Bhutan: Country Environmental Safeguard Review

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Abstract

The country environmental safeguard review provides an overall assessment of Bhutan's environmental safeguard system. The study is not intended to be comprehensive or prescriptive. It is meant to provide a broad overview of some key legal, policy, and institutional challenges and highlight some options for possible future action. The following points identify the broad focus of the review: (i) identify critical gaps in Bhutan's policies and regulations for environmental safeguard management and specific measures to reach equivalence with international best practice (equivalence analysis); (ii) evaluate Bhutan's capacity and commitment to implement its environmental policies and regulations and assess specific actions that are necessary to strengthen institutional capacity and improve outcomes (acceptability assessment); and (iii) prioritize options for enhancement of Bhutan's environmental safeguard systems, particularly critical actions needed to keep pace with economic development and Royal Government of Bhutan (RGOB) commitment to decentralize decision making to the district level. This review recognizes that the differences between Bhutan's system and the corresponding Bank policies identified in the equivalence analysis could be readily addressed by revisions to the relevant code of environmental practices or by the introduction of additional codes of practices, which is within the administrative authority of the National Environmental Commission (NEC). Others can be bridged on a systemic basis through legal or regulatory measures and, in particular, through the development of new legislation for safety of dams, which will then make Bhutan's environmental safeguard policies fully equivalent with the corresponding Bank policies.