Environmental Policy and Legal Framework

The Constitution of Ethiopia adopted in August 1995 requires current and future legislation and the conduct of government to conform to a bill of rights. The concepts of sustainable development and environment rights are entrenched in the rights of the people of Ethiopia through Articles 43 and 44, which state among others the right to development and the right to live in a clean and healthy environment. The Environmental Policy of Ethiopia (EPE) was issued in April 1997. The EPE supports Constitutional Rights through its guiding principles. The overall policy goal is to improve and enhance the health and quality of life of all Ethiopians, to promote sustainable social and economic development through sound management and use of natural, human‐made and cultural resources and their environment as a whole, so as to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The EPE seeks to ensure the empowerment and participation of the people and their organizations at all levels in environmental management activities, and to raise public awareness and promote understanding of the essential linkage between environment and development. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) policies are included in the cross‐sectoral environmental policies. The EIA policies emphasis the early recognition of environmental issues in project planning, public participation, mitigation and environmental management, and capacity building at all levels of administration.

Among the sectoral policies issued by the Government of Ethiopia (GOE), the most relevant ones include Water Resources, Wildlife, Population, Health, HIV/AIDS and Women Policies. In addition, the GOE of has issued several Proclamations that are aimed to foster environmental protection and sustainable use of the Country’s natural as well as man‐made resources. Among these legislations are the Proclamation on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the Proclamation on Environmental Pollution Control (EPC), both came into effect in 2002. The EIA Proclamation makes an EIA mandatory for specified categories of activities undertaken either by the public or private sectors and is the legal tool for environmental planning, management and monitoring. This Proclamation states that the impact of a project shall be assessed on the basis of the size, location, nature, cumulative effect with other concurrent impacts or phenomena, trans‐regional context, duration, reversibility or irreversibility or other related effects of a project. The EPC Proclamation is mainly based on the right of each citizen to have a healthy environment, as well as on the obligation to protect the environment of the Country and its primary objective is to provide the basis from which the relevant ambient environmental standards applicable to Ethiopia can be developed, and to make the violation of these standards a punishable act. The Proclamation states that the “polluter pays” principle will be applied to all persons. Under this proclamation, the EPA is given the mandate for the creation of the function of Environmental Inspectors. These inspectors (to be assigned by EPA or regional environmental agencies) are given the authority to ensure implementation and enforcement of environmental standards and related requirements.

A major environmental assessment task in project lending operations is the screening of projects to determine to which environmental category a project shall be assigned. Projects shall be mandatorily assigned to one following four categories:

• Category 1 projects will require a full Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), including the preparation of an Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP). These projects are likely to induce important adverse environmental and/or social impacts that are irreversible, or to significantly affect environmental or social components considered sensitive by the Bank or the borrowing country.

• Category 2 projects require the development of ESMP. These projects are likely to have detrimental and site‐specific environmental and/or social impacts that are less adverse than those of Category 1 projects and that can be minimized by the application of mitigation measures or the incorporation of internationally recognized design criteria and standards.

• Category 3 projects require no impact assessment. These projects shall involve no adverse physical intervention in the environment and induce no adverse environmental or social impact.

• Category 4 projects involve investment of Bank’s funds through Financial Intermediaries (FIs) in subprojects that may result in adverse environmental and/or social impacts.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20