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data, EIA which is still new and unknown, lack of environmental awareness and lack of environmental education. In addition, the challenges regarding human resource capacity are lack of qualified experts in some specific sectors, lack of stakeholder training and lack of infrastructure. Lastly, the responsibilities of the government of Rwanda regarding EIA procedures and implementation are presented in three categories including raising awareness, environmental regulation and institutional capacity-building.
5.2.4 The challenges faced by environmental officers in implementing EIA processes in Rwanda
The fourth objective of this research was to identify the challenges faced by environmental officers in implementing EIA processes in Rwanda. The following challenges were identified: insufficient baseline data, shortage of staff in the EIA department, lack of adequate material in the EIA department, the fact that developers consider EIA as a barrier to the implementation of their project, the inability to predict cumulative impacts, shortage of funding to pursue EIA studies, lack of training for environmental officers and lastly, poor environmental awareness in the country hinder the EIA officers to do their job effectively. It has also been noted that having investment promotion and EIA departments under the same roof can impact negatively on the implementation of EIA process since the investment promotion department has a tendency of influencing the EIA department.
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The level of education and essential professional training for an EIA officer in Rwanda should be increased. For instance, EIA officers in Rwanda need to strengthen their knowledge in using GIS and remote sensing, understanding project management, improving customer care skills, and to assess and predict cumulative impacts of projects.
Furthermore, the EIA department should provide enough and necessary material to improve not only the efficiency of EIA officers but also to improve their working conditions. Therefore, the above recommendations will strengthen the EIA department in order to improve the effectiveness of EIA processes and to avoid the risk of being influenced by the investment and business department in RDB.
In the bid to improve the effectiveness of EIA procedure implementation in Rwanda, the following actions need to be addressed: ToR of EIA studies should be developed by consultants and approved by the authority, the period of 20 days provided by the EIA guidelines for an EIA report review should be respected, the level of environmental monitoring and audit in the EIA process should be improved, and all steps provided by general EIA guidelines in Rwanda should be respected in EIA implementation. The government of Rwanda should put in place the new mechanisms of raising environmental awareness and should reinforce existing ones. Particularly, the awareness about EIA processes should be focused on and improved in Rwanda. This can improve the knowledge of developers about EIA and the interaction of consultants, developers and the authority. Furthermore, this can also not only lead to voluntary compliance with Environmental Organic Law but can also make developers to focus on the benefits of EIA on development in general and on their projects in particular, rather than considering it as a barrier for their projects. To facilitate this process, the authority (EIA department) should also improve its ways of communication by providing regular meetings with developers, EIA consultants and other important EIA stakeholders in Rwanda.
The participation of private institutions, NGOs, lecturers, donors as well as affected and interested people as EIA stakeholders should be improved. Particularly, public participation in EIA processes should be improved in Rwanda. For instance, the EIA department and proponents should provide the specific measures to encourage affected
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and interested people to participate during different steps of the EIA processes.
Therefore, this can contribute to the effectiveness of EIA processes. To facilitate this community and engagement process, the EIA officers need to increase their level of facilitation of public hearings.
REMA and other leading agencies in Rwanda should create a data bank of all necessary environmental information in Rwanda in order to solve the problem of insufficient baseline information. Furthermore, infrastructure should be improved to facilitate the collection, storage and access of environmental information in Rwanda.
Since EIA is a legal requirement in Rwanda, all related policies and legislations which do not include EIA requirements should be revised and incorporate it, especially the environmental policy which was adopted in 2003 whereas EIA became a legal requirement only in 2005. In addition, policies and EIA guidelines for some sectors where they do not exist or are inadequate should be developed. To facilitate the implementation of this, all government agencies which are in charge of relevant sectors should be involved in the process. In a similar vein, the master plans of different towns and cities in the country should be developed. This will enable the government to assign specific areas for particular development activities. To solve the problem of shortage of funds, international and local funding institutions as well as the government and private institutions should provide adequate funds for EIA studies in order to improve the effectiveness of EIA in Rwanda. To improve the implementation of EIA procedures, the EIA department which was transferred to RDB should be based in REMA which is mandated by the law to issue EIA certificates.
Lastly, SEA should be conducted and incorporated also in the Environmental Organic Law as a requirement to include environmental concerns at the strategic level of planning in Rwanda. However, since SEA is a new tool, REMA should provide SEA guidelines.
To facilitate the adoption and integration of SEA, SEA training should be increased in order to create awareness about it among all SEA stakeholders and also to train professionals on how to conduct SEA in Rwanda.
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