Stakeholder perspectives and challenges to the institutionalization of strategic environmental assessment in Botswana

ABSTRACT

This research compares perspectives regarding strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and evaluates SEA implementation bottlenecks in Botswana through the purview of two stakeholder groups, namely environmental assessment practitioners (EAPs) and engineers. It also evaluates SEA regulation and practices in the country. The results highlight that stakeholders in Botswana concur on many SEA-related aspects such as the definition of the concept of SEA and criteria for evaluating SEA effectiveness. Compared to engineers, EAPs have a much more accurate understanding of the type of effects to be assessed during SEA. Challenges to the success of SEA include passive and ineffectual public participation; lack of data sharing; limited technical capacity regarding SEA and dated guidance; deeply entrenched preferences for distinct SEA approaches; low proponent’s willingness to pay for environmental costs including SEA; oppressive practitioner pay structures; and, commercialised environmental assessment consultancy. These manifest as conflict over purpose and approach to SEA, limited awareness regarding SEA, de-skilled planners and diverging practices. These factors are also symptomatic of higher institutional problems such as intense corruption and would suggest that SEA in Botswana is not yet fully institutionalised.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategic environmental assessment
• stakeholder perspectives
• plurality
• implementation bottlenecks
• Botswana

Acknowledgment

The ABSA FG Mogae scholarship fund is greatly acknowledged for the MSc grant to the author which enabled the research underpinning this article. The research was conducted under the Government of Botswana’s national research permit reference number ENT 8/36/4/xLVIII(44). The author would also like to express sincere gratitude to all institutions (BEAPA, ERB, BIE, ACEB and DTCP) which took their precious time and resources to facilitate the research, as well as all informants who participated in the research survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This figure includes 50 SEAs prepared from 1995 to 2003 and 53 environmental management frameworks (i.e. para-SEAs) prepared from 2007 to 2015(Retief et al. 2021).

2. In Botswana, the term ‘environment’ includes ‘the physical, ecological, archaeological, aesthetic, cultural, economic, institutional, human health and social aspects of the surroundings of a person’ (Department of Environmental Affairs 2011: Section 2). As a consequence, it is synonymous with the term sustainability as used by e.g. Therivel et al. (2009).