The Directorate of Environmental Affairs (DEA) is a small, dynamic institution built around a core of full-time professional Ministry staff. To meet the broad cross-cutting nature of environmental management and protection, the DEA team combines ecologists with planners, social scientists, economists and lawyers.

The DEA has been very successful at interacting with development partners and attracting donor funding. Much of the work carried out with this funding is outsourced to consultants, local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs) and the private sector, with DEA core staff acting as programme managers. This allows the Ministry to set priorities and determine that the work is done efficiently and effectively: in other words, the Ministry takes responsibility for ensuring that the ship moves in the right direction at the right speed (the captain's role) – but the task of rowing is outsourced to others.

The DEA addresses priority environmental issues and challenges by developing focused programmes and projects, with clearly identified objectives and purposes. In this way, investment in the environment sector is product orientated, while not neglecting the importance of good process

The DEA mission is to:

"Promote environmental protection, environmental planning and environmental coordination to support the sustainable and equitable use of natural resources and national development, and to protect the environment and human welfare from unsustainable, unhealthy and inappropriate practices."