STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN A COUNTRY OF TRANSITION:

Abstract SEA is currently becoming an important tool for sustainable development. The main principles of SEA are to incorporate environmental considerations to the process of development of strategic documents and to make the process of the decision-making more transparent. Over the past years, there have been an increasing number of countries especially transitional and developing countries such as Belarus that consider joining the international conventions for SEA such as EU Directive 2001/42/EC (the SEA Directive) and UNECE SEA Protocol. This research focuses on the capacity assessment for SEA implementation in Belarus. The benchmarks for SEA capacity assessment were defined. For identifying the approaches for SEA implementation in the countries in transition, the experience of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe was analyzed. The capacity assessment for Belarus was made involved three levels, namely, system level, as well as organizational and individual levels. The paper analyses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for SEA implementation in Belarus. The study concludes with some suggestions that might help to improve capacity for SEA implementation