SEA in Sida’s country strategy for Viet Nam
From SEA.unu.edu/wiki
Background and objectives
During 2002-03 a new strategy for Swedish development co-operation with Viet Nam (for the period 2004-08) was produced. The Vietnamese Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy served as a starting point and strategic priorities were identified through analytical work and dialogue with the Vietnamese government and other stakeholders. In line with Sida’ s policy, an SEA was carried out to ensure the integration of environment into the Country Strategy.
Approach
An iterative approach was used to feed environmental aspects into the strategy process at several points:
- At the initial stages of the strategy process, an environmental policy brief was produced outlining key challenges and opportunities from an environmental and sustainability perspective and linking them to key development issues such as poverty, growth and health.
- An in-depth environmental and sustainability analysis was produced by a team of WWF-Viet Nam consultants, as one of several background studies conducted as part of the strategy process.
- Environment was included as one of several dialogue issues in stakeholder workshops in Viet Nam. The Swedish delegation and Embassy met with government agencies, regional authorities, NGOs, development agencies and other key stakeholders.
- A workshop was also held with Swedish stakeholders (private sector, civil society, universities and government officials) to discuss the findings from the environmental background study in relation to the country strategy.
- Detailed comments by environmental specialists were provided on different drafts of the strategy document.
Outcomes
- Environment and sustainability issues were well integrated with other important development issues in the final strategy document and following action plans.
- Key Vietnamese and Swedish stakeholders were involved in the process. As a result of the SEA, stakeholders have deeper understanding of how the environment is intrinsically linked to other critical development issues.
Source: Sida.
(Reproduced with permission of OECD.)
