E

EIS ARCHIVED NEWSLETTERS

July 2001

Performing the EIS best practice case studies in Ghana and Uganda

By Ulrik Mårtensson (DUMECO HB, Lund, Sweden)

 

Introduction

The Ghana study was performed during 1998/99 and the Uganda study during 2000. The out-come of both was positively received by the EIS advisory committee. The Ghana study was reviewed and discussed during at least one of the yearly committee meetings (Nairobi 1999). The Uganda study has only recently appeared in its final form and has not yet been officially reviewed by the EIS community.

The studies were conducted under quite different conditions.

In Ghana the  Country at A Glance (CAG)¹⁾ database had already been completed before beginning the EIS case study. 1.]This provided the opportunity to learn of and understand the national EIS terrain before commencing the study. For the Uganda study the conditions were different, as the country had not yet created a CAG database and we had no previous experience from the EIS network in that country. Thus the initial conditions for conducting the case studies in the two countries differed. This is interesting, since it will allow this paper to cover two different cases from the executing organisation’s (in this case DUMECO’s) point of view and give appropriate advice to others facing the same working situations.

The paper will focus on the country-wise inventory process, and make recommendations on working methodology and approaches.

The methodology for conducting case studies had already been outlined in the Terms of Referenc (ToR) for the first pilot case study that was performed in Zimbabwe. Since then, there had been only very minor changes made to the original ToR. However the three teams conducting the three initial studies had made slightly different interpretations of the ToR, which is reflected in the outcome of the case studies. Some influence of the team member’s field of expertise may also be traced, to a lesser extent, in the reports.

 

Very briefly, the studies were required to cover  the technical, institutional, economical and human resource aspects of the EIS–implementation process and ,inparticular, focus on lessons learned in the different countries. The outcome of the study was to be reviewed by the EIS stakeholders before presenting this as a final report.

Problems

Several Difficulties were encountered in executing the studies in accordance with the ToR. These are outlined below:

• The initial task is to identify and describe: a) EIS stakeholders in the country; b) the actual EIS situation, and c) the steps taken to arrive at this situation. This involves penetrating the national EIS society. The problem is to find a key that assures access to this.

• A major problem is also to ensure that all stakeholders are actually being identified. This is particularly true on the user side, as not all potential users are may yet  have been identified or even be aware that the EIS exists.

• Data holdings, and particularly the actual status of data holdings, are very difficult to assess.

• It is difficult to distil meaningful, precise information from general statements. An organisation that has completed analogue to digital transfer of 90 % of their data holdings may actually not at all be 90 % ready. The 10 % remaining may be the hilliest area in the country, containing very dense contours and digitising them represents 30 % of the total workload.

• The time span suggested in the ToR is by nature limited. It must be understood that allocated time is effective time, not calendar time. It is sufficient to put 2-3 man-months on a case study, but the input has to be distributed over a longer time span, to allow for interaction with the EIS community. This is very important if the participation of the stakeholders and their feedback is to be included in the study.

• The economic and also other benefits of the implementation of digital techniques have not been well covered in previous studies in countries in the region. This aspect is consequently difficult to cover, since it requires extensive base line data collection. At present the EIS advisory committee has decided to perform such studies outside the country case studies, which is probably the best solution.

• Some organisations or individuals may perceive supposed the case study as an evaluation of their work. They may be inclined to hide less successful parts of the implementation in order to avoid criticism. It is very important that all organisations are well informed about the objectives of the case study and to underline that no one is going to be held responsible for whatever may have gone wrong during implementation.

• Political considerations and also sometimes rivalry between organisations may hamper the progress of the case studies

The general approach and methodology was given in the ToR, and naturally the first country case study, Zimbabwe, served as a model for the later studies. For the purpose of facilitating comparing the reports, the table of contents for both the Ghana and the Uganda studies was kept as for the Zimbabwe study. The methodology for collecting all necessary information adopted by DUMECO was based on three main operations:

1. Questionnaires were distributed to all EIS stakeholders and to organisations that were regarded as peripheral but still having interest in the implementation process. This involved about 30-40 organisations in each country.

