Major environmental, social and institutional changes often accompany discovery of oil and gas
Social:
- Rapid demographic change
- Great expectations about wealth and economic opportunity
- Land use changes
- Environmental degradation
Institutional:
- Strain on resource and operational capacity
Example: Luanda, Angola
- Sodium bromide used to thicken muds in oil drilling
- Outbreak of mass poisoning
- Because someone same the sodium bromide and thought it was table salt and repackaged and sold it on as table salt.
- This showed the need for institutional structures to deal with these kinds of wider and unforeseen impacts.
Need for Strategic HIA (sHIA)
- Gives a birds eye view
- Identify intervention packages and systems and capacities
- Framework for monitoring and evaluation at high level
- Sector or industry level health management system
- Engagement of relevant stakeholders
WHO piloting this in Ghana and Mongolia
- Regulatory capacity - EIA requirements for health considertaion; limited capacity for HIA; limited capacity to minotor occupational workplaces and OH systems development.
- Risk management systems - public health capacity and systems to monitor and respond to chemical incidents, including emergencies; health information system no adaptable to the new industry; ...
New model for sHIA
- Adding a systems diagnostic
Partnership between WHO, In country Government, Industry and Development Lenders to develop and implement these.
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