The policy tool, Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA), was first introduced in the USA in 1969 with the
deployment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (Wood, 2003; Lee
& George, 2013). Since the original employment of environmental assessments
in the USA and much of the Western world, the policy tool for negating environmental
effects from large projects has found its way into developing regions too
(Appiah-Opoku, 2001). Although EIA is being adopted more widely across a
variety of nations at different levels of development, a key issue still
remains. The proposal and development of EIA began in a Western context and was
mainly adopted by Western nations. The result of this evolution is that EIA, in
many cases, has been directly carried over to countries struggling with
development, where Western concepts and policy tools are not necessarily the
most effective when it comes to protecting the somewhat different environment.
The model of EIA was developed and initially
employed in the West. Since this initial deployment, the knowledge and process
of EIA has been increasingly transferred over to more African countries.
However, the key issue of the direct transference of EIA to developing nations
has been noted and researched by several academics in this area (Appiah-Opoku,
2001; Wood, 2003; Marara et al., 2011). Through developing EIA in the
West, the socio-cultural context in which it was created is very specific.
Namely, the expected outcome of an EIA and what kind of information it should
contain is directly related to a Western setting. For example, the report is
required to be available to the public, however, as Marara et al. (2011)
have found following research in East Africa, it is often the case that there
are not the administrative resources available to translate reports into native
languages, as EIA reports are very often written in English. This example
serves to demonstrate the fact that context is extremely important when
developing some sort of environmental assessment regulation and policy.
Tied in with the
issue of context, is another serious difficulty prominent when implementing EIA
in developing countries – the problem of a lack of legislation and judicial
powers in place that can support the running of EIA’s. Many developing
countries in Africa are either recently employing democratic governmental
systems or are still struggling with dictatorships resulting in ‘a limited
degree of openness, access to information and public participation in their
environmental regulatory systems’ (Lee, 2013, p.22-23). The result of less
robust governments often leads to an absence of resources and expertise being
put into environmental issues due to the fact that administrative departments
are often newly developed and lack experience and support from the main
governmental body (Ebisemiju, 1993). A case study looking into the deployment
of EIA’s in Ghana concluded that the political system and policy-making body
are one of the most important influences on successful EIA’s, furthermore the
level of democracy can have a huge effect on how well run and supported
environmental departments are when trying to encourage and implement EIA in
policy frameworks (Kolhoff et al., 2013). Surrounding the issue of
limited political resources, often the absence of a well-educated and informed
public to encourage and lobby for the government to act in the name of the
environment can create a compounding effect, which further weakens the chance
of successful implementation of EIA (Marara et al., 2011).
The issue of
implementing EIA legislation becomes fractious among developing nations,
especially when many of their exports and trade are based on agricultural
activities. The reliance on agriculture, especially at a sustenance level is
often detrimental to the environment. It has been noted in several papers that
in some cases, there exists a belief in developing countries that the
implementation of EIA would conflict with the economic interests of a country,
perhaps blocking trade and agricultural activity to the detriment of a nation
(Horberry, 1985; Lim, 1985; Wood, 2003). Research undertaken by Lim (1985,
p.136) corroborates the above suggestion, pointing out that ‘environmental
consequences of public and private actions are not likely to be an important
concern for policy makers. In extreme cases, policy makers might oppose
attempts at environmental protection out of the fear that such attempts might
slow economic growth.’ Following the above discussion, it is apparent that in
some cases, protecting the environment is viewed as a blockage for development,
rather than something that is inherently part of development.
Through the growth of awareness that
protecting the environment is a key part of the development process, there is a
positive outlook for the future of EIA in developing contexts. Abaza (2013),
has noted that among developing countries there is increasing recognition that
environmental issues are associated with and should be integrated with
development goals. Through recognising the important issue that EIA is
context-based, the positive trajectory that EIA is following in developing
countries should continue far into the future. Amendments to current practice
are being made and the concept of the environment is becoming more and more
synonymous with the concept of development to the benefit of EIA implementation
in developing nations.
References:
Abaza, H. (2013). Strengthening Future Environmental Assessment
Practice: An International Perspective. In: N. Lee and C. George, ed., Environmental
Assessment in Developing and Transitional Countries, 1st ed. Hoboken:
Wiley.
Appiah-Opoku, S. (2001). Environmental impact assessment in developing
countries: the case of Ghana. Environmental Impact Assessment Review,
21(1), pp.59-71.
Ebisemiju, F.S. Environmental impact assessment: making it work in
developing countries. J Environ Manage 1993:247–73.
Horberry, J. (1985). International organization and EIA in developing
countries. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 5(3), pp.207-222.
Kolhoff, A., Driessen, P. and Runhaar, H. (2013). An analysis framework
for characterizing and explaining development of EIA legislation in developing
countries—Illustrated for Georgia, Ghana and Yemen. Environmental Impact
Assessment Review, 38, pp.1-15.
