108 STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN POLICY AND SECTOR REFORM
promoted by the Bank with contemporary SEA practice in China. It also tried to combine assessment approaches used in EIA of plans with selected elements of policy SEA. This pilot hence offers lessons that may be of interest for similar processes undertaken in the future, in China or other countries. The SEA was undertaken by a team of experts from a highly reputed think tank dealing with SEA in China, which was assisted by international consultants. The SEA team operated under a comprehensive terms of reference document elaborated by the World Bank and HPCD, and undertook work in Hubei Province for a period exceeding one year. Specifically, the team (i) identified and engaged the relevant stakeholders, (ii) gathered information related to the environmental baseline, (iii) analyzed consistency of the HRNP with relevant plans and policies, (iv) elaborated scenarios for future development of road transport in the province and assessed their implications for environmental and social priorities, and (v) evaluated existing policies and arrangements for managing environmental and social effects of roads and proposed relevant institutional strengthening measures. Within this process the SEA team held numerous meetings with relevant provincial government stakeholders, prepared multiple working documents summarizing their findings, and undertook three rounds of consultations to obtain stakeholder feedback on the draft conclusions and recommendations. Since some of the team’s findings were still under discussion when this SEA was evaluated, the entire assessment process has not yet been formally concluded with public dissemination of the final SEA report by HPCD.
SEA Outcomes The SEA provided an overall, holistic picture of the possible environmental impacts of planned transport projects. This outcome was sufficient to increase the awareness of senior managers at the HPCD about macro-level environmental implications of the proposed development of road transport. The HPCD management now pays more attention to environmental issues, as evidenced in detailed investigations carried out during the design stage of each road project. The SEA also indirectly contributed to a new circular, issued by the HPCD management, which encourages the enforcement of environmental protection requirements during expressway construction. With respect to social learning, all those interviewed during the evaluation agreed that sharing data from baseline analyses was the most useful aspect of this SEA pilot, and that learning was facilitated through this sharing. Part of the contextual background to this case is that institutional control of decision making in China makes access to data very difficult. Data are often treated as “privately” owned by government agencies, and SEA teams are required to purchase data