A growing number of countries at all levels of development have legislation or regulations prescribing the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) - and many more are introducing it as part of their policy tools. This is creating unique opportunities for better policy making and planning by incorporating environmental considerations into high-level decision-making and opening new mechanisms to build consensus on development priorities within governments themselves and between governments and societies.
Benin takes part in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and receives aid from the World Bank. The Agence Béninoise de l’Environnement (Beninese environmental agency) carried out a participatory SEA of the second Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper while it was being drafted. As a result, environmental issues are now covered in both a sectoral and a cross-cutting manner in the second PRSP.
Three West African countries – Benin, Mali and Togo – have participated in the project ‘Energy, Eco-development and Resilience in Africa (EERA)’, which offers lessons to other countries on approaches that can be taken toward a ‘Smart Energy Path’.
A growing number of countries at all levels of development have legislation or regulations prescribing the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) - and many more are introducing it as part of their policy tools.