Environmental and social impact assessment: what is its impact and effectiveness for the poor in African cities?

The implementation of the NUA and of the SDGS largely depends on the adoption, enactment and enforcement of good urban legislation. Good urban legislation is in fact effective legislation. Effective legislative is the one that can deliver results and achieve its objectives.

NUA creates opportunity for the relationship between urbanisation and sustainable development to be strengthened by rule of law. Environmental and social impact assessment is the starting point of the legal relationship between urbanisation and sustainable development. This event creates a forum in which participants can share experiences in the practise of law, challenges in the practises of legal representation, threats posed by inadequate tribunal systems and scarcity of legal expertise.

Panellists will present their work with some of the poorest sections of society, giving examples of ESIA and where it has failed to deliver impact for the poor in society.

ESIA have the legal capacity to support sustainable urban development processes, integrated into the broader decision making frameworks which are envisaged if SDGs are to be met. UN Habitat Legislative Unit and Protimos will show how such legal instruments can be used to implement particular SDGs such as . Uncertain land ownership, public participation, foreign direct investment and corruption all combine to reduce the impact of ESIAs.

Effective legislation is crucial in emerging African economies but can only succeed if it is underpinned

- by the political will to implement such legislation,

- by capable and resourced tribunal systems and

- by meaningful access to lawyers for the impoverished.

This panel presentation and discussions will consider what is needed in order to make ESIA in all its forms an effective tool for sustainable development. For many socio-economic reasons, the poor travel to cities because the fragile balance between their livelihood and their land has been disturbed by badly planned development. Family members flock to the city in search of the cash upon which their subsistence depends. The consequences of urban migration by the resettled community unregulated by environmental and social understanding can become entirely unsustainable. Compensation failures and absence of technical assistance leads to long term social problems which could have been avoided by implementing appropriate ESIA mechanisms. Access to law and the full implementation of ESIA is a set of legal mechanisms which can ensure sustainable development and the implementation of the NUA. The panel discussions will look at a wide range of problems associated with ESIA: the adequacy of the legislation, the level of coordination between ESIA and other policies, implementation, review mechanism and long term impact.