SEA profile

Updated to: 19 August 2020

Establishing context

Implementing SEA

Informing decision making

Follow-up

SEA practice

Annual no. of SEAs

Sofar less than 1 per year

NCEA's capacity development activities

The NCEA assisted in several SEA introductory training workshops to relevant MITADER staff and advice on draft SEA guidance/regulations in August 2017, December 2017 and May 2018. 

Also around over 30 people of different public and private organizations were trained between 2013 and 2017 as part of the SIDA/NIRAS supported International Training Programme on SEA. 

Background information

History of SEA

The Environmental Law requires an EIA for an activity, which it defines as: any action of public or private initiative related to the usage or exploration of environmental components and the use of technologies or production processes, plans, programmes, legislation or regulation acts, that affect or may affect the environment'. But there are no regulations in place that help to operationalise SEA. 

There is a growing debate regarding the need of introducing the obligation to apply SEA to policies, plans and programmes.

The application of SEA in Mozambique started in late 1990's in an ad-hoc manner, most of them related to sector planning, district and municipal land use plans. 

The Government of Mozambique - aware of the limited capacities of EIA for the management of environmental and social impacts at strategic level -  recently started introducing SEA for sustainable management and utilisation of natural resources. Recent milestones include the SEA for the development of the coastal zone and the special spatial planning/multi sector plan for Zambezi. Both were approved by the council of Ministers.

Legal framework

Enabling law

Environmental Law 1997

National detailed regulation

Only a first unofficial draft available (2012)

Guidelines

A first outline of SEA guidelines is available 

Institutional setting

Central SEA authority

Currently, there is no clear mandate for coordinating SEA processes across sector ministries. Each sector formulates their own SEA without consulting each other. This makes the implementation of SEA  ineffective. The establishment of an SEA regulatory framework can greatly help to align SEA approaches for individual initiatives. 

One of the institutional key players in SEA implementation is  MITADER. The Ministry has established an SEA unit with the main task to coordinate all SEA processes and act as an institutional focal point for conducting SEA's. 

Contact

Direcção de Planificação e Cooperação of MITADER

Rua de Kassuende, 167
Cidade de Maputo
Tel: 823063020 / 21492403
Fax: 21490746

Since 2020, MITADER is called MTA: Ministry of Land and Environment.