Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), when properly designed and applied, is a powerful tool that can contribute to more environmentally and socially sensitive decision-making throughout the development planning process. It is a process that encourages improved coordination among the private sector, government ministries and other relevant stakeholders. EIA legislation is established in most countries of the world, and agencies as well as companies have introduced and adopted EIA guidelines and procedures.

UNEP ETB has been working to build EIA capacities of regional and national institutions in developing countries and countries with economies in transition by providing training and reference material and supporting regional training activities.

UNEP ETB has developed, in cooperation with a number of organizations and individual experts, an Environmental Impact Assessment Training Resource Manual. The manual is designed as a tool for trainers who have some background experience in EIA and aims to assist them in preparing and delivering EIA training courses. It is supplemented by a compendium of Studies of EIA Practice in Developing Countries. A wide range of workshops and training seminars has been conducted using the training resource manual. UNEP ETB is actively promoting the dissemination and country-specific adaptation of the EIA Training Resource Manual. The manual is available in English, French and Arabic and has been used by the United Nations University Online Learning as basis for a set of Open Educational Resources.

More recently, UNEP ETB has also expanded its capacity building activities to include Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Integrated Assessment of Policies, Plans and Programmes in order to more fully promote sustainable development. The publication EIA/SEA: Towards an Integrated Approach summarizes the latest developments.

UNEP ETB's principal partners in EIA capacity building activities include UNEP's Regional Offices, the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) as well as a number of other international, regional and national institutions.