Environmental and Social Impact Assessment in Central Africa

The Environmental Impact Assessment is an important tool for decision-making in the implementation of development projects. However, within African regions, its procedures vary from one country to another. This poses a problem when it comes to implementing projects with cross-border impacts. In Central Africa, these difficulties generally involve: poor management of the roles of institutional actors, resulting in overlapping responsibilities and failure to meet implementation deadlines; subjective and inadequate consideration of projects’ environmental impacts; conflicts of interest in the management of transboundary ecosystems; the use of divergent tools and terminology depending on the laws and procedures of different countries. This study aims to analyze Environmental Impact Assessment procedures in Cameroon, Chad, and the Central African Republic in order to present prospects for harmonizing and aligning these procedures among Central African states.