SAIEA
The Southern African Institute for Environmental Assessment
... working for a better Africa

Calabash

Calabash Products


Calabash has been developed from the ground up. All Calabash products have had input from a range of stakeholders who are actively involved in community engagement to ensure the tools are practical and relevant to the social, cultural, environmental and economic realities of the SADC region. Below is a brief summary of these agreed programme outputs:

A Guide to Opportunities for Public Participation in Environmental Assessment Processes in the Southern Africa Development Community. This handbook contains a clear description of all the rights that communities and the public have to participation in environmental decision-making as conferred by international, regional and SADC region conventions, laws and policies related to environmental impact assessment and decision-making. This document has approached the rights issue from "an opportunity to participate" perspective, and is formatted around several key questions for each SADC country.

Generic Public Participation Terms of Reference for civil society engagement involved in a point EIA (e.g. mine site), linear EIA (e.g. pipeline) or a regional strategic environmental assessment. Also included in the document are guidelines and tips on how to develop Terms of Reference that ensure that all contracting parties achieve maximum satisfaction and results throughout the duration of the relationship for a particular project.

A Situation Assessment, which describes and analyses the status of public participation and EIA for all countries of the SADC region.
Research into 6 case studies in the SADC region where environmental assessment and public participation done with distinction. Time and time again, studies show that when civil society has a chance to contribute to development planning, the end result is a project or program that has more far reaching direct and indirect development benefits than were originally planned. This is the first time that 6 projects from the SADC region have gone through such detailed analysis.

A One-Stop Participation Guide: A Handbook of Public Participation in Environmental Assessment in Southern Africa. The lessons learned from the 6 case studies were integrated into the handbook methodologies. The Handbook is unique in that it offers tips and the process to follow for public participation from the perspective of the 4 key stakeholders who are part of any Public Participation process: Regulators, Industry, Practitioners and Civil Society.

The handbook also contains a PP Best Practice Model, a PP Review Template which can be used during the review or planning of a PP programme and a series of template letters which civil society can use to ensure that their voices are heard and respected in a respective public participation process.

Share by: