Series on Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA): 6-Main Challenges and Issues Tied to IIA
This briefing note is the last in a series of six focused on the state of the practice of integrated impact assessment (IIA). These documents focus, respectively, on:
- Overall situation and clarification of concepts
- Example of the practice of IIA at the European Commission
- Example of the practice of IIA in France
- Example of the practice of IIA in the United Kingdom
- Example of the practice of IIA in Northern Ireland
- Main challenges and issues tied to IIA
The series on IIA follows from a study conducted during the summer of 2012 at the request of the Government of Québec, which is exploring this issue. The objective of the study, carried out by the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP) on behalf of Québec’s Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS – the Ministry of Health and Social Services), was twofold: to examine the current state of the practice of IIA in Western countries, along with key issues, and to gather practical examples.
The research methodology was based on two strategies: reviewing the literature and examining case studies. The review focused on scientific articles and the grey literature. This allowed us to identify government initiatives that could shed light on modes of governance and tools used to conduct IIAs, which could be relevant to the Canadian context. Four government initiatives in particular were examined: those of the European Commission, France, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. For each of these, a literature review and semi-structured interviews (13 in total) were conducted.
This briefing note presents an overview of the main issues highlighted in the literature and by key informants interviewed for this study.
