This component of the programme designs tools and approaches to strengthen pollution regulation and environment impact assessments across the global South. As part of this, CSE recommends environment assessment approaches that are tailored to high impact/visibility sectors, and then helps build capacities of officials/regulators in the application of these approaches.
In Tanzania, CSE has provided a crucial support in formulating new regulations to the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the nodal agency in Tanzania, for conducting environmental impact assessments, compliance and enforcement. The Government of Tanzania has notified the regulations on August 31, 2018. CSE has also worked on the EIA guidelines for the building and construction sector and mining, both of which are under review of NEMC. CSE also helped build capacities of officials from mining, energy, NEMC, consultants and other representatives on various aspects of EIA. Another big step in the collaboration of two institutes is the initiation of work on Lake Victoria. CSE-NEMC collaboratively has developed a report on environmental management strategy to improve water quality of the lake. The report discusses various issues pertaining to the degradation of the lake and identified hotspots for the implementation of various measures.
The programme is also active in Ghana. CSE’s in-depth guidance for conducting an environmental audit in the industrial sector was shared with the Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana. The outcome was a manual on ‘Inspection and Audit Manual for Environmental Regulators’ which was a joint effort of EPA and CSE. The report has been uploaded on the EPA-Ghana website for easy access by all stakeholders. The manual details about how inspections and audits are planned, implemented, reported on and followed up by the EPA are in the public domain. It will help ensure that inspections and audits are done more systematically while ensuring transparency and standardisation of operations among officials of the Agency across the country.
In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (MEFCCC) has requested CSE’s assistance in preparing the country’s 10-year roadmap, action plan and policies on air quality, waste management and water pollution. The programme helped enhance monitoring mechanisms using smart and affordable monitoring systems, and assisted the country’s regulators and river basin departments, including the Awash River Basin Authority, prepare action plans to clean polluted river stretches. EFCCC has requested CSE to expand the work that was done for the Awash Basin to other rivers of the country. More recently, the country’s regulator has requested CSE’s inputs in Ethiopia’s national water quality policy.
In Namibia, CSE’s EIA Screening Framework, which includes a scoring method for assessing the magnitude of social and environmental impacts of proposed projects, has been accepted by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Tourism (MEFT) for test runs. Similarly, EIA Guidelines for Mining projects has been submitted to the Ministry of Mines and Energy for review. CSE also developed a Screening Questionnaire on sand mining for Environmental Clearances; which is been uploaded on their website. All environmental clearances for sand mining projects in Namibia are now based on the questionnaire developed jointly by CSE. A series of trainings were
also conducted by CSE on EIA, review, inspection and EMP compliance for a wide cross-section of regulators convened by MEFT in Namibia.
In Zambia, CSE assisted Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) on capacity building on EIA and social impact assessment (SIA) on mining. A training was jointly organized with the World Bank, under the aegis of the Zambia Mining and Environmental Remediation and Improvement Project (ZMERIP). CSE also put together research advocating for ‘benefit sharing’ of revenues/royalties with communities involved with the mining sector in Africa, as a strategy to offset the ‘resource curse’ that is prevalent across the global South.
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, the programme engaged with a variety of stakeholders to identify the outlook of coal consumption in the region, including with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Indonesia; coal and nuclear minerals division in the Philippines; the electricity-generating authority in Thailand; and with JCOAL and ASEAN to push the advocacy. CSE has also conducted number of capacity building programmes on various aspects of environmental governance for officials of Bhutan, Srilanka, Nepal and Bangladesh both in India and their respective countries. The team also prepared an assessment report of Pasakha Industrial Estate in collaboration with National Environmental Commission (NEC), Bhutan.
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