UNEP Initiative on Capacity Building for Integrated Assessment and Planning for

Sustainable Development

Mid-term Review Meeting

Geneva, February 16-17, 2005

Chile – Evaluating And Improving The Ministry Of Agriculture’s Environmental

Agenda (MAEA)

Contents of the presentation• Brief description of the project

• Description of the project process

• Stakeholder involvement

• Description and rationale of the planning process

• Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses

• Preliminary results of using tools and methods

• Challenges and opportunities

• Planned activities and next steps

Brief Description of the ProjectIntroduction

•Agriculture is an important sector in Chile: 4.2% of GDP and 13% of labour force.

•Chile is an important actor in the international agricultural market: fresh fruits, wine, forest products and white meat. It expected that this tendency will strengthen in the future.

•In January 2004, the Chilean Ministry Of Agriculture’s Environmental Agenda (MAEA) corresponded to a policy instrument in its mid-stage aimed at establishing the conditions for Chile to participate in the global agricultural market in a sustainable way.

•Up to that date, the policy document had been developed without two important elements:

a) an impact assessment of the proposed strategy and;

b) involvement of stakeholders beyond the Ministry of Agriculture.

Objectives of the project:

a) To contribute to the planning process of the MAEA so that it can be a factor towards sustainable development. More specifically, to promote an environmentally progressive MAEA which reinforces sustainable trade in the agriculture sector and helps in reducing poverty.

b) Improving policy coherence of the MAEA in relation to the strategic goals of the Ministry of Agriculture, the objectives of the National Commission on Environment, the Trade Liberalization strategy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Clean Production strategy of the Ministry of Economics.

c) To evaluate the sustainability impacts of the MAEA and to suggest necessary adjustments to it.

d) To disseminate the experience of this assessment in other policy planning processes within the country, as well as in the region and internationally.

Brief Description of the Project (continued)

Expected outcomes:

•A series of documents containing the project process, the assessment of the MAEA, and the adjustments and additions proposed for it to contribute to sustainable development.

•Enhanced understanding of the interrelationship between agriculture, poverty alleviation, environmental management and sustainable trade promotion.

•Enhanced national institutional and human capacities for undertaking strategic integrated assessment and planning for sustainable development.

•Enhanced national coordination between ministries involved in the project.

Brief Description of the Project (continued)

Brief Description of the Project (continued)

Government institutions leading the project:

•Ministry of Agriculture, through ODEPA (Agricultural Studies and Policies Bureau)

National Institution facilitating the project:

•RIDES (Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable)

Other government institutions involved:

•Ministry of Foreign Relations•National Commission for the Environment (CONAMA)•Agricultural and Cattle Service (SAG)•National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) •Ministry of Health, and •Ministry of Economics.

Description of the Project Process• The project began in January 2004 with the conformation of the Steering

Committee, composed by thirteen relevant environmental actors from the agricultural sector in Chile: authorities, private sector, civil society and academics.

• During the first month of the project the Steering Committee met for the first time. The project was presented, the role of the SC discussed and some of the basic aspects of the project analysed.

• During the second and third months of the project RIDES individually interviewed each of the SC members with two purposes in mind:

a) substantive: to know their thoughts about the sustainability of the agricultural sector and their opinion about the MAEA; and

b) procedural: to involve them more fully into the project process.

Description of the Project Process (continued)

• During the fourth month, in order to better understand the procedures used to elaborate the MAEA, RIDES individually interviewed those that had participated in that process.

• In May 2004 a workshop took place in Santiago with participation from UNEP, the Ministry of Agriculture, CONAMA (the Chilean environmental authority), the private sector, NGOs, RIDES and others. The objective was to present the results obtained so far by RIDES and to gain inputs in order to decide on how the project would continue.

• After a meeting between UNEP, the Ministry of Agriculture and RIDES, it was decided that the assessment should follow the scenario approach, differentiate between different agricultural sectors, and advance through sectorial specific working group meetings.

• At the moment we are working with four sectors of the agriculture industry in Chile: forestry, fruits, wheat, and white meat. Whereas forestry, wheat and white meat are advanced, the fruit sector is not.

Stakeholder Involvement• Stakeholder involvement in the project has several fronts.

• In first place, there is a Steering Committee that has discussed the project, its aims and methodology. These members also analysed the sustainability of the agricultural sector in Chile and of the MAEA.

• Then there was the first workshop, where the project and its preliminary findings were communicated to a wider audience: 30 people including SC members, public sector, private sector, NGOs and academics working in the agriculture/environment area.

• After the workshop, together with ODEPA we decided on the people to be included in the discussion groups for each sector to be assessed under the scenario framework: forestry, pork meat, wheat and fruits.

• In each discussion group there is at least one representative of ODEPA, one representative from CONAMA, one private representative from the sector, one civil society representative of the sector, at least one representative of the Steering Committee of the project, and Victoria Alonso and Edmundo Claro from RIDES.

• Forestry: 2 open discussion meetings, various meetings with ODEPA.• Pork: 3 open discussion meetings and one meeting with ODEPA.• Wheat: 1 open discussion meeting and one meeting with ODEPA.• Fruits: no meeting yet.

