The NCEA has reviewed the SEA for the Great Western China Development Strategy (GWDS), providing critical comments and recommendations for improvement.
Significant details
The World Bank has requested the NCEA to review the draft SEA for the Great Western China Development Strategy (GWDS).
The NCEA issued an advice of the secretariat in which it provided general as well as detailed comments on the SEA report, as well as recommendations for improvement. The NCEA's conclusions were critical, indicating that the report does not meet the standards for a good quality SEA report. Main findings included:
- No alternatives were considered and stakeholder participation was very limited;
- The policies, plans and projects to be initiated by the GWDS were not clearly described;
- Obvious negative socio-economic impacts are not mentioned in the report;
- Information in some sections is incomplete, incorrect or not objective;
- Many recommendations provided in the last chapter of the report do not reflect the conclusions of the report.
For each of these shortcomings, recommendations were provided for improval. In addition, the NCEA's advice describes a number of more detailed comments per chapter.