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How Environmental Issues Fit into Planning
Development policies/strategies
may exhibit:
- awareness/commitment
on environmental protection;
- awareness/commitment
on sustainable use of natural resources; and/or
- awareness/commitment
on sustainable development and integrated policy making.
Visions
and commitments contained in the development plans need to be
- incorporated
into the actual planning process and
- translated
into meaningful and actionable policies and programmes.
These policies and programmes can be contained in implementation plans
such as annual work and budget plans.
Potential
issues may be:
- Discrepancies between
overall policy (e.g., development strategy at national level) and planning
(e.g., planning and implementation at local/project and sectoral level)
- Discrepancies between
planning and implementation due to constraints such as financial and
human resources
- Conflicts of interest
among agents at planning/implementation stage
- Lack of effectiveness
of plans in terms of enforceable actions
- Lack of political
commitment for implementation
See examples from
PICs, Philippines,
Malaysia
and Korea.
- Ultimately
sustainable development calls for integral themes
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The concept
is that environment is an integral theme of all ministries, and
not a separate sector in itself
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You may recall that in our Section on Sustainable Development,
we mentioned that sustainable development is about a dynamic balance between:
- Ecology and economics;
- Production and consumption; and
- Development and conservation.
There are efforts
being made in the region to support this balance.
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- Several countries have attempted to integrate environmental concerns into
wider range of sector policies. In particular, environmental concerns
need to be recognized in economic/development policies (example:
Korea,
Malaysia,
and Nepal);
- Countries' efforts to cope can be seen in such measures as the creation of
environmental cells in various ministries, creation of environmental
committees etc. (More...)
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Sectoral approaches are another way the issues are being tackled.
In Sri Lanka, sectoral
policy concern over environmental issues are seen in some of sectoral
policies such as the tea sector in Sri Lanka, which is supervised by Ministry of Plantation
Industries (MPI). Policies and objectives of the ministry under its Five
Year Action Plan address environment related issues as well as sustainable
production.
At the sector level in Sri Lanka, environmental cells have been
created in ministries and agencies designated by the Central Environmental
Authority as Project Approving Agencies to be responsible for Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) in their relevant sector. Areas in which respective ministries with
environmental cells include; national planning, irrigation, energy, agriculture,
lands, forests, industries, housing, construction, fisheries, and plantation
industries. (More…
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Click the Next button to read about "What provides motivation for action"
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