Assessing the Institutional Effectiveness of State Environmental Agencies in Turkey

Improving the performance of the state environmental agencies (SEAs) necessitates an effective institutionalization of governmental environmental management functions. There are examples of successful and unsuccessful SEAs in several parts of the world. Analysis and assessment of these cases can deliver useful insights for institution builders. The objective of this article is the assessment of the institutional effectiveness of the SEAs in Turkey through the perceptions of the experts using the Delphi Technique. In this regard, a checklist is developed including 16 criteria and 123 subcriteria to measure the institutional effectiveness of the SEAs. Twenty-eight national and international experts have formed a Delphi panel and evaluated the national and local conditions. Results, based on the perceptions of the experts, indicate that the overall effectiveness of the SEAs is far less than satisfactory. Negative consensus has been reached over the effectiveness of 13 of the16 criteria and 95 of the123 subcriteria; however, no consensus has been achieved over the remainder of the parameters. The survey has also proven that the Delphi Technique can be effectively used for that purpose. Utilization of the checklist method is also useful in diagnosing the problematic components of the SEAs. It is recommended that this approach be used in similar cases elsewhere.     

Assessment of Compliance Performance of Environmental Regulations of Industries in Tuzla (Istanbul,Turkey)

Although environmental management in Turkey is evolving, its performance needs to be assessed in terms of the extent to which polluters and dischargers are complying with their legal obligations. In spite of this necessity, however, not a single study evaluating the effectiveness of command-and-control strategy of environmental management has been conducted. It is for this reason that it was decided to conduct an analysis of the impact of environmental legislation on a major industrial area in Turkey. Accordingly, Turkish environmental legislation was analyzed, and all relevant obligations and responsibilities of industry are identified. Based upon this appraisal, a questionnaire was prepared and used to conduct interviews in Tuzla, Istanbul. From the results, it can be concluded that environmental compliance performance of industry is low. The total of 92 parameters has been questioned. Fifty-three parameters have been found as satisfactory compliance, whereas 26 parameters have been classified as partial compliance and 13 as unsatisfactory compliance. The most important reason for inadequate performance is the lack of an effective national and local environmental compliance management system. The other leading reasons are found to be low-level environmental consciousness of the people, absence of environmental management system at the sites, inadequacies in environmental subsidies, and insufficiencies in public environmental infrastructure. Four recommendations are made to increase the effectiveness of compliance management: establishing an effective environmental compliance management system, accelerating public investment for environmental infrastructure, developing financial subsidies and incentive schemes for environmental investments, and encouraging voluntary initiatives.