Review of the Application of Environmental Impact Assessment in Selected African Countries

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), through its Sustainable Development Division (SDD), has been involved in the promotion of a number of policy instruments and analytical tools aimed at demonstrating the linkages and enhancing the integration, of the different dimensions of sustainable development. These include the Population, Environment, Development and Agriculture (PEDA) model and Natural Resources Accounting (NRA). Acknowledgements This report was prepared by a task team within the Sustainable Development Division (SDD) of the Economic Commission for Africa led by Isatou Gaye, under the guidance of Ousmane Laye, team leader of the Sustainable Development Monitoring cluster, and the overall supervision of Josu? Dion?, the Director of SDD. The members of the team are Antonio Pedro, Negussie Gorfe, Pancrace Niyimbona, Kwadwo Tutu and Yinka Adeyemi. Meskerem Melaku provided secretarial support. The contributions of many individuals and institutions to this report are acknowledged. We thank Ebenezer Sampong, Jean Claude Tekeu, Justin Ecaat and Marie-Jose Elloumi who, respectively, prepared the Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda and Tunisia country reports. The heads of the EIA administrative institutions and other national experts in these countries provided invaluable assistance. We also thank the interim Director of the Capacity Development Linkages for Environmental Assessment in Africa (CLEAA), Abdulrahman Issa and his colleagues, for their useful comments and contributions. In particular, we thank the Southern Africa Institute for Environmental Assessment (SAIEA) for its guidance and work on EA in Southern Africa which provided us greater insights into the EA systems of South Africa and other countries in the sub-region. All other nodes of CLEAA and the Tunis International Center for Environmental Technologies (CITET) are also acknowledged for their contributions to EA capacity enhancement in their respective sub-regions. We would like to thank Samuel Tekie of ECA?s Sub-Regional Office (SRO) in Yaound?, Cameroon, Jacques Moulot and Israel Sembajwe of the SDD and all other colleagues for their useful comments, and who in one way or the other, contributed to improving the quality of this report. We also thank Yinka Adeyemi who edited this report and Seifu Dagnachew who handled the layout and graphic design. The Team also acknowledges the various partners and collaborators in the field of sustainable development and, in particular, those who have over the years contributed immensely in enhancing EA capacity in Africa. These include the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), South Africa?s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), among others.