Impact Assessment and Responsible Development

IAIA11 Training Courses

IAIA’s training courses are an important element of the Association's continuing effort to promote and advance professional development and excellence in impact assessment. In 2011, IAIA again plans to organize high quality training courses in association with its annual conference. The Board of Directors and the Training and Professional Development Committee (TPDC) are therefore inviting proposals for training courses to be delivered at the 31st annual conference which will be held in Puebla, Mexico, 28 May – 4 June, 2011. It is anticipated that training courses will be delivered as part of the pre-conference program 28-29 May.

Practical Guide to Sustainability Assessment

The challenge of responsible development for infrastructure, business and industry is the challenge of sustainability! Sustainability assessment is a tool that informs decision-making in order to promote sustainable outcomes. It can be applied in different circumstances for different purposes by different types of decision-makers, including:

• Government regulators as an approvals process for proposals (particularly project proposals), analogous to EIA
• Proponents (or consultants, planners, engineers) to inform development of a proposal, which could be a policy, plan or project
• Government regulators, non-government organisations or any other interested party to assess the sustainability of current practices (e.g. a whole industry sector)

This intermediate-level course presents the theory and practice of sustainability assessment based on best practice examples from around the world. It is designed for planners, government agency personnel, proponents and consultants, and students in all fields of IA (environmental, health, socio-economic, SEA). No prior experience with sustainability assessment is assumed, but good understanding of IA processes will be beneficial.

The course content includes the following topics:

• What is sustainability assessment?
• Extending EIA to establish a sustainability assessment approvals process
• Integrating sustainability assessment into decision-making
• Integration, offsets and trade-offs in sustainability assessment Learning outcomes – Participants will develop an understanding of:
  • Sustainability assessment principles, processes and issues;
  • Sustainability assessment for the approval of new development proposals;
  • Sustainability assessment to inform planning and decision-making within an organisation
• A generic 7-step process framework for sustainability assessment of any proposals ranging from projects to plans and policy change
• How to develop a sustainability decision-making protocol appropriate to a particular context by drawing on relevant strategies and standards.

This course will feature short lectures interspersed with small group discussions and activities. A resource guide with state of the art information on sustainability assessment will be provided.

Multicriteria Analysis for Environmental Assessment of Projects And Plans

Consideration of different alternatives is one of the fundamental requirements of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedures. The analysis and comparison of different alternatives (both at the strategic and project level) implies balancing different impact types, reaching an understanding of the merits of each option, and eventually establishing a preferability ranking. This calls for a framework to integrate factual information on effects and impacts, with values and preferences of decision-makers and stakeholders. Multicriteria analysis (MCA) techniques offer such a framework, and for this reason they are increasingly used in EIA and SEA. This intermediate-level course aims at providing theoretical and practical insights on the application of MCA to EIA and SEA. More specifically, the course will address the following topics:

1. Basic concepts of decision theory (definition of objective, criterion, decision tree, etc.)
2. Structuring a decision problem
3. Introduction to the philosophy of multicriteria analysis for environmental decisionmaking
4. Methodological steps in multicriteria analysis: value functions, weight assessment, aggregation techniques, sensitivity analysis, and presentation of results
5. Decision Support Systems (DSS): definition and examples
6. Application example in the realm of EIA: using MCA to assess and compare alternative infrastructure developments
7. Application example in the realm of SEA: using MCA to assess and compare spatial plan policies

The teaching method is based on theoretical lectures, as well as group exercises and group discussions to gain insights on the usefulness of MCA, and on its potential applicability in the participants’ field of work. A software demonstration using a DSS that implements MCA will be also provided.

Expected learning outcomes:

• Understanding the advantages and limitations of MCA
• Structuring a decision problem requiring multiple criteria
• Understanding the differences between main MCA techniques
• Familiarizing with approaches for weight assessment and sensitivity analysis
• Understanding the role played by technical experts, stakeholders and decisionmakers in MCA-based decision-making processes
• Gaining first-hand experience by analyzing real-life (though simplified) case studies

The target audience of this course is practitioners, international agency personnel, public officers, and students interested in environmental decision-making and in the comparison of options in impact assessment procedures.

