Background: The German technical cooperation (GTZ) offers a SEA training course developed together with Capacity Building International (InWEnt) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

• to support partner countries in strengthening their respective capacities
• to establish and to implement their own SEA strategies or
• to cope with existing legislation.

It is based on both practical perennial experiences with impact assessment tools in development co-operation and the official OECD “Good Practice Guidance on Applying SEA in Development Co-operation”.

Since 2006, GTZ has provided SEA training in various countries in Africa, the Maghreb, Asia, Latin America and Europe and has also collaborated with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to conduct regional SEA training in East European, South Caucasus and Western Balkan countries.

Objectives: The purpose of this training is to introduce participants to the conceptual and methodological approaches of SEA, to train them how to apply it in their daily work and to illustrate the benefits of SEA through real examples.

Methodology: The training is practice oriented and applies an innovative, interactive and effective teaching methodology. In line with the case methodology of the Harvard Business School it focuses on practical approaches to SEA in the fields of land use, transport, regional development and poverty reduction strategy papers. The GTZ offers to adapt the module based training in a flexible way (thematic focus and duration) to specific needs of partner countries.

Target groups: The target group includes Environmental Impact Assessment experts, administration officials and NGO representatives. In order to promote broader SEA capacity building processes for developing countries envisaged by the German development cooperation, the course can also be conducted in a way to train the trainers so to ensure regular applications in partner countries without further outside support.

Information and contact: Please consult the background documents in this web page for specific information on the training, the training manuals and SEA applications. For further requests you can contact the SEA training manager at the GTZ (Email: Bernhard.frey@gtz.de).

Trainings manuals

On behalf of the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, the German development cooperation through GTZ and InWEnt has developed SEA training manuals which focus on different thematic areas. These manuals support the participants of the training in the design and implementation of an SEA either to a transport programme, to a poverty reduction strategy paper, to land-use plans, regional planning or to a national biofuels strategy in country or region.

The manuals will guide the participants through the different phases of an SEA such as determine the right issues and scope of assessment, analyze the baseline trends, analyze proposed development objectives and their alternatives, assess cumulative impacts of proposed activities and propose their optimization, prepare the SEA Report, use effective means of participation, ensure reflection of SEA results in decision-making, establish an adequate management and monitoring system for implementation and manage SEA effectively within budgetary and time constraints.

The GTZ/InWEnt SEA Training Manuals represent a contribution to applying the OECD SEA Guidance and seek to provide a tool to foster processes of integrating environmental considerations into policies, plans and programmes. They also serve to evaluate the interlinkages with environmental, economic and social considerations.