Integrated Environmental Policies in Europe & CIS

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

Main challenges in the region

The process of SEA application is driven in our region by the European Commission SEA Directive (in force from July 2004) and by the UNECE SEA Protocol (signed by all the EU countries, South-Eastern European countries, and Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). Despite the countries’ growing effort in introducing and applying SEA they still face the following challenges in pursuing an effective environmental mainstreaming agenda at the national and sub-national levels:

• Not sufficient political support for SEA application due to the low awareness of the benefits of SEA and its potential to improve the planning and decision-making process,;

• Limited capacity of the responsible national environmental authorities to work on the UNECE SEA Protocol and EC SEA Directive transposition and preparation of the methodological guidance;
• Limited experience with SEA application that would provide examples of effective procedures and analytical approaches, which would meet the requirements of the SEA Protocol and the SEA Directive;
• Limited openness of planning system, which poses obstacles to carry out transparent assessment and consult relevant authorities and the public during the elaboration of plans and programs.

UNDP priority areas and activities

Referring to the challenges described above, UNDP programming in the field of SEA shall focus on:

1.         Supporting SEA application in development and implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-based national and sub-national development strategies, policies, plans and programmes;

2.         Supporting SEA application for integrating environmental and energy aspects into the UN and UNDP programming;

3.         Capacity development for SEA implementation, both in countries of the region and within UNDP staff