Module 2 – Introduction and Background to Integrated Environmental Assessment in Africa

Integrated environmental assessment (IEA) and reporting has been used to link human development, economic activity, and environmental management in the context of sustainable development. The realization of the importance of these links has been evolving since the late 1960s in the United States of America and early 1970s at the international level when in Stockholm, in 1972, the United Nations Conference on Human Environment adopted a declaration which, among other decisions, provided for environmental assessment and reporting (UNEP 1981) (see Section 2.3 below). More than a decade later in 1983, the United Nations established the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which went on to define the relationship between environment and development in its 1987 report, Our Common Future. The report also advanced the concept of sustainable development, which defines environmental policy responses today.