1.06 Country and regional programmes: organisational and individual capacity

It is essential for the effectiveness of an EA system that organisations with a responsibility in this system have the capacity to perform their tasks. This relates to both governance and technical capacity. It applies both to governmental organisations with formal roles and to non-governmental organisations with more informal roles, such as NGOs and universities. In the NCEA systems approach, the roles of organisations are related to system functions. We maintain a broad definition of organisation. For example, we consider a network of professionals as an organisation that contributes to EA system functions. Traditionally, some of the activities of the NCEA are targeted towards individuals, often comprising of a small selection of individuals from different organisations, such as a team responsible for ESIA within an environmental agency. These activities are geared towards supporting individual professional development to enable them to perform their specific tasks within the organisation or network. This usually involves individual training and/or coaching, often and preferably as components of organisational capacity development interventions. The NCEA’s work on capacity, both on an organisational and individual level, differs greatly in focus and in number or size of training and advisory related activities. The focus of these training activities could be on the overall EA procedure, on specific steps in the EA process such as scoping and review, on EA and compliance, on process related topics such as public participation, communication or negotiations skills, to name a few. The focus and size of activities depend on the country’s needs, influenced by the stage of development and effectiveness of the EA system, the ambition level, the size of the country, the level of decentralisation.