“As I mostly work with ESIA at project level, I am impressed by the overview of what SEA entails. It has given me guidelines for a more integrated approach to the development of different sectors, taking into consideration the importance of environmental and socioeconomic aspects” Quote from a workshop participant in Surinam Some experiences to date A needs assessment conducted at the start of 2017 revealed that many SRJS partners thought that ESIA and/or SEA could be important tools to work with, but were uncertain whether they had the skills and capacity required to use them. Several indicated that in addition to their own experience with these tools being limited, the overall practice in their countries was not yet well developed, especially with SEA. They wanted to know how to apply ESIA and SEA more effectively to make better decisions in the landscapes they were working in. They also needed to know what role CSOs could play and how they, government and private sector could work together more effectively. When the NCEA was starting out, it gave introductory SEA workshops in several countries such as Madagascar, The Philippines and Tanzania; more recently, workshops have been given in Guyana, Surinam and Paraguay. In Indonesia, a country with a more established SEA system, workshops have helped participants learn to see how the instrument could be made more effective in practice. In Benin, Burkina Faso and Zambia, initial sessions on ESIA have revealed different needs related to strengthening capacity and to systemic features. These initial sessions were specifically intended to be introductory and exploratory: to bring the different stakeholders around the table to discuss the concepts and potential applicability of environmental assessment in the country in question. What could be next steps for them? 42 The NCEA’s Views and Experiences 2018
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