Análisis de los determinantes de la eficacia y eficiencia de los sistemas de evaluación de impacto ambiental

Consultancy to analyze factors influencing the processing times of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and provide recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The final output supports the DDSAH Work Programme and the CEPAL BMZ/GIZ cooperation project on Minerals for a Just Transition (MinJust) Phase 2025-2028.

Responsibilities

• Analyze the role of EIA as a public policy instrument in environmental management, including its relation to sectoral permits.
• Define and analyze concepts of efficacy and efficiency in EIA processing times and authorization processes.
• Describe tensions between investment, environmental protection, and social legitimacy, including economic costs of delays and inadequate evaluations.
• Analyze cases of investment stoppages due to unforeseen impacts, socio-environmental conflicts, or administrative delays.
• Develop a comparative methodological framework with operational definitions, indicators, data collection methods, and limitations.
• Identify key normative, institutional, sectoral, economic, social, and environmental variables for comparative analysis of national EIA systems, focusing on large mining and energy projects.
• Engage with REDLASEIA members and validate the methodology with supervisors.
• Collect data and conduct comparative analysis applying the developed framework, focusing on projects processed between 2015 and 2025 in mining and energy sectors.
• Establish a database with indicators measuring efficiency and efficacy, including processing times, investment amounts, regulatory changes, critical sectors, and OECD standards comparison.
• Measure and compare process duration, number of procedures and actors, judicialization levels, and institutional coordination mechanisms.
• Complement quantitative evaluation with qualitative analysis to identify factors affecting processing times and evaluation quality.
• Analyze bottlenecks causing delays or difficulties in authorization and evaluation processes, considering project design deficiencies, institutional fragmentation, technical capacity limits, citizen participation, judicialization, and other factors.
• Develop recommendations to improve efficiency and efficacy without weakening environmental and social protection, including technical quality improvements, early evaluation mechanisms, procedural reforms, coordination strengthening, capacity building, citizen participation, and conflict resolution.
• Develop at least three case studies of good practices from REDLASEIA members or other regions, emphasizing geographic, institutional, and sectoral diversity.
• Prepare a final report summarizing analyses and recommendations, including an editable database, regional comparative matrix, country reports, bibliographic systematization, and methodological annexes.
• Prepare a presentation synthesizing key study findings.

Requirements

• University degree in economics, environmental sciences, law, public policy or related fields.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience in environmental and/or institutional analysis.
• Experience in environmental issues, environmental impact assessment, environmental regulatory analysis, report writing, and public policy analysis.
• Experience in institutional analysis and mining-related topics is valued.
• Fluent Spanish language skills required (speaking, reading, writing, and comprehension).
• English and French are working languages of the UN Secretariat, Spanish is a working language of ECLAC; fluency in Spanish is mandatory for this position.

Skills

• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Environmental Regulatory Analysis
• Institutional and Organizational Analysis
• Environmental Policy
• Report Writing
• Environmental Sciences
• Policy Analysis
• Mining Sector Analysis
• Language Proficiency in Spanish

Languages

Spanish