ارزیابی زیست محیطی استراتژیک کمکی برای حل شکست ارزیابی اثرات زیست محیطی در کشورهای در حال توسعه

The current trend of industrialization and urbanization in developing nations has a huge impact on anthropogenic and natural ecosystems. Pollution sources increase with the expansion of cities and cause contamination of water, air and soil. The absence of urban environmental planning and management strategies has resulted in greater concern for future urban development. This paper advocates the adoption of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as a means to achieve sustainable development in developing countries. It investigates project-level environmental impact assessment (EIA) and its limitations. The exploration of SEA and its features are addressed. The effective implementation of SEA can create a roadmap for sustainable development. In many developing countries, the lack of transparency and accountability and ineffective public participation in the development of the policy, plan and program (PPP) would be mitigated by the SEA process. Moreover, the proactive and broadly based characteristics of SEA would benefit the institutional development of the PPP process, which is rarely experienced in many developing countries. The paper also explores the prospects for SEA and its guiding principles in developing countries. Finally, the paper calls for a coordinated effort between all government, nongovernment and international organizations involved with PPPs to enable developing countries to pursue a path of sustainable development through the development and application of strategic environmental assessment.

Developing countries are accepting more responsibility for the environmental impacts that result from their development activities, and many have developed environmental impact assessment (EIA) legislation as a management tool for these impacts in the last two decades. EIA is now practiced in more than 100 countries worldwide (Donnelly et al., 1998). Today, EIA is firmly established in the planning process in many of these countries (Momtaz, 2002). In 1989, the World Bank ruled that EIA should normally be undertaken for major projects by the borrower country under the Bank's supervision. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) also made recommendations to member states regarding the establishment of EIA procedures and established goals and principles for EIA. It subsequently issued guidance on EIA in developing countries (UNEP, 1988). Despite the existence of good EIA guidelines and legislation, environmental degradation continues to be a major concern in developing countries. In many cases, EIA has not been effective due to legislation, organizational capacity, training, environmental information, participation, diffusion of experience, donor policy and political will. EIAs have not been able to provide ‘environmental sustainability assurance’ (ESA) for these countries (Sadler, 1999). This failure and the inherent limitations of EIA lead to the consideration of strategic environmental assessment (SEA). It is the proactive assessment of alternatives to proposed or existing PPPs, in the context of a broader vision, set of goals or objectives to assess the likely outcomes of various means to select the best alternative(s) to reach desired ends (Noble, 2000).

To ensure that sustainable development needs are implemented at local level and impact assessment is be considered a tool for promoting sustainable development, SEA should be established in local municipalities and applied by local authorities on a regular basis. However, the SEA system for the municipal level cannot be separated from SEA at the national, federal and/or regional levels of government. As policies are enacted at the national level, a process of implementing SEA at the municipal level should reflect the tiered and multilevel nature of PPPs. We emphasize the importance of the clear understanding of SEA and sustainability concepts among government servants, academics and practitioners in the context of their own countries. Particular attention needs to be paid to the types of action to which SEA can contribute, and how it would operate in practice, its relationship to existing policy and planning arrangements, its relationship to existing EIA and the main benefits and costs of using it. At the local level, there is a need for SEA training, simple and flexible SEA systems and further scientific research. The limited number of case studies and the absence of associated research into SEA methodologies can lead to the failure of effective application of SEA concepts to actual practice (e.g., in Taiwan; see Liou and Yu, 2004). Moreover, lessons from EIA failures point to the importance of achieving effective implementation in practical terms, as well as highlighting the problem of not having sufficient power and influence over all sectors, ministries and departments in many developing countries. Certainly, it is beneficial to link policy making, planning and SEA at the municipal level. Extensive public participation, including the public and NGOs, is necessary to prove the reliability in drawing and implementing SEA. Strategic issues, by definition, are higher level and long term, and their perceived effects on people's interests may not be evident or of immediate concern (whereas a project situated in their locality will be seen very differently). In addition, it should be realized that, in the case of plans and policies of a more abstract nature (e.g., long-term objectives or purpose), the effects on the public will only be indirect, and there will be little public interest in getting involved. There is a need to develop simplified SEA procedures that would be consistent with the availability of resources and existing program and policy frameworks within the country. Dependence on international voluntary donor agencies to meet the cost of SEA undermines the whole idea of using SEA as a tool for sustainable development. SEA practitioners need to become informed about the nature of policy-making processes. They have to identify where the opportunities lie for SEA to contribute to any particular policy-making process, who is involved and who is making the decisions implicit in the policy making, and the type and form of environmental information that is pertinent to this decision making. The proactive and broadly based characteristics of SEA can be used to assess regional and sectoral effects and integrate them into the consideration of potential cumulative and synergistic effects from a strategic perspective. The early identification of potential cumulative impacts can set the platform for the screening out of many potential environmentally detrimental projects. The subsequent result will facilitate effective implementation of EIA. As in the European Union, developing nations can consider developing an SEA directive to preserve their environment at a regional level under the authority of regional cooperation associations, such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The extension of cooperation among member countries from economic to environmental concerns will facilitate the implementation of SEA in each member country. However, it will require huge efforts from all member countries to introduce and amend legislation, prepare guidance and experiment with case studies during the preparation stage of an SEA directive. Ultimately, this SEA directive will also increase the effectiveness of those regional associations.