ISLAMABAD, Jan 27: Both public and private sectors lack the capacity to conduct Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of the development projects in the country. This concern was raised during the three-day workshop organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) from January 24 to 26 at a local hotel.

Conducting the workshop, Dr Mohammad Irfan, an environmentalist, said the country needed to have qualified environmentalists to carry out EIA for future development projects.

According to the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997 (PEPA), section 12, the EIA is mandatory for all future development projects. However, it had never been implemented especially in the public sector.

Only recently, the federal cabinet had decided that in future no project, big or small, would be approved without mandatory EIA.

It is also one of the pre-conditions of the international donor agencies, including the United Nations, therefore, the country should seriously look into the issue, Dr Irfan said.

The workshop was part of the Pakistan Environment Programme (PEP). This was the third training workshop in a series under PEP organized by the SDPI after two workshops on Integrated Water Resources Management and Strategic Environmental Assessment.

The PEP was initiated in July 1994 under the auspices of National Conservation Strategy (NCS).

The PEP is funded by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Royal Netherlands Embassy and is managed by four partners, Ministry of Environment’s NCS Unit, Federal Environmental Protection Agency, Planning and Development Division, IUCN-The World Conservation Union and the SDPI.

PEP is a multi-dimensional initiative aimed at protecting and conserving the environment while promoting and supporting social and economic development in the country.

Twenty-five participants from government and non-government organizations as well as from private and corporate sectors from all over Pakistan attended the workshop.

The largest segment among the participants was from oil and gas sector from the country and Abu Dhabi. Brig (retired) Mohammad Yasin, Adviser Capacity Building of SDPI, distributed the certificates among the participants who successfully completed the workshop.