IMPLEMENTATION ASSESSMENT OF EIA AND ITS PROPER MITIGATION MEASURES
Creators: name: ALEMU MELESE TILAHUN
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2019

description: The Government of Ethiopia in Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) to overcome the impacts of any development projects on environment through concerted fiscal and monetary policy interventions complemented by regulatory and stabilization measures undertaken by the Government. However, environmental degradation and mismanagement of natural resources reduces the environment's ability to produce biomass for food, feed and household energy is continuing. Rapid and severe degradation can lead to special circumstances in the society, such as migration, deterioration of the person’s health condition, displacement of indigenous peoples or communities and lack of access to basic environmental services such as clean water, bio-fuel, etc. These changes added stress on the lives of the people. One of the major activities contributing for environmental degradation in Ethiopia is road construction. The key environmental problems associated to road construction are removal of vegetation cover from road limit, borrow areas, quarry sites, camp sites and accelerating soil erosion and soil removal. Water and soil pollution by construction spoils and other related waste material from construction camps and workshops are serious challenges. Majority of the adverse impacts can be reduced with inclusion of the necessary mitigation and enhancement measure in the project road design, and their proper implementation in the successive phases. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a systematic process that proactively examines the potential consequences of development actions. As a planning process, the longer-term objective of EIA is to contribute to sustainable development. In Ethiopia, EIA is become a legal requirement and the system has been established. Even though the legal framework and institutional setup are in place to run the system, it is not yet well implemented to help achieving environmentally friendly developments. This specific study has aimed to evaluate the status of EIA implementation in ERA road projects. Two roads have been selected as case study to undertake the research. The evaluation was based on the assessment of adequacy of EIA legislation, EIA administration, EIA procedure, implementation of EIA and recommended measures, public participation and quality of EIS. The study was carried out through questionnaire, interview, analysis of project specific documents, focus group discussion and field observation. The research has identified that the current EIA practice in road projects is not effective enough to meet the intended objective. The factors affecting the effectiveness are absence of EIA system monitoring, weak regulatory enforcement, poor integration of EIA into decision making process, lack of public involvement, weak integration of EIA into project cycle, poorly developed environmental database and information system, quality of EIA reports, absence of separate pay items and weak inter-sectoral coordination and communication and limited resource availability. In order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness, provision of separate pay item in the bill of quantity, omission in key stages and components of EIA process, organizational capacity of environmental protection authority and coordination with Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA), database and environmental information system, participation of local communities and organizations, defining Sectoral responsibilities, awareness creation to different actors involving in the EIA process and monitoring and follow up.<br>