Suchergebnisse

Die Zahl der regionalen Handelsabkommen ist in den letzten Jahren stark gestiegen. Gleichzeitig steht die Handelsliberalisierung verstärkt in der Kritik der Öffentlichkeit, die sich gegen Umweltschäden und soziale Ungerechtigkeit als Ergebnis der Abkommen wendet. Das Instrument der Folgenabschätzungen soll dazu beitragen, die Auswirkungen von Handelsabkommen zu ermitteln. Das Paper gibt auf der Basis der EU-Nachhaltigkeitsprüfung und der NAFTA-Umweltprüfung einen Einblick in den Analyserahmen, in die Partizipationsmöglichkeiten sowie in den politischen Rückhalt des Instruments. An den Beispielen werden die Einflussmöglichkeiten von Folgenabschätzungen auf die Gestaltung des Welthandels diskutiert.

Die Zahl der regionalen Handelsabkommen ist in den letzten Jahren stark gestiegen. Gleichzeitig steht die Handelsliberalisierung verstärkt in der Kritik der Öffentlichkeit, die sich gegen Umweltschäden und soziale Ungerechtigkeit als Ergebnis der Abkommen wendet. Das Instrument der Folgenabschätzungen soll dazu beitragen, die Auswirkungen von Handelsabkommen zu ermitteln. Das Paper gibt auf der Basis der EU-Nachhaltigkeitsprüfung und der NAFTA-Umweltprüfung einen Einblick in den Analyserahmen, in die Partizipationsmöglichkeiten sowie in den politischen Rückhalt des Instruments. An den Beispielen werden die Einflussmöglichkeiten von Folgenabschätzungen auf die Gestaltung des Welthandels diskutiert. ; In the past 15 years, the use of impact assessment as an analytical tool has gradually influenced national and international discussions on trade agreements. Two main approaches predominate: sustainability impact assessments (SIA), which analyze economic, social and environmental consequences of the trade agreement, and environmental assessments, which identify the environmental effects of the trade accord. The paper analyses the EU SIA approach and the environmental approach practiced by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The study shows that neither the SIA nor the EA currently have the power to bring a trade accord with failing assessment grades into political peril.

Policy making aims to align agricultural production with multifunctional services such as environmental conservation, rural development, and economic competitiveness. Policies counteract or reinforce external driving forces such as climate change, global economic developments, demography, consumption patterns. They considerably affect decision making of farmers. Because of the interaction and non-linear feedback loops with socio-economic and geophysical processes of the land use systems, policies are difficult to design, and their impacts are difficult to anticipate. The policy making community articulates an emerging demand for science based evidence in support of the policy process. Ex-ante impact assessment of policy making provides the legal basis to fuel scientific evidence into the policy process. For researchers, impact assessment is a means to structure the analysis of human-environment interactions. For policy makers, impact assessment is a means to better target policy decisions towards sustainable development. The integration of both requires a mutual understanding of the respective objectives and operational restrictions within the scientific and policy-making domains. This paper provides insight into the process of policy impact assessment and how research based methods and tools can best feed into it. Three aspects are outlined: the co-design of the assessment between policy makers and researchers; the integration of quantitative analysis with participatory valuation methods; and the robustness and transparency of the analytical methods.

Impact Assessment (IA) intends to collect evidence on the likely impacts of new policies and thereby minimize unwanted side-effects and maximize the benefits to society. Although it is a requirement in the EC and all OECD countries, the scope and methods vary considerably. Governments have invested considerably in research to support the evidence basis of policy making for sustainable development. However, the general picture shows a gap between the proliferation of IA tools from the scientific community and their actual use in the policy process. The FP7 network of excellence LIAISE (www.liaise- noe.eu) is designed to identify the causes for non-use of IA tools and bridge the gaps between researchers with a generally strong orientation towards their (disciplinary) peers and practitioners who tend to focus on their policy domain and policy problems. LIAISE aims at: 1) understanding of the policy process and the resulting needs for IA knowledge and IA tools; 2) description of IA tools and scientific IA expertise in a standardised way; 3) a shared IA toolbox targeted at the needs of both researchers and practitioners; 4) a shared IA research agenda integrating scientific knowledge gaps and the priorities for the development of new IA knowledge that arise from the future policy agenda; and 5) safeguarding the project results beyond the period of project funding, by developing an institutional setting and a business plan that facilitate the extension of the present consortium towards a broad centre of IA expertise with a structural permanence. A lively interaction between the different communities involved, is essential to realize these objectives. The Berlin Conference is an important opportunity to inform external research groups about the LIAISE approach to bridging the gap between science and policy. Their feedback and views on possible next steps in the further integration of the IA research community are highly valued, as well as their interest to become involved in this process.

Impact Assessment (IA) intends to collect evidence on the likely impacts of new policies and thereby minimize unwanted side-effects and maximize the benefits to society. Although it is a requirement in the EC and all OECD countries, the scope and methods vary considerably. Governments have invested considerably in research to support the evidence basis of policy making for sustainable development. However, the general picture shows a gap between the proliferation of IA tools from the scientific community and their actual use in the policy process. The FP7 network of excellence LIAISE (www.liaise- noe.eu) is designed to identify the causes for non-use of IA tools and bridge the gaps between researchers with a generally strong orientation towards their (disciplinary) peers and practitioners who tend to focus on their policy domain and policy problems. LIAISE aims at: 1) understanding of the policy process and the resulting needs for IA knowledge and IA tools; 2) description of IA tools and scientific IA expertise in a standardised way; 3) a shared IA toolbox targeted at the needs of both researchers and practitioners; 4) a shared IA research agenda integrating scientific knowledge gaps and the priorities for the development of new IA knowledge that arise from the future policy agenda; and 5) safeguarding the project results beyond the period of project funding, by developing an institutional setting and a business plan that facilitate the extension of the present consortium towards a broad centre of IA expertise with a structural permanence. A lively interaction between the different communities involved, is essential to realize these objectives. The Berlin Conference is an important opportunity to inform external research groups about the LIAISE approach to bridging the gap between science and policy. Their feedback and views on possible next steps in the further integration of the IA research community are highly valued, as well as their interest to become involved in this process.

While land serves numerous societal functions and contributes to sustainable development, it is often unclear how these functions are affected by political decisions and common drivers of land use change, such as economic development, climate change and demographic change. This study evaluates alternative land use scenarios in reference to a rural region of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (China), where various processes and decisions have historically triggered unsustainable development. The scientifically tested "Framework for Participatory Impact Assessment (FoPIA)" method is developed further to address specific features of the case study region, and its function as a knowledge-brokerage (KB) tool is evaluated. Three scenarios are developed and analysed in expert workshops. "Land intensification: Agriculture" and "Land intensification: Mining" scenarios are found to have mainly negative environmental and social effects and positive economic impacts, while the "Environmental conservation and tourism" scenario is found to more positively affect all three sustainability dimensions. Assessments of methodological phases show that the FoPIA primarily serves to establish the KB process and that the framework particularly benefits from early examinations of scientific results by policy makers.