2. On-site interviews were conducted with a selected number of persons at selected organisations identified as the dominant or more important than average to the implementation process. This involved about 5 to 10 organisations.

3. Workshops were convened to discuss the outcome of the two information gathering exercises.

Questionnaires

The questionnaires were elaborated in close co-operation with several roleplayers in the EIS community. These were in the main the national and international experts, but opinions and suggestions from particularly individuals with long experience from the process were considered. A major problem with the questionnaire was to convince organisations and individuals to fill them in. In some cases the only way to get a result was to actually visit the organisation and do the work together with a number of officials. It was also evident that the information flow inside organisations was not always the best. In some cases the cover letter sent with the questionnaire explaining the purpose was not distributed to the person filling the form. Another issue was the number and level of detail of the questions, that seemed to be too much for some and too little for others, hardly ever just enough.

Interviews

Interviews were conducted at a number of organisations. Their selection was mostly  due to the fact that they had had long experience and it was recognised that their example was interesting to disseminate to others. In the Ghana case, the interviews were not performed systematically with all project team member assisting at all occasions. For the Uganda case, more emphasis was put on the interviews and all team members were present at all occasions. This provided three sets of notes that were compared and assembled afterwards. This approach resulted in a more complex description of the visited organisation and was considered to be an improvement to the methodology.

Workshops

Before the studies started, it was recognised that a participatory approach was absolutely necessary to achieve the aims with the study. It is virtually impossible to conduct an inventory of the implementation process in a country without intense listening to the opinions of the persons actually conducting and participating in the process. As a result of this, some minor improvements were incorporated into the original methodology. The case study projects for both Ghana and Uganda were initiated by a workshop, something that did not occur in the previous studies. The purpose of this was to inform the EIS stakeholders about the project and to promote a co-operative environment. The workshop also devoted half a day to discussing what the participants regarded as the major difficulties and problems in the implementation process as well as in operating active systems whenever appropriate. The intention was also to select and establish contact with organisations for interviews.

 

The second workshop was used to present the findings of the case study and to get the stakeholder feedback on the results. This was an opportunity for certain organisations to explain specific conditions that had led to a certain result concerning the implementation process. It also ensured that nothing in the report was considered to be a threat to individuals or organisations involved in the study. It was expressly stated that the report should not only represent a result emanating from a consulting company, but should rather reflect the stakeholder community and its points of view on the implementation process, with comments and suggestions from the team of consultants. This is a very important step in the study: the stakeholders should be allowed to speak freely and contribute actively to the result, while the broader analysis should be performed by the consultants who hopefully at that point, have a better overview of the whole situation than the country stakeholders.

 

To stage two workshops instead of one gives several advantages to the case study and for the team conducting it. It is an opportunity for the international expert(s) to present themselves and to get to know the EIS society. It gives the participants more opportunities to influence on the outcome and even on the methodology of the process. This means that the majority of the stakeholders consider themselves as well informed and agreeing on both aims and outcome of the project. Such a participatory approach was later advocated as very important in the EIS implementation processes. The workshops were also an event in the general implementation process, an occasion for networking, and for the participants to meet and discuss problems they experience in daily operation of EIS or implementation work.

 

A second adaptation to the methodology was made in the Uganda case study, on the recommendation of the EIS advisory committee after its meeting in Nairobi, September 1999. At that meeting, it was concluded that all proceeding case studies tended to be general in their approach, avoiding specific case descriptions within the country. So the Uganda case came to include four specific cases derived from environmental related organisations in the country, starting with the NEMA, National Environment Management Authority. The Uganda case differs also from the other studies in that the spreading of GIS not only occurs at the central level but has been introduced at local government level (district level). While it can be argued that no countries will have their administrations organised in exactly the same manner, the organisation level case studies will help outsiders to penetrate the country-specific conditions. These cases illustrates hands-on examples of the process, and may well serve as model and exemples for others not yet at the same level.

