Guidelines for strategic environmental assessment (Sea) in Uganda.

The Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is the Uganda systematic and participatory process of evaluating the likely environmental, health and social consequences of proposed policy, plan or programme initiatives and alternatives, to ensure that they are integrated and appropriately addressed at the earliest stage of decision making in line with economic, environmental, health and social considerations. These Guidelines aim to support the operationalization of the relevant provisions under the National Environment Act, 2019 and the National Environment (Strategic Environmental Assessment) Regulations, 2020.
These Guidelines are intended to set up a general methodology and the related practical procedures for undertaking the strategic environmental assessment in order to: strengthen and improve the planning processes at strategic level; enable the ministries, departments and agencies of the government (MDAs) to appreciate and incorporate SEA approaches, process and practical procedures into their planning and decision making; enable the identification of potential opportunities and impacts that SEA presents during implementation of policies, plans or programmes at early stages of planning and decision making; ensure the considerations of alternatives to policy, plan or programme options, including the do-nothing option, as early as possible when the MDAs are able to exercise greater flexibility; and put in place measures for the prevention and mitigation actions in the policies, plans or programmes, and for use of these measures as justifications for making decisions on environmental and social impact assessment.