From environmental impact assessment to strategic environmental assessment in Bangladesh: Evolution, perspective, governance and challenges

How do Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) evolve in Bangladesh regarding legislation? Who should be in the governance of SEA in Bangladesh? What future challenges lie ahead of this transition to the SEA system in Bangladesh, and how to address them? The application context of SEA is in its early stage of development in Bangladesh as an environmental assessment tool for policy, plans, and programs (PPPs). Nevertheless, SEA has meaningfully started to roll in many PPPs by the political will of some key government institutions in Bangladesh. In such a scenario, we aimed to review the progression of EIA to SEA evolution in line with the current legislative practice and environmental governance by archival research strategy. We have further addressed several significant issues: the future of SEA application in Bangladesh, SEA governance within the authorities and the future obstacles of the SEA system and how to overcome them in Bangladesh. This study shows a potential for applying the SEA for developing PPPs to ensure sustainable development in Bangladesh. However, there are still challenges ahead to make the SEA fully functional. The challenges include the environmental governance concerning SEA, encoding SEA guidelines, and legislations associated with SEA implementation. Moreover, capacity building, technical review of SEA quality, and approval process of SEA reporting and coordination among the government institutions are required. To address the challenges, governance for the institutional authority for SEA and ownership development is necessary. Furhtermore, amendment of existing environmental acts and guidelines to incorporate SEA, institutional capacity building by professional training and awareness development, mainstreaming SEA education and practices are required to overcome the challenges.