The approach adopted in Ghana proved to be very efficient in studying the implementation process and its success. Particularly the timing of the CAG-project and the EIS-project lies behind this fact. The combination of first performing the Country at a Glance database assembly and then the EIS case study made it possible to get a much more detailed image of the actual situation in the country. The construction of the CAG-database had to be done in close co-operation with the main data producers and EIS stakeholders in the country. Thus the actual database assembly and construction process involved long discussions and deep co-operation with technical staff and others at several organisations. This gave an excellent opportunity to evaluate the actual status of the process, the consciousness of the staff and the general user and actual data holdings at each organisation. In other words, it provided a logical entry into the EIS-community and gave the consultants an identity and a position in the national EIS-society. The CAG was also important for the general implementation process since data, in some cases for the first time, was to be used for external purposes, outside the GIS-unit of the organisation. In that respect, it had been a kind of test for the EIS stakeholder network and data production qualities.

 

To understand and include the points of view of all stakeholders is very important for the success of an EIS case study. It is necessary to avoid being content with only the most prominent examples. Implementation at national level is a very delicate and difficult operation. Due to different backgrounds, different organisations may adopt new technology with different speed and success. It is not only the good examples that should be reported; on the contrary more can be learnt from an unsuccessful attempt to reach a specific aim.

 

The adopted working methodology has proven to be sufficiently efficient to meet the demands of the given tasks.

Recommendations

·         It is preferable to be able to enter into the EIScommunity in a context not directly aiming at some kind of “evaluation”-like situation is an advantage to the study, as was the case in Ghana, where the consultant had the opportunity to first prove his abilities by constructing a database that was very well received and recognised by the EIS-society. The CAG-project provided an example on an application that could promote EIS and also to some extent inspire organisations to see possibilities for cost recovery when distributing data. There may be several other solutions to this but one is evidently to combine the EIS case study with a CAG-project. It is therefore recommended that future EIS case studies be performed in a similar context.

·         It is also recommended that the international expert conducting the study should not have a previous long-term engagement in the country. If this is the case she or he will already have prejudgements about different organisations and may even have participated in internal quarrels and be biased in her/his judgements by this.

·         Mutual confidence and understanding between the study consultant and the study “subjects” is essential for the outcome of the project. An important part of obtaining such a relationship is that the subject is well informed about the aim and objective of the study. It is recommended that any EIS study should start with a workshop, inviting all possible stakeholders. This workshop should be devoted to building confidence and at the same time investigating different organisations. The project approach and working methodology could also be revised using the extensive knowledge about local conditions that will be present at such a meeting.

·         It is a good idea to distribute a questionnaire together with the invitations to the first workshop and try to present some preliminary findings at the workshop. During the workshop a small amount of time should be devoted to pressure those that have not responded to do so. Another suggestion is that the questionnaires are standardised and the same form used in all future studies.

·         At first glance, people tend to put an equal sign between EIS and GIS. It is important to avoid this and ensure the participation of those EIS stakeholders that are not directly involved in GIS or have not even commenced using any kind of digital databases. A typical example is the national statistics office, normally holder of the most extensive national databases and often not conscious about environment or GIS, but still a major data producer for the more obvious EIS institutions.

·         So far the EIS case studies include very few examples of applications. Whenever applications are found, an extra effort should be furnished to document them. A general remark, valid for the whole world, is that the EIS/GIS sector in many respect are filled with examples of professional data collection efforts but the applications are relatively few. Any “good example” that can be reported is consequently very important in the process of inspiring others and promoting the implementation of EIS.

·         It is recommended that the organisation-specific case studies are included in future studies as well. They will hardly be comparable between countries due to different conditions, but they will assist national policy makers to select models for continuing the implementation process. They may also serve as a source of inspiration for similar organisations in other countries.

 

BACK