Environmental Democracy in Ethiopia: Emphasis on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment Process

Abstract

The concept of environmental democracy refers to a participatory form of environmental decision-making. Thus, in a system where there is environmental democracy, the public will be able to engage in decisions that will have impacts on the environment. On the other hand, different instruments at the international, regional, and national levels have been emerging with a view to ensuring public participation in environmental decision-making processes. This is so because, nowadays, there is a general consensus that public participation in making environmentally fateful decisions will contribute to the effective protection of the environment. In Ethiopia, too, there are laws, policies, regulations, etc. which aim at ensuring environmental protection. Since environmental democracy is of paramount importance for effective environmental protection, this article intends to explore the extent to which these laws, policies, regulations, etc. can accommodate the needs of environmental democracy by focusing on public participation in the environmental impact assessment process. It will also explore the extent to which the public is participating in the environmental impact assessment process in practice. The article argues that despite the fact that Ethiopia has put in place a policy framework to ensure public participation in the environmental impact assessment process thereby opening the door for environmental democracy and there is also some sort of public participation in the environmental impact assessment process in practice, environmental democracy in Ethiopia is still at its early stage. In order to show the correctness or otherwise of this argument, the methods the writer has used to gather information are literature review, legal and other instruments’ analysis, and interviews.