Chapter 6 SEA EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Document begins: Chapter 6 SEA EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Increasingly, developing countries are experimenting with SEA and some have SEA-type approaches and elements in place already. There is also considerable experience with using a variety of strategic planning processes that display many of the characteristics of SEA (para SEA). We focus first on SEA in southern Africa where a dedicated regional workshop on SEA was organised to feed into this review (SAIEA 2003a), followed by sections covering francophone Africa, the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere. But our survey of this field represents no more than a preliminary reconnaissance. Selected examples of SEA and para SEA illustrate some of the indigenous approaches that have been adopted. These are less common than SEAs promoted and funded by development assistance agencies (which are reviewed in Chapter 4). In most cases where formal SEA has been undertaken in developing countries, the basic aim and approach has mirrored that in the north ­ namely to identify the environmental consequences (and associated social and economic effects) of existing, new or revised policies, plans and programmes. These represent only a small number of the broad family of SEA approaches. But they are a ...