Increasing Tangibility In SEA Through Valuation of Ecosystem Services

The course’s main purpose is to lead participants to understand 1) how they can value ecosystem goods and services using a broad valuation concept; and 2) how they can strategically use valuation of ecosystem goods and services to increase tangibility in SEA. Often SEA has been criticized for being too general and qualitative. While that is a matter of fact in many circumstances, there are approaches that help improve the role of SEA for strategic decision making.

This course will introduce participants to the valuation of ecosystem services, as a means to improve the added value of SEA. Valuation of ecosystem services is encouraged by the Convention on Biological Diversity through its ecosystem approach (a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources). In SEA the valuation of ecosystem services in financial terms is not always possible, and often neither is it needed. The role of ecosystem services in SEA can range from simple recognition of services, to quantification of services, societal valuation, or ultimaltely to economic valuation. But even if broad strategic decisions do not need an economic approach, politicians often like, or need figures and statistics to support and reinforce their decisions. In other words economic valuation is not indispensable, it can be done in other terms, but it can be a powerful advocacy tool to assist decision makers. For all these reasons it makes sense to address this theme in an SEA perspective and context.

The course will use a case application approach, led by Maria Partidario and Roel Slootweg. It will involve short presentations, case examples, and group exercises. Participants attending this course are required to have good background on SEA to enable advanced workshop discussion. The course will not go into the details of economic valuation. Moreover, it presents a broad overview of valuation techniques and a stepwise approach to identify ecosystem services and their stakeholders, and to define the best approach to valuation of these services for any specific situation.

Learning Outcomes

• How to value ecosystem goods and services using a broad valuation concept
• How to increase SEA tangibility using integrated valuation of ecosystem goods and services
• How to strategically contribute to improve decision making

The Cultural Component of Impact Assessment: Practical Training In Methods and Techniques

Culture is an important facet of development. Cultural heritage as a component of impact assessment is recognized in the policies of international and regional financial institutions, bilateral aid agencies, and the laws of national governments. However, cultural heritage, as one of three components in EIA - together with biophysical and social - has received the least attention in terms of training, methodology, and quality control. Neglecting cultural aspects can seriously impede development projects; conversely, incorporating, respecting and enhancing cultural features can strengthen projects. Attention to quality improvement and capacity building for the cultural component of impact assessment is increasing, with availability of training, methodologies and tools. The interactive format of this course introduces participants to the various definitions and aspects of culture and cultural heritage, and provides for discussion of the value placed on cultural artifacts and practices by diverse stakeholder groups in the development process. Policies, standards and guidance materials for covering cultural heritage in EIA are presented and discussed, with emphasis on the detailed World Bank Physical Cultural Resources Safeguard Policy Guidebook, the Physical Cultural Resources Country Profiles, and a compendium of references on techniques and tools. A step-by-step discussion of the cultural heritage component in the EIA process, including creation and monitoring of the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), indicates the considerations, actions, and methods required at each step. Participants apply the principles, methods and information in the guidance materials in case study exercises.

The course, together with the guidance materials provided, prepares participants to conduct and review the cultural heritage component of EIA. A brief presentation on SEA highlights the importance and rationale for including culture and cultural institutions in this investigative and planning process, and a discussion of cumulative effects encourages participants to consider long-range impacts of development projects on tangible cultural heritage. Although the course concentrates on the cultural component of impact assessment, it touches upon several other categories listed for IAIA11 training, including the innovative use of IA for policy making SEA, IA in developing countries, IA tools, and the EMP.

Understanding Impact Assessment: Principles, Methods, and Emerging Trends

This course is aimed at individuals who have started to work with some form of impact assessment, perhaps using impact assessments to help with their decisionmaking or having to provide information or other forms of input to an impact assessment process. One key purpose of the course is to broaden participants’ understanding of the impact assessment process as a whole, and to appreciate the breadth of application, and what constitutes good practice impact assessment. In particular it aims to show that the basic principles of impact assessment are shared across all forms of the approach, and in different decision-making contexts (policies through to projects).

