A Critical Review on Socio-Economic Consideration in Nepalese Environmental Impact Assessment.

Nepal enters into the federal state from a long unitary system of governance. With this changing governance system, there is high level of development aspiration and demand of people. Government of Nepal, Province and Local Government are planning to carry out development activities in an accelerating pace with the goal of high-level economic growth. In an era where global population growth continues to increase geometrically and development is inevitable (MEA, 2005), there has been a consensus to pursue sustainable development by harmonizing development with the environment (Glasson et al, 2012). One of the tools recommended in achieving the goal of sustainable development is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (Jay et al, 2007). The effectiveness of EIA has been given great attention by EIA practitioners, academics and policy makers (Sandham and Pretorius, 2008) through examining the quality of EIA (Fuller, 1999; Cashmore et al, 2002).