Chapter 7 SEA AND STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Document begins: Chapter 7 SEA AND STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 7.1 The dichotomy in SEA Internationally, most SEA experience tends to have been at the level of programmes and plans, where EIA procedures and approaches can be applied fairly readily. SEA here can be seen as an extension of EIA to facilitate strategic decisions. However, there have been fewer applications at the `higher' level of policies - particularly national-level policies. This is perhaps not surprising because policy is the prerogative of politicians and senior bureaucrats who continue to resist the intrusions of SEA at this level. For policies, where the main body of EA practitioners has little experience, a quite different approach likely will be necessary. At this level, the critical constraints for SEA are not likely to be technical or methodological. In practice, the issues facing environmental assessment (in its widest sense - i.e. incorporating social and economic dimensions) at the policy level are: · securing the political and institutional will so that SEA has a `seat at the policy table', i.e., where decision-makers and policy-makers accept its legitimacy and acknowledge that SEA has a key and constructive role to play; and · finding the key leverage points in ...