Public participation in the EIA process in Rwanda

4.4 Effectiveness of EIA process in Rwanda

4.4.7 Public participation in the EIA process in Rwanda

Table 4.16: Respondents’ perceptions if the public is involved in EIA processes

Frequency Percent

Yes 12 60

No 8 40

Total 20 100

Table 4.16 illustrates that the majority of respondents (60%) indicated that the public is involved in EIA processes in Rwanda. The fact that 40% of respondents disagreed with the statement means that even if the public is involved in EIA, it is not adequate like in some developing countries as shown in the literature review. This has a negative impact on the effectiveness of EIA since Glasson et al. (2005) assert that public participation in EIA aims to establish a dialogue between the public and decision-makers and to ensure that decision-makers assimilate the public’s views into their decisions. However, the above findings are supported by different authors that public participation in EIA processes has different limitations, especially in developing countries, notably, limited democracy, cultural traditions, low levels of education and literacy and gender inequality (UNEP, 2004; Alshuwaikhat, 2005).

Table 4.17: Respondent's perceptions about the stages of EIA in which the public are involved (multiple responses)

Frequency Percent

Scoping 7 35

Assessing and mitigation 8 40

Reviewing and decision-making 5 25

Monitoring 4 20

Table 4.17 shows that only 35% of the respondents agreed that the public is involved in the scoping stage. This has a negative impact on the effectiveness of EIA in Rwanda since scoping should begin with the identification of all stakeholders including individuals, communities, civil society, local authorities and statutory consultees who are likely to be affected by the project and bring them together with the developer to discuss and suggest the important issues to consider during the EIA study and eliminates those that are of little or no concern (REMA, 2006; Glasson et al., 2005). The above results also show that 40% of respondents agreed that the public is involved in the assessing and mitigation stages of EIA. However, 40% is not enough considering the importance of public involvement during this stage as shown by Wood (2003) that local people can assist not only by helping to determine significance but also by providing baseline environmental data.

The above table 4.17 also shows that only 25% of the respondents agreed that the public is involved in the reviewing and decision-making phase of EIA. It has been shown in table 4.3 that it is the responsibility of EIA officers to review the EIA reports. However, it is not only the EIA officers who should review the report as shown in the literature review by Glasson et al. (2005). According to the five categories of individuals or institutions who should review the EIS shown by Glasson et al. (2005), it is obvious that the public is needed to participate in the review as other stakeholders which is not the case in Rwanda. In addition, the above results undermine the involvement of the public in decision-making in Rwanda whereas Faircheallaigh (2010) and Momtaz (2002) argue that the competent authority is required to consider all necessary environmental

information and consult all statutory consultees and the public in order to come up with a pertinent decision on a project.

Lastly, the table above shows that only 20% of respondents agreed that public is involved in monitoring and evaluation. This has significant negative impacts on the effectiveness of EIA in Rwanda as Glasson et al. (2005) assert that since monitoring implies the repetitive collection of a potentially large quantity of information over a period of time, it should involve interested and affected people. In addition, it is obvious that the public is not involved adequately in impact monitoring in Rwanda since table 4.11 shows that the majority of respondents submitted that impact monitoring is not often carried out after the project approval.

Table 4.18: Ways in which public are encouraged to participate in EIA (multiple responses)

Frequency Percent

Participation in meetings 3 15

Using announcement from radio, newspapers and television

2 10

Posters 1 5

Individual interviews 1 5

No specific measures 7 35

Public hearing 5 25

People are not interested because they don’t know the importance of EIA

1 5

Five percent of respondents stated that people are not interested in participating in the EIA process because they don’t know the importance of EIA and the largest number of respondents (35%) asserted that there are no specific measures or ways of encouraging people to participate in EIA (Table 4.18). This clearly shows the weakness of public participation in the EIA process as well as EIA awareness in Rwanda. However, other methods for encouraging the public to participate in EIA indicated in table 4.18 were expected since Faircheallaigh (2010) and ECA (2005) show that the main ways of encouraging people to participate in EIA are public hearings, public meetings, open

days/open hours, briefings, central contact person, field offices or information centres, comment and response sheets, surveys, questionnaires and polls, interviews, telephone hotlines, electronic democracy, workshops, focus groups or key stakeholder meetings, advisory panels and committees, task force, citizen juries and consensus conferences.

Therefore, as per the responses, some of these ways of encouraging people to participate in EIA are being covered but not all.

Table 4.19: Level of effectiveness of participation of affected and interested people in EIA process (in %, n=20)

Strongly effective

Effective Neutral Ineffective Strongly ineffective

5 35 15 30 15

Table 4.16 indicated that the public is involved in EIA process but at a certain level.

Therefore, table 4.19 reflects respondents’ perceptions regarding the effectiveness of that involvement of affected and interested people in the EIA process in Rwanda. The above results show that the effectiveness of the participation in EIA is problematic since 45% of respondents assert that it is ineffective and 15% of respondents are neutral which means that they are not sure if it is effective or not. This makes the effectiveness of the EIA system in Rwanda to be questionable. On the other hand, it is obvious that interested and affected people cannot participate at the same level because of different factors as the World Bank (1999 cited in Aucamp, 2009) stresses that the level of participation will differ widely according to the nature of the intervention and the knowledge and abilities of those interested and affected. However, Aucamp (2009) indicates that the involvement during the different phases of the project will differ as the knowledge of the stakeholders increases. Furthermore, it is through this participation of interested and affected people where trust between the developer and stakeholders develops (Aucamp, 2009). In other words, the appropriate ways of encouraging participation and a good relationship among companies and their neighbours are an essential requirement to ensure the effectiveness of the participation of interested and affected people in EIA processes.

Dalam dokumen An assessment of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures and challenges faced by environmental officers in EIA implementation in Rwanda. (Halaman 98-102)