Environmental Safeguards
Sound environmental management is critical to sustainable development and poverty reduction in the country. Without committed efforts to safeguard the environment, pressure will continue to build on the country’s land, forests, water systems, wetlands, marine ecosystems and other natural resources due to developmental/disaster resilience projects.
NDRMF aims to build capacity and support potential Fund Implementing Partners (FIPs) in identification, preparation and implementation of targeted initiatives with environmentally sustainable and precautionary measures.
NDRMF Environmental Policy
- Comply with applicable national and international environmental laws and international ratified conventions and agreements and ensure their adequate integration in financing contractual agreements of all FIPs to ensure compliance in planning, designing and construction/implementation of sub-projects.
- Avoid, minimize/protect and/or mitigate, and fully compensate negative environmental impacts (including health and safety) in its operations and risks to the physical environment, particularly to eco-sensitive and culturally important areas and people who may be affected through financing of sub-projects.
- Communicating environmental policy and principles to all staff, potential FIPs, affected persons and external stakeholders, including both men and women and ensure transparency in implementation of ESMS
- No financing to sub-projects with high risks that would cause heavy and irreversible/harmful social and environment impacts.
- Encourage the development of projects eligible for consideration for green financing.
Applicable Environmental Safeguard Requirements
- All proposals for funding from FIPs are screened against the Prohibited Investment Activities List
- All proposals from FIPs with potential significant environmental impacts (category A) will not be considered for financing under the NDRMF; and
- All proposals from FIPs are reviewed, monitored and evaluated against the Pakistan national laws, regulations, and standards on environment, health, safety, indigenous peoples, and physical cultural resources.
ESMS
ESMS provide guidelines for establishing the environmental and social management system for a project that is consistent with the safeguard policy principles and requirements of ADB and national laws/PEPA 1997. The objective of environmental management system is to prevent and mitigate undue harm to people and their environment in the disaster resilience works. Safeguard unit (SGU) is the competent unit to ensure implementation of ESMS in sub-projects.
Screening & Categorization
All the concepts & proposals will be reviewed for Prohibited Investment Activities List (PIAL), the FIP will be informed that the proposal will not be considered. Otherwise the SGU will indicate the applicable environmental safeguard requirement for proposal The FIP will make a rapid assessment (Rapid Environmental Assessment Checklist) of likely environment impacts depending on the nature and scope of the proposal. Screening may require to conduct field visits by Fund environmental safeguard staff. The checklist is used to determine the significance of potential environmental impacts associated with the proposal. ESMS is based on the ADB Safeguards Policy Statement (SPS) 2009 and national (PEPA) legislation/guidelines. All projects likely to be category A for Environment according to ADB’s classification shall be screened out at this stage. In case of environmental categorization, ADB/ESMS & the PEPA have separate methodologies, projects classified B for environment by ADB may be category A according to PEPA. However, all ADB/ESMS environmental category “A” projects will be excluded during current phase.| Category (Risk Rating) | Environmental Safeguards | Indigenous Peoples Safeguards |
| Category A (with potential significant impacts) | Screened out | |
| Category B (with less significant impacts) | Comply with national laws and PIAL and Funding Source specific international laws | Comply with national laws and PIAL and Funding Source specific international laws |
| Category C (with minimal or no impacts) | Comply with national laws and PIAL and Funding Source specific international laws | Comply with national laws and PIAL and Funding Source specific international laws |
Procedure Flow for Screening & Categorization
Category wise Environmental Approval & Timeline
Comming Soon
Environmental Assessment and Measures
This process is used to identify potential environmental impacts and risks of a project and prescribe the environmental management plan to be implemented by the Fund Implementing Partner (FIP). These are composed of the following documents
DRR
Safeguard unit (SGU) conducts field visit for due diligence of submitted proposals by the potential FIPs. Depending upon the complexity of the proposal, DDR can be a desk review (for category C proposals) and based on the site visit (for category B proposals).
FIP shall provide all the information to safeguard team & shall be able to demonstrate responsiveness with respect to the applicable environmental safeguard requirements.
IEE
Initial Environmental Examination describes the environmental condition of a project, including potential impacts, the formulation of mitigation measures, and the preparation of institutional requirements and environmental monitoring for the project.
EIA
Environmental Impact Assessment examines the environmental and social consequences of the project prior to execution and provides information to decision makers and the public about the environmental implications of proposed actions before decisions are made.
Procedure Flow for Project Preparation
Timeline for Environmental Approval
Project Implementation
