Appropriate measures may include strengthening formal regulation in critically affected areas, supporting more public dissemination of environmental information, and slowing implementation of environmentally risky reforms while local environmental institutions adapt to the new demands. Coordinating economic reforms and environmental policies will require close contact between the relevant national ministries. A formally constituted environmental advisory unit for the key economics ministers may provide the best guarantee that economic reform programs will incorporate such concerns. At the sectoral level, governments can lower MAC by supporting environmental management training for small and medium-size enterprises. The example of Guadalajara, Mexico , suggests that such programs can provide a cost-effective complement to conventional regulation.
Documented experience remains limited, however.
More studies of pilot programs are needed to assess the strengths and limitations of environmental management training under different developing-country conditions. At the plant level, regulators can raise MEP through both formal and informal channels. Among formal instruments, market-based instruments such as pollution charges reduce emissions at the lowest cost because they leave abatement decisions in the hands of factory managers. Successful experiences in China, Colombia, and Philippines have shown that pollution charges are feasible and effective in developing countries. Tradable pollution permits may also work well, but successful developing-country experiences have not yet been documented.