Public consultation for EIA boosted

All socio-economic development projects have an impact on the environment and local communities.

In order to limit negative impacts, governments and international organisations have stipulated that project dossiers must include environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports.

An EIA report must accurately and objectively describe all the possible environmental impacts of a project. It must also include solutions to protect the environment, while benefiting local communities.

An EIA report consists of an outlined commitment by the investor to authorities and the public about the positive impacts of any project as well as any preventative measures they intend to take to minimise environmental damage. 

The authorities and the public must have the right to know the contents of such a report so that they can contribute to its implementation. That’s why it’s common international practice to publicise their contents.

Public consultation intends to make the report more accurate and feasible. The costs of public consultation are included in the total costs when compiling an EIA report.

According to the World Bank, public consultation does not necessarily delay the implementation. Contrarily, a project without an EIA report with sufficient public consultation is often delayed and when it is implemented, the results are worse than a project with a well-prepared EIA report.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also stipulated that any ADB-backed project must be based on a well-prepared EIA report. Since the 1990s, many Asian nations have forced all EIA reports for state-funded projects to include public consultation.

Public consultation

The EIA’s public consultation process must include a variety of activites.

The project’s owner or the compilers of an EIA have to give the public all information on the project’s goals, and activities associated with the project’s completion. All details about the project like time, place and pace of implementation and those responsible for the project also has to be made public. 

The project’s entire socio-economic and environmental impacts on the location hosting the project and surrounding areas, and local community must also be announced to the public. Additionally, the owner must specify solutions to possible environmental impacts. The public also need to be provided with information about how the project owner intends to co-operate with the public.

Before and during consultation, the public must also be provided with clear documents which outline the project’s details and possible positive and negative impacts. These documents are drawn up based on the draft EIA report.

At public consultation meetings, public concerns with the EIA report must be explicitly explained via fact-sheets, information, data and analysis. Also, solutions agreed by the public and ways of resolving issues of disagreement with the public must be made clear.

Additionally, the public’s feedback and assessment on the EIA report must be announced at the meetings. Project owners must vow to be open to such comments.

It is also common practice to ensure that public consultation must be conducted for EIA reports after the project is completed. This is to examine how seriously the project owners have implemented the official conclusions from the approved EIA reports.

Who provides feedback?

Those allowed to participate in public consultations for EIAs depend on the regulations of each country or organisation funding projects. International experiences from many nations and international organisations operating in Vietnam suggest that communities directly affected by the project’s impact should be able to participate, with perhaps these being local people’s committees at all levels in charge of natural resources and environmental management in the areas hosting projects, whether at a commune, district or provincial level.

Civic organisations and agencies operating in natural resources and environmental protection in locations home to projects should also be able to provide comments for EIAs.

Members of the public with an understanding of the project’s impact and wanting to contribute to bettering the project’s EIA should also be able to comment.

International and regional organisations and foreign experts experienced in dealing with natural resources and environmental issues could comment on the project’s EIA but only if invited by a local organisation in charge of commenting on the EIA.

How public consultation should be specified in the Law on Environmental Protection (LEP)

Public consultations on EIAs would rely on the contribution from scientific and technological experts. Consultations would need more time, effort and money, which would vary based on the type of project.

In Vietnam, many socio-economic development projects have had their EIA reports prepared by people’s committees and natural resources and environmental management agencies at all levels, with imput from local people and other organisations.

Such projects that conducted EIA reports include the Son La and Lai Chau hydropower projects and Ho Chi Minh Highway.

These experiences have failed to be sufficiently reflected in the existing LEP issued in 2005.

Under the existing LEP, public consultation is conducted with people’s committees and representatives of people in communes hosting such projects.

Meanwhile, the law fails to stipulate the rights to participate in so-called public consultation for socio-political agencies operating in natural resources and environmental protection in locations hosting such projects, local experts or international and regional organisations, and foreign experts.

Therefore the existing LEP’s public consultation regulations are applicable to EIA reports of small and medium-sized projects, but not major projects.

Also the public consultation process in the EIA reports of many national-level major projects on nuclear power, motorways and bridges under implementation may not produce reliable results if conducted under the existing regulations.

Hopefully the revised LEP expected to be adopted by the National Assembly this May will include regulations on bigger public consultations.

The new LEP also needs to harmonise Vietnam’s EIA regulations with relevant regulations pursued by international financial organisations.

For example, in early June 2005 at the mid-year Consultative Group meeting, international donors and the Vietnamese government signed the Hanoi Core Statement HCS8, which specifies some action targets on the environment.

Under the statement, by 2010, the government would, with support from donors, develop capacity, skills and policies in social impact assessments (SIA), EIAs and their legal enforcement. Specifically, 100 per cent of EIA and SIA reports would be implemented under international standards. However, this obviously hasn’t been done.

Local authorities have failed to require project owners to make SIA reports as required by the statement. With the exception of some foreign invested enterprises, almost all the projects in Vietnam have failed to conduct EIA reports based on international standards.