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? Provide access to the best scientific knowledge for international environmental governance and the Module
mainstreaming of environmental concerns into social and economic sectors, and in support of the
internationally agreed development goals; 1

? Facilitate the interaction between science and policy through multi-scaled and multidimensional
integrated assessment processes and products of high legitimacy, credibility and utility; and

? Build geographic and gender-balanced partnerships and capacity for environmental assessments.

As an integrated environmental assessment, GEO provides answers to the five key questions illustrated Abu Dhabi, UAE
in the step diagram below. Most “traditional” environmental assessments consider the first question;

very few take an integrated perspective that considers all five questions.

Figure 1 Key questions to be answered by State of the Environment (SoE)
Assessment and Policy Analysis in the IEA Framework

5 What actions could be taken for
a more sustainable future?

4 Where are we heading?

3 What is being done and how effective is it?

2 What are the consequences for the environment
and humanity?

1 What is happening to the environment and why?

The world is faced with major environmental challenges, which have complex causes and consequences.
This requires a structured process of dealing with environmental issues and their interactions with
society, including political processes and the economic system. It needs to use knowledge from a
wide range of scientific disciplines and stakeholders, so that integrated insights are made available to
decision-makers. This process is referred to as an assessment (Box 2) .
3

3. There is a considerable amount of literature defining and characterizing assessment processes. See for example
www.millenniumassessment.org

IEA Training Manual Workshop for the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) 11