Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
enforcement compared to the other DCs. The need is for each country to
prepare a consolidated law with clear delineation of responsibilities, which
is enforceable, and to enforce it.
Central versus municipal government roles:
In practically all of the DCs
to some extent, the central government agencies have practically all the
authority, expertise, and control of funds (limited as they are); while the
municipal governments are assigned the bulk of the responsibilities but have
very little authority, expertise, and funds.
•
Status of national policies, strategies and planning:
In all six DCs there is
negligible or little attention to formulating or implementing a coordinated
policy/strategy/planning so that the limited funds available for municipal
infrastructure can be wisely used. The pattern continues to be a piecemeal
process, with each implementing agency operating as its own “fiefdom.”
There is little if any attention in most of the DCs to formulating appropri-
ate standards of minimum acceptable infrastructure/services to serve as the
basis for optimal cost effectiveness for future investment, and many projects
continue to incorporate Western practices, which are often inappropriate for
DC use. South Korea is now planning to implement a massive national
sewerage program.
•
Better use of informal and private sectors:
The findings here are that (1) the
informal sector can create jobs at greatly reduce investment capital per job
created, hence attention should be give to planned and systematic use of
this potential, and (2) the private sector potentials need to be utilized in a
systematic way to assist not only in financing but in furnishing skills that
the government sector can hardly do because of salary constraints, such as
for operating and maintaining water supply and sewerage systems.
•
Dearth of planning:
There is a great dearth of meaningful national/
subnational planning on needs for E-c-E infrastructure services in all the
DCs, which is essential for guiding continuing investment and to get away
from the syndrome of uncoordinated piecemeal investments (often with
inappropriate components). A carefully thought-through strategy/plan is
needed so that the limited funds can get optima1 returns, with decent
attention to the urban poor, including use of appropriate design technologies
to reduce ineffectiveness and to reduce needs for sophisticated O&M skills.
This is an overriding highest priority need in all the DCs.
•
IAA involvement:
All of the poor DCs stress the need for increased assis-
tance from the IAAs, both for funding and for expert guidance on planning
and on appropriate use of the EIA process.
•
Urban Growth Management/Action Strategy
National Strategy
The critical need in all six DCs is to prepare a national
industrial expansion plan, based on E-c-E principles, to furnish the needed
employment in the urban sector, including selective use of the subnational
E-c-E
planning
process
that
can
produce
detailed
guidelines
on
how
to
