This Handbook has been developed in parallel with UNEP’s Round III series of country studies on rice production. It builds on UNEP’s past work on Integrated Assessment (IA) presented in its Reference Manual for the Integrated Assessment of Trade-Related Policies and incorporates lessons learned from UNEP’s Round I and Round II country studies, a number of which focus on agricultural commodities.

This Manual is designed to help policy makers and practitioners - in the developed world and in developing countries - to conduct integrated assessments of the economic, environmental and social impacts of trade policy and trade liberalization. An integrated assessment considers the economic, environmental and social effects of trade measures, the linkages between these effects and aims to build upon this analysis by identifying ways in which the negative consequences can be avoided or mitigated and the positive effects can be enhanced. French  Spanish

This report is a review of studies in six countries commissioned under UNEP's "Capacity Building for Integrating Environmental Considerations into Development Planning and Decision-making" programme. Over a 2 year period, UNEP has worked closely with national institutions in Bangladesh, Chile, India, the Philippines, Romania and Uganda, to identify both the environmental impacts of trade liberalisation and the economic instruments which can be used to sustainably manage these impacts.

This report presents a synthesis of the main findings and conclusions from six projects supported by UNEP to assess the environmental effects of trade liberalization and other trade-related policies in developing countries. The country projects which have been conducted by national research institutions were undertaken within an overall policy context in which there is increasing recognition of the need for the assessment of trade policies, in order to contribute to the design of policies which support sustainable development.

Published: November 2002
ISBN: 1 84064 913 5
Edited by Hussein Abaza, Chief, Economics and Trade Branch, Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, UNEP; and Andrea Baranzini, Senior Lecturer, University of Geneva and Lecturer, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne and Co-Principal Investigator, Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research 'Climate', Switzerland.