The Asian Development Bank has said Sri Lanka needs to improve its environmental standards in development programs, with better project evaluation and monitoring, to ensure that natural resources are protected given the island’s rich biodiversity.
While acknowledging that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process in Sri Lanka has improved, the ADB in a new report said that inadequate safeguards have led to some environmental degradation and unsustainable resource utilisation.
The report, an evaluation of the ADB’s safeguard implementation experience based on selected case studies, said there was a case for improved understanding of environmental and social safeguards in development projects. “Asia’s rapid economic growth in recent decades has had a positive impact on poverty reduction but this growth has often been at the expense of environmental concerns, leading in turn to serious public health and welfare problems,” it said.
The report, which covered a few Sri Lankan case studies including road and water projects, said the wealth of natural resources is Sri Lanka’s greatest asset and contributor to growth.
“But the use of these resources has led to a number of environmental issues: deforestation, soil erosion, wildlife populations threatened by poaching and urbanization, coastal degradation due to mining activities, and increasing pollution (including freshwater resources from industrial waste and sewage runoff, waste disposal), and air pollution in Colombo. These pressures on the environment are exacerbated by climate change.”
The Government and the ADB recognize that environmental protection and biodiversity conservation are an integral part of the development process.
“Any breakdown in environmental stability would have serious implications for the long-term development of the country,” the ADB said.
“ADB and country safeguards play a critical role in protecting the environment and resource base while infrastructure investment is pursued.
They introduce policy principles and mandatory procedures to avoid or mitigate the negative environmental impacts of projects and enhance positive outcomes.” The ADB said that projects reviewed in Sri Lanka confirm earlier assessments that more attention to environmental safeguards enforcement may be needed during project implementation.
“The quality of the government monitoring reports on environmental management plans (EMPs) implementation also needs to be improved. This was particularly the case for the National Highway Sector Project.”
Reports submitted to the Road Development Authority (RDA) and ADB paid inadequate attention to significant issues, and frequently cited delays in taking corrective actions and delivery of reports, the ADB said.
“Some monitoring reports were delayed during the construction period and were not produced.”
The ADB said the experience of the Dry Zone Urban Water and Sanitation Project was better than that of other projects, as EMPs included useful monitoring indicators, e.g., maintenance of natural habitats, offsets, and/or ecological restoration and effectiveness of measures implemented to avoid or minimize disruption of wildlife movements.
Gaps identified by the ADB evaluation include the scope of the screening process, assessment of alternatives, environmental management planning and monitoring, consultation, and disclosure.
“Despite these gaps, and despite capacity issues, the mainstreaming of the EIA process in Sri Lanka has clearly lifted standards and served a useful purpose in the country’s development planning process. It has brought a degree of sustainability, transparency, and public participation to nationally important development initiatives,” the ADB said.
The report said safeguard implementation capacity in Sri Lanka is limited by institutional, human, and financial resource constraints.
Project approving agencies (PAAs) have limited staffing capacity and suffer from institutional weakness, inadequate commitment, conflicts of interest, and over-reliance on the Central Environmental Authority
“All these are major constraints on using environmental safeguards fully and effectively,” the report said. “At present, the Central Environmental Authority is the only project-approving agency with trained staff and resources dedicated exclusively to EIA support. For the most part, PAAs tend to lack an appreciation of the environmental requirements for project appraisal. Retaining technical capacity is a persistent problem.”
This lack of staff capacity has resulted in a “minimal application” of safeguards in sectoral and development plans, the ADB said.
Funding and staff resources for capacity strengthening for the application of safeguards have declined and the consequent lack of preparedness provides an incentive for the PAAs to increase their reliance upon an already burdened Central Environmental Authority.
The ADB also said that despite regulations stipulating that a PAA cannot act as a project proponent, conflicts of interest arise in some instances where a PAA plays the role of sector developer and safeguards regulator.