• These sector meetings have been popular and active. Participants have not only been able to express their views, but have also importantly influenced both the sustainability analysis of the sectors and the construction of future scenarios.

• Once these meetings are over, the Steering Committee, participants of the discussion groups and those that participated in the 2004 workshop will be invited to the next workshop in order to discuss the results of the project.

• The results of the project are expected to be disseminated both in printed and electronic formats.

• There is a webpage for the project at www.rides.cl.

Stakeholder Involvement (continued)

Description and Rationale of the Planning Process

Description and rationale of the selected planning process

• In 1990 the Ministry of Agriculture adopted Sustainable Development as a ministerial objective and in 1994 ODEPA elaborated the document “General Framework of Environmental Policy”.

• In 1998 ODEPA published a new and more specific document in the form of matrices entitled “Environmental Agenda”. This work served to include various existent or potential environmental tools applied by the ministry that were not included in the previous document.

• In 2001 MINAGRI published “A State Policy for Chilean Agriculture: Period 2000-2010”. In accordance with the trade liberalisation approach predominant in Chile, this document makes clear the relevance of international trade and globalisation for the future of Chilean agriculture. This document also attempts at developing a sector that is capable of participating in the global market in a sustainable way.

Description and Rationale of the Planning Process (continued)

• In view of this fairly explicit globalised economic perspective confronted by the agricultural sector, and of environmental management as a tool to have a better access to international markets, in 2003 ODEPA decided to review its 1998 Environmental Agenda.

• The result, a draft document published in October 2003 and entitled “Environmental Agenda of the Ministry of Agriculture” (EAMA), is a document that attempts aligning the objective of environmental protection with the objective of economic expansion through participation in international markets.

• The EAMA that distinguishes between objectives and actions.

Objectives:

a) The protection of natural essential processes that make life on earth possible and therefore all agricultural activities: biodiversity, soils and waters.

b) The development of an agricultural sector that incorporates product and process innocuousness as central in their activities. This is seen as responding to the demands of consumers and therefore as a factor of competitiveness in international markets.

c) The promotion of environmental markets and green businesses within a perspective that understands environmental management more as an opportunity for the development of new products and markets than as local restriction.

Description and Rationale of the Planning Process (continued)

Actions: In consideration of the three objectives, the EAMA specifies six lines of future action:

1) Modernisation and strengthening of the conservation and protection of nature.

2) Efficiency, efficacy, equity and responsibility in environmental management.

3) Sustainability and innocuousness of production.

4) Development of environmental markets and green businesses.

5) Capacity building.

6) Participation and trust.

Description and Rationale of the Planning Process (continued)

Main gaps and weaknesses of the substance of the Planning process

•The EAMA is structured in terms of environmental objectives. This approach, although coherent in environmental terms, makes it difficult to develop precise tools, assign responsibilities and allocate resources.

•In fact, the EAMA does not contain these elements and is currently closer to a declaration of intentions than to a policy instrument.

•Absence of the social dimension of sustainable development: local communities, poverty and indigenous knowledge.

•Lack of participation from different governmental services and other sectors of society: lack of “horizontal integration”.

•There are no mechanisms for coordinating inter-institutional activities and relation: Ministry of Agriculture and CONAMA.

Description and Rationale of the Planning Process (continued)

Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses

Tools used

• Structure of the project: since the Agricultural Policy of Chile is organized in subsectors of agriculture, the project should analyze the main economic, social and environmental issues in some of these sub-sectors as well as arising “horizontal” issues for the entire agricultural sector: forestry, fruits, wheat, and white meat.

• Stakeholders involvement: as expressed before, the project is greatly based in the development of sectorial working groups with participation of ODEPA, CONAMA, private sector, civil society, other governmental bodies and RIDES. •Assessment approach: in order to do the integrated assessment of the EAMA, a scenario approach was adopted. Although understanding the scenario approach to policy evaluation was not an easy task, after doing a lot of reading and discussion, we arrived at a common evaluation structure for all sectors being analysed:

Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses (continued)

1) Description of the sector

2) Barriers to the sustainability of the sector

3) Policies attributable to the Environmental Agenda of the Ministry of Agriculture: incentives, regulations, voluntary programs, and research and development

4) Scenario building for the year 2010 based on policies identified on 3): a) BAU (business as usual), b) Environmental improvement and c) Environmental sustainability

5) Scenario assessment in terms of its contribution towards sustainable development.

6) Policy recommendations.

Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses (continued)

• We have done from step 1) to step 4) in the forestry and white meat sectors. While the wheat sector is very advanced, the fruit sector has not been addressed. Once we have completed all sectors from 1) to 4), we will begin with stages 5) and 6) in conjunction, especially in order to focus on “horizontal” issues.

• RIDES will assess the scenarios in terms of sustainability and indicate recommended policies, and these results will be presented to those participating in the roundtables in the next workshop approximately approximately in June 2005.

Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses (continued)

Main advantages

•We are of the opinion that the main achievement of this evaluation process has been the assertive participation of different social actors in the roundtables for each agricultural sector being analysed.

•According to participants, these instances have been unique in the Chilean agricultural sector, especially in relation to having diverse actors discussing about sustainable development in the sector.

•This has permitted the development of accorded and grounded descriptions of the sectors and allowed the construction of plausible and realistic future scenarios.

•We attribute these strengths to the scenario approach used to assess the MAEA. By focusing more on future possible realities than on past or present problems, it brings to the front a lesser known methodology where participants feel they can influence its results.

Tools and methods used to overcome the weaknesses (continued)

Main shortcomings

• Nevertheless, the inclusive participation process has also signified important shortcomings. As each sector has to have more than one roundtable meetings, coordinating dates and times of these meetings has not been an easy task.

• At the same time, producing accorded descriptions and scenarios has proved much more demanding than previously thought, with some actors requiring more than five revisions of the final texts.

• These issues have not only retarded the original timetable of the project, but have also spent project resources that could have been directed at more profound analysis.

Preliminary Results of using tools and methodsSubstantive

• For the forestry and pork meat sectors we have identified, in agreement with the participants, the main environmental, social, economic and institutional barriers to sustainable development.

• Forestry environmental: a) native forest destruction for energy purposes, b) inadequate biodiversity representation, c) local environmental deterioration by forestry industry (smells, water pollution, fauna impacts).

• Forestry economic: a) conflicts between forestry industry and other economic sectors (wine, tourism, etc.), b) technological, financial and commercial lagging behind of medium and small forestry industry.

• Forestry social: a) conflicts between plantation owners and Mapuche communities, b) no growth in employment, c) lack of local development support by big industries.

• Forestry institutional: a) lack of regulations for the correct evaluation of the sustainable use of native forests, b) lack of enforcement, c) lack of regulations for the use of forest for energy purposes.

Preliminary Results of using tools and methods (continued)

• Pork meat environmental: a) water pollution risks, b) bad smells.

• Pork economic: a) non-tariff barriers, b) animal welfare standards.

• Pork social: a) local impacts on communities, b) impacts on transport infrastructure.

• Pork institutional: a) lack of land use planning, b) inadequate agri-food institutions.

Preliminary Results of using tools and methods (continued)

• While most of these barriers vary within sectors, there are quite a few which apply to more than one of them: absence of land use planning, absence of a unique agrifood regulatory agency, superficial and underground water pollution, soil erosion, and local community impacts and integration.

• For these sectors we have also identified the main policy instruments that could be either included in the MAEA or promoted by it. Main examples include the Native Forest Law, the National Biodiversity Strategy, Clean Production Agreements, Land Use Planning, Water Quality Baseline, Social Responsibility and others.

• Also, for the forestry and white meat sectors, three 2010 environmental scenarios have been constructed based on different levels of application of the instruments identified before: a) business as usual, b) environmental improvement and c) environmental sustainability.

Preliminary Results of using tools and methods (continued)

Process (improving communication, transparency public and private links)

• Through its Steering Committee, workshop and sector specific roundtables, the project has made the environmental objectives of the Ministry of Agriculture more transparent and accessible to the wider agricultural/environment community.

• It has also enabled the growth, and in some cases the inception, of trust between policy makers, the business community and other actors of the agriculture/environment circle. We expect that the future roundtable meetings and workshop will further increase trust among these actors.

• These meetings have also enhanced national institutional and human capacities for understanding the interrelationship between agriculture, environmental management and sustainable trade promotion.

• Enhanced national coordination between ministries involved in the project.

Challenges

Main challenges

• One of the main future challenges of the project is to decide on how to perform the sustainability assessment of the scenarios constructed: ¿which parameters? ¿qualitatively? ¿quantitatively? We expect that this workshop will help us in these matters.

• As expressed before, it is very unlikely that the project will be able to be finished on time so that an extension of the project would be very helpful.

• Due to presidential elections at the end of 2005, another challenge corresponds to the internalisation of the project recommendations by the corresponding policy makers.

Opportunities

• Widespread dissemination of the project methodology and results. Although next workshop is an opportunity for this, we think more is needed: publications, small regional workshops, press coverage, etc.

• RIDES has enhanced capabilities in various fronts, especially in relation to knowledge of the sustainability of the agricultural sector, and to the development of the scenario methodology.

Planned Activities and Next Steps

Process

•Conclude the roundtable meetings in the wheat (1 or 2) and fruit sectors (2 or 3).

•One Steering Committee meeting in order to discuss the assessment phase.

•Closing workshop where the results of the exercise are presented, with the participation of the SC, the participants of the sector specific roundtables and those who attended 2004 workshop.

Substantive/Methodological

• Application of the scenario approach to the fruit sector.

• Identification and analysis of the crosscutting issues arising from the sector analysis.

• Selection of the kind of sustainability assessment to be applied to the scenarios built for the sectors with inputs from the Steering Committee.

• Sustainability assessment of all sectors.

• Policy recommendations.

Planned Activities and Next Steps (continued)