

- to steer investments in the right direction;

- to support future (EU and partner country) programming.

When the EU cooperation invests for several years in a particular sector or sub-sector for several years, SEAS should be systematically supported to improve policies and programmes in this particular (sub-) sector.

This exercise should ideally be a joint undertaking, led by the partner country, with the participation of key development partners/donors in the sector.  The sector dialogue platform could be used as the forum for discussing and steering  the process. Ownership is key - and these rather heavy processes should not be ad-hoc, for the needs of a single donor.

 

What is the right moment to undertake it? Of course, ideally, in preparation  of a policy reform and/or a new planning cycle.  But I would not be over-prescriptive on the timing - it is never the right time and quality processes take time!   Even when carried out in the middle of the implementation cycle, SEAs will contribute to a better understanding by various stakeholders of environmental issues and the implications of policy/investment choices; they will inform policy dialogue and planning; and they will prepare the ground -and the minds!- for future policy reforms and planning cycles.  

The question on SEAs in relation with investments promoted under the EIP or blending facilities is an important one.  Thanks for raising it, Josick!

 

As for other investment/blending operations, the environmental safeguards and systems of the financial institution are triggered. These include environmental screening,  ESIA and in most cases also climate risk analysis (ensuring climate proofing)·        

In the case of blending operations, DEVCO (C2-C6) also comment on project proposals from an environmental and climate change perpective.

The use of SEA to address the strategic dimension of sector planning or cumulative impacts is a priori not foreseen.  But definitely worth considering: it is an interesting point of debate certainly now that EIP is starting, but also more generally for blending operations.

If investments are foreseen for environmentally sensitive sectors, then it would be interesting to see donors promoting SEAs amongst national partners, so as to promote sustainable choices and build appropriate safeguards (e.g. technologies or modes of transport to be favoured, areas to be avoided, synergies to be promoted e.g. promoting multifunctionality of infrastructure in line with sustainable infrastructure principles, etc.).

These important questions related to environmental (and social) safeguards and ex ante environmental assessments will deserve particular attention and follow-up.  The highest international standards should be promoted. 

 

 

We would be interested to hear points of view from others.

 

I find very interesting the last comments about of the need of more strategic environmental or sustainability assessment of large infrastructure project. I’m personally very in favor of that. However it is relevant is to be clear about the added value of such an assessment given the existence of EIA and probably the existence of previous SEA of the plan or program that promoted this infrastructure. In my view there are two perspective from which SEA of single mega project area useful, even needed.

On the one hand side, the project must be judge about its coherence with the higher decision level, plan or program, in the case those decision were sustainability assessed. On the other hand side, the project should be judge about its strategic sustainability effect, which differs from its lineal environmental effect covered by the EIA. Both perspectives are not covered at all in a standard EIA procedure. The purpose of a strategic assessment of a mega project it is not to redefine single project aspect (purpose of an EIA analysis), but its strategic design and its strategic insertion in its surrounding (economics, social, natural, territorial system).

The strategic environmental effect is the structural effects that the project might have on the whole local or regional system. Most problems related with mega project are of with systemic and/or synergic nature. This kind of analysis requires a rather different methodological approach than the standard impact/risk assessment, I use to call it structural risk assessment. God examples of its application is for instance the sustainability regional impact assessment of a interregional road in the Putumayo region in Colombia, or the strategic environmental assessment of a big energy investment in Guatemala, or of a forest plantation in Uruguay, or of a Bus Rapid Transport initiative in the Antofagasta city in Chile, or of a carbon mining project in the Cordoba Region in Colombia.