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IETC Pilot Programme on Environmental Technology Assessment Serves Real Training Needs

A workshop on Environmental Technology Assessment (EnTA) for decision-makers in sustainable urban and lake/reservoir management was held in Kuala Lumpur from 12 through 17 November 1995. UNEP-IETC and the Malaysia National Institute of Public Administration (INTAN) jointly conducted the workshop in collaboration with the Urban Management Programme's (UMP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. This IETC pilot training event brought together 22 participants, including eight women, representing Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The majority of participants were local government officials, principals and senior lecturers at environmental training institutions, representatives of NGOs and experts working in the private sector.

The core pilot training programme was developed by Drs. Robert Berloznik, Advisor for technology assessment to the general manager of the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) at Mol, Belgium, and Prof. Dr. Luk Van Langenhove, Director of the Science and Technology Management and Assessment Unit (STAM) at the Free University of Brussels. Complementary sessions on "TA and development", "Stakeholders in TA", "Institutional Aspects of TA", and "Design of National Follow-up Training in TA" were facilitated by Dr. Susantha Goonatilake of the New School of Research, New York; Prof. Dr. J.J. Kojo Asiedu of the African Regional Centre for Technology, Dakar; Dr. Y.S. Rajan of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council, New Delhi; and Ms. Edith Cecil of the U.S. Environmental Training Institute, Washington DC., respectively. Participants proved to be highly motivated, interested and determined to learn more about environmental technology assessment as an analytical tool for helping to understand the likely impacts of new technologies on the environment. They greatly appreciated the proactive design of the training format, a series of workshops including case study presentations, site-visits, exercises and group discussions. It was also generally agreed that a preliminary study, IETC's first technical publication titled "Training needs in utilizing ETA for decision-making", distributed to the participants and resource persons at the Malaysia pilot workshop helped to make the programme a success.

Workshop participants realized the significant role technology assessment plays in complementing such tools as environmental impact assessment and environmental risk assessment in the process of sustainable development. Since so far only rudimentary institutional capacity for EnTA exists in most of the eight represented countries, participants decided to establish a network of Technology Assessment institutions in Southeast Asia and to closely collaborate with both the EnTA Programme initiated by UNEP IE/PAC, Paris, and the International Association for Technology Assessment and Forecasting Institutions (IATAFI). Officials attending the workshop in Kuala Lumpur also agreed to take the lead in organizing national follow-up training activities on technology assessment in their home countries.

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