An all-day seminar was held yesterday at the Intercontinental Hotel to launch a three-year project to create a National Environment Strategy. The project is sponsored and funded by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and will be coordinated by the Technical Secretariat of the Presidency (STP) and the National Planning Office (ONAPLAN). The project will include a series of studies, pilot projects and situation diagnoses all designed to identify the DR principal environmental problems and prioritize those that need immediate action under the Strategy. Its end-product will include a draft Constitutional provision on sustainable development and basic environmental rights, a set of policies, recommendations for institutional changes, a draft law or laws, and some draft policy instruments, including economic instruments. A concern voiced during yesterday’s presentation was how this project meshed with the existing work, under the Commission on Natural Resources and Environmental Protection (CORENAMA) and the National Environmental Protection Institute (INPRA), to formulate draft legal provisions to propose as changes to the draft general environment law that has been stuck in Congress over the last 3-4 years. Officials said that the projects are complementary and not mutually exclusive.
