19-23 December 2005, Tunis, Tunisia

Within the framework of the Mediterranean Environment Protection Technical Assistant (METAP), the training workshop was organized by the Tunis International Centre for Environmental Technologies (CITET) with the support and cooperation of UNEP – ETB and the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA).

This was the second series of workshops organized by CITET and targeted francophone African countries from Chad, Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The entire workshop was based on the French version of UNEP's EIA Training Resource Manual.

The 26 participants invited included government officials and practitioners who are familiar with EIA. The training reconfirmed the need to improve EIA system in the region in order to integrate environmental aspects into decision-making. Countries face similar problems, including donor-driven EIA systems, strong influence of other sector ministries to ensure investments and increase employment, insufficient public involvement, lack of personnel resources and weak monitoring system.

The participants in this workshop will be able to train different stakeholders groups in their respective country such as government official, consultants or civil society representatives on the benefits and procedure of EIA.

The workshop included presentations on the state of EIA in the Africa region, lessons learned from experiences in upgrading countries' EIA systems and their harmonization with international best practices and procedures of international funding organizations.

The workshop also provided an opportunity for a working group to further study the possibilities of establishing an African EIA network to exchange and share information among EIA trainers.

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Contact person: vera.weick@unep.ch