Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 22 August, a consultation meeting of stakeholders on the project "Support for the implementation of a pilot strategic environmental assessment (SEA)" was held in Tashkent.

The purpose of the consultation meeting is to ensure that the stakeholders understand the project activities required for implementation within the framework of the preliminary SEA assessment, discuss the implementation timeline and the stakeholder engagement plan.

As a result of the meeting, it is planned to collect recommendations from stakeholders, which will further help improve the development and implementation of the SEA by a specialized environmental consulting company in Uzbekistan.

The event was attended by representatives of ministries and departments of Uzbekistan, international organizations, including the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Asian Development Bank and others.

“Today we are holding a consultation workshop with stakeholders on a strategic environmental assessment project specifically for the Charvak tourism economic zone. This project will support the government in ensuring the environmental sustainability of investments in infrastructure, buildings and businesses that are attracted to the area. As you know, this is a very popular region for tourists and it has great potential to attract further investment and growth, so it is very important for us now to assess the current state of the environment to understand what the likely impact of further development of this area will be. So that the government has clear guidelines and a plan on how to prioritize investments in this area,” said GGGI Country Representative Dr. Aaron Russell.

The project manager Goin Lorian also spoke about the role of the French Development Agency in Uzbekistan.

“Our agency finances mainly water supply, sanitation and waste management projects. We also have a green economy project, in which we conduct a strategic environmental assessment with the help of the GGGI representative office in Uzbekistan. It aims to integrate climate and environmental assessments into the strategic plans of local institutions to help them incorporate these topics into their planning applications.”

Within the framework of the meeting, presentations of the master plan and prospects for the development of the Charvak SPZ, opportunities and problems of Bostanlyk district, interactive prioritization of environmental problems, group discussions, exchange of experience in collecting data for the SEA study, a plenary report on key ideas and presentation of the next steps were held.

The event was organized by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) together with the French Development Agency (AFD) with the support of the Ministry of Ecology, Environment and Climate Change.

On 15 February 2023, GGGI and AFD signed an agreement on the project "Support for the implementation of a pilot strategic environmental assessment (SEA)".

The project is aimed at identifying a sectoral policy/program under development and subject to SEA, conducting a pilot SEA and summarizing the experience gained during the pilot project, which will allow the implementation of SEA approaches in the policy planning process for sustainable tourism development taking into account environmental protection. GGGI is responsible for creating the basic conditions for the SEA, which will be carried out by a specialized environmental consulting company engaged by AFD.