Comparative practice - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 311

Box 10.2 summarizes some of the factors that affect the application of EIA in
developing countries.
Box 10.2 Factors affecting the implementation of EJA in developing
countries
• Many apply to countries in or near tropical areas, where environmental models, data
requirements and standards from temperate regions may not apply.
• Sociocultural conditions, traditions, hierarchies and social networks may be very
different.
• The technologies used may be of a different scale, vintage and standard of maintenance,
bringing greater risks of accidents and higher waste coefficients.
• Perceptions of the significance of various impacts may differ significantly.
• The institutional structures within which EIA is carried out may be weak and disjointed,
and there may be problems of understaffing, insufficient training and know-how, low
status and a poor coordination between agencies.
• EIA may take place late in the planning process and may thus have limited influence on
project planning, or it may be used to justify a project.
• Development and aid agencies may finance many projects, and their EIA requirements
may exert considerable influence.
• EIA reports may be confidential, and few people may be aware of their existence.
• Public participation may be weak, perhaps as a result of the government's (past)
authoritarian character, and the public's role in EIA may be poorly defined.
• Decision-making may be even less open and transparent, and the involvement of
funding agencies may make it quite complex.
• EIAs may be poorly integrated with the development plan.
• Implementation and regulatory compliance may be poor, and environmental monitoring
limited or non-existent.
The EIA systems of Western European countries have already been amended at least
once: Directive 85/337 was amended 12 years later by Directive 97/11, and some
countries already had EIA systems in place before the original Directive of 1985. As
outlined in Chapter 2, a recent review of the status of EIA in EU Member States (CEC
2003) showed that, by late 2002:
• Directive 97/11 had been legally transposed by 11 of the 15 Member States;
• the Directive had led to an increase of roughly one-quarter in the number of EIAs
carried out;
• Member States varied widely in how they determined what Annex II projects require
EIA: most use a “traffic lights” threshold system (green=no EIA needed, red=EIA
needed, amber=EIA may be needed), but the level of the thresholds varies between
countries;
• as such, the number of EIAs carried out varies considerably between Member States,
from less than 20 per year in Austria to about 7,000 per year in France;
• seven of the fifteen Member States have a mandatory scoping stage;