Enroll now! A new learning platform for managing environmental and social risk

The Environmental and Social Safeguards Unit (ESG) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is pleased to announce the launch of a new learning platform on managing environmental and social risks. With this new feature, all our online courses are in one place.

In 2016, ESG began offering online training to increase the capacity of counterpart government officials who review and approve Environmental and Social Impact Assessments. One year later, we have trained over 350 professionals in 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The learning platform is hosted by the IDB’s Inter-American Institute for Economic and Social Development (INDES). INDES advances open knowledge products about social and economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Currently there are three ESG courses available in English and two in Spanish. The next course on Reviewing Environmental Impact Assessments (PREIA) will start on February 27. The course on Biodiversity in Environmental Impact Assessments (BEIA) starts on April 4. We invite you to register and explore all our courses!

Principles for Reviewing Environmental Impact Assessments (PREIA) (English | Spanish)

Participants of the PREIA course are given tools to carry out comprehensive reviews of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), taking into consideration international good practices. The course teaches participants how to compare each EIA elements against applicable standards and how to communicate results to different audiences.

Participants leave this course able to recognize the stages of the EIA process, understand the role of the reviewer and effectively participate in the stages of the EIA review and decision-making process. Feedback from the course has been very positive, with participants expressing their appreciation for a tool that helps them better interpret EIAs and identify what gaps need to be filled before approval. Participants also appreciate the opportunity to exchange experiences with counterparts in other countries and understand environmental and social issues from different perspectives.

Biodiversity in Environmental Impact Assessments (BEIA) (English | Spanish)

The BEIA course looks at good practices for effectively incorporating biodiversity into the process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) based on case studies from Latin America and on guidelines by the Multilateral Financing Institutions Biodiversity Working Group and the Cross-Sector Biodiversity Initiative. These good practices have been created to ensure that biodiversity information in EIA provides an accurate analysis of the potential impacts on biodiversity, providing a basis for the development of effective mitigation measures to ensure that these impacts are addressed appropriately. Participants have expressed a high level of satisfaction with the course and noted that it provides them with helpful tools they will be able to use in their everyday jobs.

Meaningful Stakeholder Consultation (MuSE) (English)

This course offers an overview of the principles and elements that make a consultation process meaningful. In addition to overall guidance, the course gives participants practical tools for approaching meaningful stakeholder analysis and developing consultation plans. The course addresses:

• Explicit mandatory and binding requirements related to consultation in IDB policies and guidelines;
• Implicit requirements of the consultation process not stated explicitly in the policies, but that are necessary conditions and inputs to achieve the more explicit requirements; and
• International good practice related to consultation as developed in recent years, both by IDB and other development agencies, academia, civil society and others.

Participants have expressed after completing the course that they feel prepared to conduct a meaningful consultation process where all parties are involved in the decision-making process.

From the Environmental and Social Safeguards Unit, we aim to promote common approaches to the management of environmental and social risks related to investment projects.