A second important aim is to highlight significant emerging trends in impact assessment, such as the consolidation of the Equator Principles among private sector financial institutions, the increasing recognition of post-disaster and post-conflict strategic environmental assessment, the rise of sustainability assessment, and climate change impact assessment. The first part of the course sets the scene, addressing the purposes and benefits of well grounded impact assessment. A generic model of impact assessment is then employed to explore the broad methods and approaches of IA. That model underpins the consideration, in the second part of the course, of the various forms of impact assessment: from social, cultural, and health, to ecological/biophysical; and from strategic assessment of policies to project level IA. The generic model emphasizes an integrated perspective of impact assessment, and the various forms of IA are seen as being interdependent. This platform is then used to explore some of the more important trends in impact assessment.

As the course progresses, I will link key themes to topics being addressed in the IAIA conference itself. This will help participants derive greater benefit from the conference, especially for those relatively new to the field.

Mainstreaming Biodiversity And Ecosystem Services In Impact Assessment for Responsible Development

With industrialization and development progressing at an unabated pace, the human species has emerged as the dominant force on the planet. We have wrought massive changes that are adversely affecting our natural capital and eroding the planet’s ability to support us sustainably. “Development cannot be divorced from ecological and environmental concerns. Indeed, important components of human freedoms – and crucial ingredients of our quality of life – are thoroughly dependent on the integrity of the environment.” These words of wisdom from Amartya Sen, instill the sense more strongly that biodiversity and development are closely linked: biodiversity sustains development, and development induces impact on biodiversity, that are seldom positive but mostly negative.

The need to mainstream the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources across all economic sectors, the society and the policy-making framework has therefore become central to all the three tenets of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Impact assessment professionals cannot become ‘unthinking enemies’ or just the ‘fellow travelers’ in the development voyage. They have a much greater responsibility to navigate development that reflects greater convergence of economic security, human well being and ecological sustainability objectives. This two-day course is an intermediate level course for mid career EA professionals, business groups, decision-makers, government officials, donor agencies and economists.

The course will allow the EIA professionals to use the conceptual EA framework as a mainstreaming tool for biodiversity for evolving an understanding of sustainable, responsible and smart development. For business community, the course will help to assess business risks associated with impacts on biodiversity. For decision makers, it will help review development models that combine biodiversity conservation, profitability and sustainability. For those in the government, the course will highlight the need for making reforms in environmental governance to strengthen the sense of responsibility for encouraging green and sustainable development.

Quality Assurance In EIA: Guide And Review

This course will combine lectures delivered by the trainers, general discussions and individual and group work. It will have two main parts: the first will provide the delegates with insights into how the EIA process should be guided. This will include aspects such as writing terms of reference, adjudicating proposals from consultants and how to provide oversight to the whole EIA process.

The second part will deal with review. This will include methods and frameworks that can be used to review scoping, EIA and EMP reports; key questions to be asked and how to make decisions on the information provided in the documentation.

The learning outcomes will include:

• Participants will have a better appreciation and confidence about how to guide and review large and small EIAs;
• Participants will be provided with some tools (templates, criteria, frameworks, decision-trees) to write ToRs, run a tendering process, adjudicate proposals, manage the entire EIA process and review the documentation;
• Participants will be made aware of common pitfalls and how to deal with them.

Achieving the Full Potential of SIA

This course provides an introduction to Social Impact Assessment (SIA) based on IAIA’s International Principles for Social Impact Assessment and leading practice. The course will go beyond traditional understandings which saw SIA as only occurring in project settings and driven by a legislative framework. In the understanding being advanced, SIA is as much about the processes of managing the social issues as it is about the prediction of social impacts in advance of project development. SIA should be seen to be a tool to ensure positive development outcomes are achieved (a ‘do good’ approach), rather than traditional SIA oriented to a ‘do no harm’ approach.

