THE WORLD BANK’S PILOT PROGRAM ON SEA
11
most effectively addressed by integrating environmental considerations into the design and adoption of policies in all sectors. The argument was that cumulative environmental change, environmental opportunities, and potential interactions between different sectors could best be considered upstream in the selection and design of development and sector policies, rather than downstream through project management and end-of-pipe solutions.7 This was a major conclusion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, and the view is also reflected in the Millennium Development Goals and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The corollary of this new way of thinking is that economic efficiency can be improved if environmental and social issues are considered alongside traditional economic concerns when new policies and strategic plans are developed. Because of this realization, national governments and development agencies have begun to experiment with approaches that attempt to integrate environmental concerns into new and reformed policies. In international development, most notable has been the initiation of environmental mainstreaming programs by agencies such as multilateral development banks, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and others. For example, the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative has done much to promote the idea of environmental mainstreaming in national and sector development policy, plans, and budgets.8 Similarly, the multiagency network known as the Poverty Environment Partnership is attempting to mainstream environmental concerns into development aid in support of national and sector development planning.9 Another notable initiative from the early 2000s was the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee’s SEA Task Team. This was established by the donor community to promote the development and harmonization of SEA approaches, and is made up of most donors and a number of leading nongovernmental organizations, consultants, and academics with an interest in SEA for development cooperation. In 2006, the task team produced Applying Strategic Environmental Assessment: Good Practice Guidance for Development Co-operation (OECD DAC 2006), which has been followed by four specific advisory notes. These were a timely response to the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, which calls upon donors and partners to work together to “develop and apply common approaches for strategic environmental assessment at sector and national levels” (OECD 2005). The OECD DAC SEA Guidance describes SEA as a “family of approaches which use a variety of tools, rather than a fixed, single and prescriptive approach.” It acknowledges that “SEA applied at the policy level requires a particular focus on the political, institutional and governance context underlying decision making