The African Development Bank has kicked off virtual consultations on its Integrated Safeguards System to adequately address emerging environmental and social issues.
The session for Anglophone West African countries registered participants from Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone.
The Director-General of the Nigeria Country Department, Lamin Barrow, while opening the event, underscored the importance of these stakeholder consultations.
He noted that: “These consultations are being held in view of the great importance of soliciting their perspectives, insights and learning lessons from their experience to inform the update of the Integrated Safeguards System.”
According to the AfDB, as part of its commitment to continuously improve environmental and social management and governance, the Bank has prepared a draft of its updated Integrated Safeguards System, which is being consulted upon with external stakeholders, including representatives from key government agencies in regional member countries, staff of project implementing units for Bank-financed operations and civil society organisations.
These consultations are intended to solicit feedback and inputs from stakeholders in order to put in place relevant systems that fit with the policies and standards of peer institutions.
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During the discussions, participants welcomed the Bank’s efforts to harmonise its systems with the safeguards standards of other multi-lateral finance institutions and regional member countries, which would reduce the challenges borrowers face when they submit funding applications, especially for co-financed operations.
The participants also observed many improvements, such as the expansion of the policy to cover 10 thematic areas; the project-focused and risk-based approach; and the provisions for both sovereign and non-sovereign operations under the same policy.
“They recommended further consideration on some aspects, including harmonizing categorisation and disclosure processes with country requirements; the environmental and social assessments of subprojects in financial intermediary transactions and simplifying the results-based financing instrument to allow for timely identification of safeguard instruments,” the AfDB said.
The Bank added that the 45-day stakeholder consultation will continue across other regions of Africa.
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