Intercountry technology transfer environmental awareness

The evaluation covered the period 1989-3/94. The project has been a success. CONAMA has strengthened both its status as a preeminent public policy institution and its capacity to protect the environment, effectively manage resources and to respond to Chile"s environmental problems. As a result of this project, major new environmental legislation was passed in 3/94 making CONAMA Chile"s environmental agency, with formal authority to approve Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), establish standards, and coordinate the enforcement of environmental regulations. The quality of this legislation and of the EIA methodology developed under the project was outstanding. However, CONAMA"s initiatives to engage public agencies at the central and regional levels in its work were not as successful as expected; future work needs to focus on strengthening these relationships. Through assistance to Catholic University"s Institute of Urban Studies (IEU-CU) and the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Environment (CIPMA), the project has further contributed to environmental policy design and the implementation of appropriate instruments; to improved public environmental awareness; to the organization of information on the Chilean environment; and to improving local capacity to deal with environmental problems. CIPMA"s strong performance is due probably to the organization"s flexibility and specialized nature as an NGO. IEU"s project on environmental indicators was satisfactory, even though accuracy of the indicators was less than optimal.