ECA ready to collaborate on environmental impact assessment, says Dione
By Yinka Adeyemi, Communication Officer, ECA
09 March 2004

The Director of Sustainable Development Division, Dr. Josue Dione, said today in Addis Ababa that there were many areas for potential collaboration between the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the pan-African forum of environmental assessment and management practitioners called "Capacity Development and Linkages for Environmental Assessment in Africa" (CLEEA)

Welcoming the interim Coordinator of CLEEA, Abdulrahman Issa, on an official visit to ECA, Dione said that his Division was finalizing an important [delete assessment] report on environmental assessment in selected African countries which, he said, would be useful to CLEEA.

"Our work in sustainable development - whether in agriculture or natural resources - centres on the environment," he said.

He said more African countries were appreciating the importance of environmental impact assessment of projects. "Mali learned this lesson when its irrigation project was not approved for almost 5 years because it did not pass the test of environmental impact assessment," he added.

Dr. Dione said networks such as CLEEA were important in making sure that Africa has enough capacity to mainstream protection of the environment throughout government and public policy.