Environmental Impacts Assessments (EIAs) are an important planning tool for ensuring that land development seriously takes environmental impacts into consideration. EIAs are an accepted international standard for all such land use planning throughout the world, and particularly in the EU.  SAVE is supporting efforts to strengthen local capacity in the implementation, review, use, monitoring and enforcement of EIAs. 

SAVE’s efforts are focused almost entirely on training for local authorities as well as local private sector practitioners involved at all stages of the EIA process.  A three-day training was held in the fall of 2006 combining classroom discussion with field visits and a public consultation to expose participants to every stage of the EIA development process.  The training included analysis and comparison of current local EIA procedures and EU EIA legislation. Future activities will focus primarily on professional groups in the private sector who are responsible for preparing the EIAs required for all construction and development projects.