Workshop on using open EIA reporting to drive accountable and transparent environmental governance in Cambodia
On 01 October 2020, Open Development Cambodia (ODC) hosted a half-day workshop on “Using Open EIA Reporting to Drive Accountable and Transparent Environmental Governance in Cambodia”. The event brought together 35 participants coming from various institutions, including local and international NGOs, grassroots organizations and media outlets, both from the private and public sectors. Despite the COVID-19 measures and restrictions in place, ODC has been able to manage the workshop by cautiously adhering to the Ministry of Health’s instructional guidelines.
The workshop had the objective to first, update participants on the progress of ODC’s EIA profile page – after the feedback received at the launching workshop has been incorporated – and present new information on development projects available on the ODC website. Secondly, to raise public awareness about EIA and promote strategies to enhance public participation in using evidence-based decision-making. And a third objective was to call for further collaboration between stakeholders, including the Government, CSOs & the private sector in sharing their complete EIA reports.
Mr. Thy Try, ODC Executive Director/Editor-in-Chief is giving welcome remark speech.
Mr. Pen Ratana, HBS Program Coordinator Resource Governance, is giving an open remark speech.
The event started with the welcoming remarks of Mr. Thy Try, Executive Director of ODC, who valued the chance of organizing the event for the second time after its first edition in 2019. He explained that ODC has been collecting and publishing datasets on development projects for years and the new EIA page is a timing complement to its previous work. The EIA reports available online gives a chance to key stakeholders, including the affected communities, to understand the benefits and challenges of the projects and participate in the reporting and monitoring process.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Pen Ratana, Program Coordinator Resource Governance of the Heinrich Boell Stiftung Cambodia Office, stressed the importance of EIA reports and encouraged more public engagement to enhance active monitoring practices and improved environmental governance. He also underlined the involvement of his organization in working with the Ministry of Environment (MoE) to develop the EIA draft law and the draft code of environmental and natural resources.
Mr. William Ward, Director of Green Equity Asia (GEA), is giving the key note on regarding to public participation in EIA.
Ms. Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, CCSI Senior Legal Researcher, is giving keynote on regarding the role of EIA in sustainable investment and development.
Subsequently, Mr. William Ward, Director of Green Equity Asia (GEA) – a Special Initiative of the East-West Management Institute – demonstrated the importance of public engagement and transparency in development projects. During his keynote speech, William added that the projects need to be assessed in terms of their social and economic impacts as well as environmental concerns. Moreover, the release of EIA reports can also stimulate discussion among the public and enable them to provide inputs for better decision-making.
Ms. Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Senior legal researcher with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), briefly explained her work on sustainable investment and development, based on the key finding of a recent EIA project of CCSI. She stressed that transparency is a necessary first step in facilitating public participation in decision-making processes, in which a wide range of participants and voices should be represented. Moreover, she also emphasized the importance of making all relevant information accessible in an impartial, contextualized, accessible and culturally appropriate form.
Then ODC team presented the data available on its open data platform, focusing on Environmental Impact Assessment, Special Economic Zones, Hydropower, among others. The team also explained the functionalities of the website, such as the interactive maps, and how data can be downloaded.
An interesting panel discussion followed by CEO of Sustinat Green Co., Ltd (EIA firm) Mr. Sok Vannara; NGO Forum’s Environment and Agriculture Program Manager Mr. Hok Menghoin; and Development and Partnership in Action officer Mr. Chhuon Sophaphai and Mr. Thy Try facilitated the discussion.
Referring to the implementation of EIA, Mr. Vannara mentioned that the current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a substantial decrease in the demand for EIA consultation services due to the drop of the new projects on the one hand, and the delay of EIA studies of existing projects. In his own words, he explained that “The gathering restriction has prevented us to conduct physical activities such as field survey, public consultation, and inter-ministerial consultation meeting. What we can do is to conduct the distance meeting or phone call.” Regarding this issue, Mr. Vannara suggested the Ministry of Environment consider an amendment or adjusting procedure for accelerating EIA processes and enforcing the implementation of environmental law and regulations.
