J48716 Willend EIA ResearchReport V4 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 11
the grant funding previously secured from World
Bank related initiatives. The opportunity to seek
to supplement this on-going FMEnv funding, of
the Department’s digital EIA ambitions, with new
support from the World Bank / other Multi-lateral
Financial Institution or other development related
finance is discussed further in Chapter 3.
The Department’s current work on progressing
Digital EIA is linked to Section 57(1) of the EIA
legislation, which sets out the need for FMEnv
to develop a public registry for EIA projects.
This registry is expected to allow access to
EIA Reports, consultee responses and other
documents related to the EIA process. The
Department has recognised the opportunity of
providing this registry in digital form, to enable far
greater access than if it were a hard-copy archive
maintained at the Ministry’s headquarters. The
Department’s ambition, however, goes further
than this recognising that the development of an
active digital registry for live EIA documents during
the process, would provide far more benefits
and make a much bigger step in modernising the
FMEnv’s EIA management systems, than simply
investing in a digital archive to store documents
after the process has been completed. Such
an active system would enable efficiencies for
Expert Review Panel members to quickly access
documents and enable greater opportunity for
stakeholders to engage with Nigeria’s EIA system,
alongside existing newspaper advertisements and
availability of documents in State capitals and
local facilities.
Current progress being made by the FMEnv in
relation to the Department’s digital EIA roadmap,
include:
- EIA Portal Phase 1 this includes the
development and deployment of the EIA
registration system, enabling EIA project
developers to undertake the first phase of
the formal EIA process – Registration (see 2.1
above) online. This phase will not only enable
registration, but each EIA will have a project
profile, which the Department can provide
feedback on.
- Installation of a Local Area Network (LAN)
system within its headquarters. This is a key
development as it will provide the ICT system
capacity for the Department to install local
servers that will act to both host and enable
users online access to the forthcoming Online
EIA Registry.
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
software, the Department has identified
GIS-Lab as a suitable system to enable the
greater use and deployment of GIS mapping
of environmental data for its Officer’s. While
software and licence requirements have
been secured the deployment, operation
and maintenance of this GIS systems
across the Department is on-hold. Such GIS
systems require skills and experience that
are more commonly associated with ICT
professionals than those working in EIA. This
area of digital EIA progress highlights a key
challenge for the FMEnv’s Environmental
Assessment Department as the planning
and implementation of any major digital
system development and roll out requires ICT
professionals, but the Officers within its staff
are inevitably of environmental and scientific
backgrounds. As such, at present further
training and upskilling of a proportion of the
Department’s staff is required to enable it to
progress the digital portal; however, ultimately a
ICT team within the Department will be required,
and is likely to require skills and experience that
cannot be quickly or easily developed in existing
staff via training.
The FMEnv’s online registry system, is the starting
point for its EIA Portal, which will act as the
gateway upon which wider digital functionality
will be built, including the EIA document archive
required by Section 57(1) of the EIA law, as well as
the ability to manage key steps in live EIA process.
Willend Associates and FothergillTC Ltd – Digitization in and around Nigerian EIA
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