This course will appeal to early career SIA practitioners, people who commission SIAs, people who would like to do them, people who are involved in assessing them, and people with a general interest in the field. Specific course objectives are to:

• Increase awareness of new developments in SIA thinking and practice
• Create awareness of the benefits to proponents of seeing SIA as a process of engagement rather than being limited to a point-in-time assessment
• Strengthen understandings of the social nature of impacts on communities
• Build practical knowledge in how to conduct an SIA and prepare a social impact management plan
• Increase ability to critically evaluate an SIA
• Increase awareness of approaches to ensure SIA commitments are implemented
• Equip with tools to realize the potential of proponents to contribute to longer term sustainability outcomes
• Increase comprehension of the ethical issues in SIA practice

The course will use case studies from developing and developed contexts and also provide participants with frameworks and tools to consider issues such as sustainable livelihoods, human rights, gender, agreement-making with Indigenous Peoples, cumulative impacts, cross-sector partnerships, and social impact management plans.

Strategic Environmental Assessment: A strategic way for integrating sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries

Over the last few decades we have seen a gradual process of change in the SEA discourse, shifting from a notoriously technocratic and rationalist approach in the early 90s, to much more strategic and integrated approaches and concepts in recent years. Such approaches suggest that SEA must act directly upon the formulation and development processes of policies, plans and programmes (PPP), to increase the capacity of influencing decision priorities and facilitate environmental and sustainability integration in decision-making.

Therefore, this 2-day preconference training course on SEA is based on recognizing that SEA should be used as a catalyst in organizational-learning processes, generating positive long-term cultural effects within organizations and sectors that apply it, strengthening the capacity of environmental management and planning. The course is designed to expose participants to the key concepts and issues that significantly distinguish SEA from other environmental assessment and management tools while at the same time offers different strategic methodological approaches and techniques for conducting SEAs in a Latin American context.

The key objectives of the course are to:

• Introduce participants to key SEA concepts, aims, principles, advantages and problems of SEA
• Review current practices and international experiences in both developed and developing countries context
• Expose participants different strategic methodological approaches and techniques for conducting SEAs
• Discuss capacity-building needs (technical and institutional), to establish SEA systems and practices in a Latin American context

The course is open for a wide student, professional and academic audience, who has a general knowledge of environmental assessment, planning processes and sustainability principles. Upon successful completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Understand SEAs concepts, principles, processes and tools
• Acquire abilities to carry out SEA using simple and strategic tools
• Develop a critical thinking attitude and approach to apply SEA in a strategic way

Involuntary Resettlement: Principles And Practice for Impact Assessors

This course introduces the international standards for involuntary resettlement and provides practical guides for the design and implementation of resettlement operations in different sectors, with an emphasis on public information and participation.

The day is broken into several sessions. In Session 1 we present an overview of the evolution of involuntary resettlement policy in the donor community, as well as among client countries, in order to exemplify the critical policy principles and their application in distinct sectors (e.g., areal land acquisition for reservoirs, airports and other land extensive projects, linear acquisition for roads, railroads and pipelines, and urban land acquisition). Session 2 details the information and organization of a Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) and a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP), as required by World Bank Operational Policy (OP) 4.12, Annex A. Session 3, the final morning session, examines public information and participation in RPF/RAP development and implementation, with an emphasis on the differences in participatory approaches between resettlement operations and environmental impact assessments.

The afternoon sessions work through an actual case of RAP development and supervision. Session 4 reviews the legal process of land acquisition process in El Salvador, taking up how a program can meet both national standards and international guidelines without contravening either, and, no less importantly, how policy principles are applied on the ground. This session also provides guidelines for estimating the time required for simple land acquisition, for legal encumbrances (e.g., lack of title, inheritance issues), and for physical relocation.

Session 5 examines the often underappreciated topic of institutional arrangements for resettlement implementation. The concern here will be on institutional capacity to implement the program, staffing and training requirements, coordination with contractors (and roles), and monitoring and feed-back systems for effective administrative surveillance. The presentations will treat the implications for resettlement design and implementation of differences in contract modality (design only versus design/build).

Session 6 takes up monitoring programs for timely administrative response.

Session 7 provides time for participant sharing of experiences and concerns.

Learning outcome: a sufficiently detailed overview of what is expected in resettlement planning and how to do it for effective implementation. The course is oriented toward practical issues and concerns, drawing on examples of projects in various sectors around the world, with an emphasis on Latin America.