The Development and Partnership in Action -Extractive Industry Social and Environmental (DPA-EISEI) Network representative, Mr. Sophaphai, mentioned that besides the COVID-19 impact, the network also faces some considerable challenges when it comes to EIA monitoring practices in extractive industries, such as the technical skills, financial resources, and lack of understanding.
“In such regard, mostly what CSOs can do is on reviewing the draft EIA report shared by the EIA department and conducting field validation afterward. For example, we might go to the company site and investigate whether the company is doing like what stated in the report or not. And to some cases, we were banned,” he said.
In the same line, Mr. Menghoin added that the limited access to final versions of EIA reports, the lack of awareness on EIA, the low public participation in the consultation processes and the challenges in monitoring and policy implementation, hinder the CSOs engagement as well as the alignment to regional and international principles and guidelines. He mentioned that technical experts/researchers and academia should also actively involved in the EIA participation and consultation.
After the panel discussion, participants were given the floor to engage in the conversation and share their opinions, comments, suggestions and questions to the panelists. It was thought-provoking when Mr. Chanroat, Transparency Cambodia program manager, suggested the wider involvement of media in EIA. He stressed the important role of media in disseminating the information to the public while highlighting the gaps when media are not widely involved in the EIA process. In addition to sharing the EIA reports, he requested to make meeting minutes from EIA processes publicly accessible as well. According to him, this would raise public awareness and give citizens tools to track the progress of EIA, which in turn can hold the company and ministry accountable for environmental concerns.
A representative of Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) from Kampong Thom province, Mr. Hoeun Sopheap, also commented on the vital role of communities dealing with the environmental issue and the ability to hold companies accountable to them. Another representative further stressed on the need to build the capacity of people in the communities, stating that if a community is directly affected by a project, its members need to understand the relevant environmental law.
The workshop was a highly engaging event in which participants were active and showed interest in the topic. Throughout the half-day workshop, participants were really energetic and attentive, while the guest-speakers provided key insights, especially regarding challenges and recommendations of EIA in Cambodia. This resulted in a fruitful opportunity for participants to improve their understanding of the importance of EIAs and its implications on the environment while recalling the need to have EIA reports publicly accessible. Participants agreed on the importance of open EIA reports being available online and their critical role in promoting transparent governance of natural resources and sustainable development at the national and global levels.
Before the end of the workshop, Ms. Siv Vatana, Research and Content Officer of ODC, delivered a speech to thank to the distinguished speakers and all stakeholders for their active participation and highly appreciated their interest and inputs in this meaningful workshop. She and the Open Development Cambodia, strongly believes that well-informed citizens can greatly advance inclusive public participation processes, which over time, might lead to growing communication mechanisms and understanding between the government, citizens and the private sector, all resulting into greater environmental governance, political transparency and accountability, social benefit and economic growth.
What is EIA, why is it needed to be opened to the public?
Environmental Impact Assessment or (EIA) is widely recognized as a tool that can ensure sustainable development with minimal environmental degradation. It is an important tool used to identify and assess environmental and social impacts in the early stages of project planning and design. At the same time, the findings of EIA will be disseminated to the public with the purpose to improve their understanding and enabling them to participate in consultations, as well as to inform decision-makers about the solutions and mechanisms to mitigate potential negative impacts by ensuring that all development projects are environmentally friendly.
In Cambodia, EIA is required by law, mostly for large development projects, and it is further enforced by the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, which requires public consultation and participation. The Environmental Impact Assessment Department of the Ministry of Environment is open to public consultation and participation, especially by civil society organizations working closely with local communities to ensure that the concerns of project-affected communities will be included in the initial impact assessment report and full report.
However, the information that the public received remains limited and citizens are largely not well-informed about the topic. Typically, the technicities of the EIA reports make them inaccessible and difficult to comprehend for most citizens. Although these reports have been made public by the government, neither relevant stakeholders nor citizens are fully aware of the information contained, which hinders their capacity to analyze and take part in policy debates as stated in their rights to public consultation.
