Institutional problems and issues

During the EAP preparation process, a number of institutional issues were identified in six areas: land management, water resource management, marine and coastal ecosystems, mining industry and hazardous chemicals, human settlements, and forest and wildlife.

In the area of land management, the institutional issues were that:

- there were a multiplicity of land management agencies, in fact as many as 22 with varying responsibilities;

- the coordinating management functions among agencies were not clear because they saw themselves as autonomous units, each with a specific mandate under different ministries; and

- each agency saw the problems or potentialities of the environment from its professional technical point of view and in terms of its mandate.

In the water resource management sector the major problems were:

- the improper definition of areas of responsibility, resulting in overlapping of efforts and different standards of measurement and analysis;

- the lack of an organization responsible for the overall management of water resources - functions were diffused among a number of agencies with respect to the abstraction of water and the discharge of effluents, and many of the water agencies dealt with individual aspects of water use to serve individual sectors of the economy.

In the marine and coastal ecosystems area, the issues were mainly a lack of the necessary manpower, equipment, and training in existing agencies.

In the mining industry and hazardous chemicals, problems were:

- an absence of an appropriate legislative framework for hazardous chemicals - there was a need for clear-cut arrangements for the enactment and enforcement of laws of the environment and a need for a dispute settlement procedure;

- weak institutional strength in terms of staffing, training, equipment, and logistical and financial support.

In the human settlement sector the issues were that the overall direction and integration of human settlement policy were inadequate to ensure consistency in the training of personnel and execution of policy with regard to population distribution and the provision of infrastructure and services.

In the forest and wildlife sector, training in modern techniques was recognized as an important requirement.