NISD Partnership Project - Promotion of Sustainable Development in the Context of Regional Economic Integration – Strategies for Environmental Sustainability and Poverty Reduction

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the world's fastest growing trading regions. Free Trade Agreements are expected to peak by 2020 with the full establishment of the East–Asia trade community and exert profound effects on the environment, society and economy of the region. To promote sustainable development in the context of regional economic integration, this project aims to provide policy makers with (1) a regional economic integration framework, (2) environmental policy options and (3) poverty reduction plans. The research will focus on regional economic integration in the ‘ASEAN Plus Three' framework. This framework was chosen in order to reflect the social, economical and environmental diversity of East Asia.

The partnership project has been initiated and will be carried out by five members of NISD: the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in Japan; the McGill University in Canada; the Korean Environment Institute (KEI), and UNEP's Economics and Trade Branch based in Geneva. Other institution in the region will provide input and be involved in national level activities, including, the Policy Research Centre for Environment and Economy of State Environment Protection Administration of China, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, the Thailand Environment Institute and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of University of Hanoi in Vietnam. China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam were selected for the purposes of conducting case studies.

An inception workshop was held in October 2005 in Hayama, Japan that discussed activities to be undertaken, the role of each institution and the schedule of the activities.

The basic approach to address the project's objective is a policy analysis using various qualitative and quantitative policy analysis techniques. As part of this analysis the project aims to develop strategic environmental policy options in support of sustainable development in two stages:

In Stage 1, the team will first carry out a policy review and trend analysis and identify a set of potential priority sectors/issues. This will be followed by a scenario building taking into account one exogenous driver, namely the state of economic integration in East Asia. Third, an assessment of the impact of economic integration on the environment using trade flow simulation will be conducted under the different scenarios in order to set priorities for intervention.

Then, policy packages will be built , taken into account institutional capacities of the target countries . The last step of Stage 1, involves the assessment of policy package s at the regional and country level to identify the environmental, social and economic implications of the scenario-specific policy packages.

Based on the policy analysis and policy implications derived during stage 1, Stage 2 will seek to develop target- oriented environmental policy options in support of sustainable development. The team will set targets for each country. The selected policy packages will combine different instruments in order to effectively design a n environmental policy package. Then, the environmental, social and economic implications of each policy package will be quantitatively and qualitatively assessed at regional and national level using the policy impact assessment procedure established in Stage 1. The expected outcome of Stage 2 will be strategic environmental policy options.

A series of thematic workshop and national and regional policy dialogues are also part of the work plan and will be held at important milestones of the project in the participating countries.

For further information regarding the Partnership Project, please contact Hideyuki Mori from IGES at h-mori@iges.or.jp.

Related website: IGES' RISPO II