LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION PROGRAMMES (LEAPs)

1. LOCAL ENVIRONMENTALACTION PROGRAMMES (LEAPs) Succesfull SEA for local planning

2. Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment Presentation prepared by Arend Kolhoff and Petrie van Gent www.eia.nl/ncea IAIA Seoul June 7, 2007

3. Contents of the presentation • What are LEAPs? • LEAP approach • Does this process ring a bell? • What are the linkages between the two instruments? • Lessons learned

4. 1. What are LEAPs? Local Environmental Action Plans or Local Environmental Action Programmes • Proceeded from the Rio-1992: Local Agenda 21; • Sustainable Communities Initiative with funding from the Netherlands government; • REC applies the instrument in Eastern Europe

5. What are LEAPs? • Aims to improve local environmental situation and promote public environmental awareness; • Participatory process for the local community; • Provides a forum for bringing together stakeholders; • Multi-stakeholder group works with local government (12-24 months) to agree on actions for addressing environmental problems;

6. LEAP experiences • Start of LEAP in Bulgaria in 1993; • Succesfully applied in about 20 countries in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia; • Few examples other regions: Latin America, Asia; • Legal basis in at least one country: Macedonia (Moldova?)

7. 2. LEAP approach – five phases Phase 1: Start • define project goals • identify stakeholders • initiate preliminary public awarenss activties • conduct kick-off city conference • form multi-stakeholder group and working committee Phase 2: Scoping • assess environmental baseline situation • select & prioritise environmental issues

8. LEAP approach – five phases Phase 3: Develop environmental action plan • create commun(ity) vision • set environmental goals, targets and select indicators • identify potential actions / alternatives • identify evaluation criteria • analyse, compare and select actions / alternatives • prepare draft plan for public comments • adopt and institutionalise plan

9. LEAP approach – five phases Phase 4: Implementation of action plan • identify potential implementing institutions • assess opportunities to work with private sector • assess opportunities to work with NGOs • prepare budget and secure funding • ensure integration of plan into statutory planning processes

10. LEAP approach – five phases Phase 5: Monitoring and evalaution • review environmental targets and indicators • establish reporting system • evaluate and communicate findings to public, report response towards implementing agencies.

11. 3. Does this process ring a bell?

12. Does this process ring a bell? • LEAP has all characteristics of an integrated • Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). LEAP for Kutaisi, Georgia was evaluated: to what extent have the good practice principles of SEA been applied?

13. SEA principles applied? Commitment on the need of an SEA Participation of all stakeholders Transparency of the decision making process LEAP for Kutaisi in practice Yes - Strong and wide commitment for LEAP. SEA was not yet applied in Georgia and could therefore not be applied. Yes - All stakeholders were involved in the establishment of a stakeholders committee Yes - The decision making process was completely transparent because the stakeholders committee was responsible for the decisions.

14. SEA principles applied? Common vision developed on environmental problems, objectives and alternatives by all stakeholders Consistency of new objectives are checked with existing policies and objectives, whether they are conflicting or in line with Assessment of the environmental impacts of the alternatives LEAP for Kutaisi in practice Yes - Stakeholders committee has developed a common vision on environmental problems, objectives and measures. Alternative measures have been considered. Partly - An open consistency check was not made. Implicitly, consistency was secured by membership of representa-tives of different government departments in the stakeholders committee Yes - Alternative measures have been assessed and compared for the following criteria: costs, time required, number of people benefiting, decrease of pollution and effects on health

15. SEA principles applied? Environmental assessment findings are discussed with stakeholders and what it means for decision making Quality assurance of assessment product and process The political decision made is justified Monitoring of the adopted plan LEAP for Kutaisi in practice Yes - EA findings are discussed in the stakeholders committee. The findings were not discussed with the civil society or groups of stakeholders Yes - Quality of the process was secured by involvement of stakeholder committee and prescribed procedure. Quality of the two LEAP-reports was secured by invol-vement of a team of local experts. An external (independent) quality check / review of the reports was not executed Yes - The local authority approved the LEAP and made a public statement about the importance for the future Yes - Monitoring has been planned but did not start yet

16. Succes factors • Supportive political leader; • All stakeholders are represented in decision making group; • Community agrees to tackle environmental problems.

17. Link between PP and SEA? • parallel approach PP=SEA integrated approach • PP SEA PP SEA SEA report final plan final plan final plan

18. Lessons learned 1: for future LEAPs • Developing alternative measures more explicit in order to solve the identified problems. Allowing an open discussion and selection of the most desirable and cost effective measures; • Private sector should be represented in the stakeholder committee; • The results of the LEAP-process should be discussed with the civil society or groups of stakeholders before the plan will be finalised; • External quality check of the LEAP-report might be considered; • A few enthusiastic and supportive politicians can start a process resulting in plan, supported by the citizens; • Environmental awareness of all stakeholders resulting in commitment for environment inclusive planning is a condition for successful implementation of SEA.

19. Lessons learned 2: for local planning Widening the scope of LEAP to local / development planning 1. Horizontally - environmental, social and economic aspects - sustainable development planning • Vertically - local authorities to district / provincial authorities SEA can support this development!

20. environmental aspects social aspects economic aspects here and now X X X elsewhere X X X later X X X Widening horizontally and vertically

21. Lessons learned 3: • LEAP is “good practice“ example of SEA inclusive planning. • SEA works !  it is NOT an obstacle to development  helps making plans that contribute towards sustainable development

22. Some literature • NCEA keysheet: Local planning and SEA • REC SEA newsletter #2, 2005 • REC LEAP newsletter #1, 2006 on LEAP conference in Tblisi, Georgia • IAIA Prague 2005: SEA movement in Japan; local governments lead it (Harashina and Mochiki) • IIED Environment for MDGs briefing 2007: Biodiversity for MDGs: what local organisations can do? • REC LEAP manual: case studies of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic