Developing an evaluation approach to consider the influence of country context on environmental impact assessment performance, from a southern African perspective

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) as an environmental policy has been adopted in some countries. However, in terms of achieving its stated objectives in the developing country context, EIA system performance often falls short compared with the developed country context. Evaluation of EIA system performance has gained considerable attention with the aim of ensuring the achievement of its purpose, most recognizably the promotion of sustainable development through informed decision‐making. Different evaluation approaches have been developed and applied to explore areas of inadequacy in the EIA system components, EIA implementation, and EIA report. Researchers have considered the context of the EIA system as the underlying cause of its limited performance in developing countries. However, the literature has not rigorously explored the relationship between EIA system performance and country context, and it is the subject of ongoing debate. Our aim in this article is to contribute to the practical analysis of the influence of country context on EIA system performance. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks and evaluation methods in the literature, we propose an evaluation approach to the EIA system performance that combines the importance of considering the country context in the evaluation process. It consists of EIA system components, EIA report, and an indicative set of country context indicators. The developed evaluation approach was validated by applying it to four case studies from southern Africa. The South African case study results are presented here. The outcome is a practical evaluation approach that promotes understanding of the relationship between EIA system performance and country context and can improve EIA system performance. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;00:1–15. © 2023 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).