Duties and Responsibilities
Objective
The primary objective of the proposed services is to prepare/ undertake an Environmental & Social Safeguard (ESS) study, including the undertaking of an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and the development of an Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) and Environmental & Social Management Framework (ESMF) for the proposed Waste Management Flagship. The findings will inform the formulation of the programme design and mitigate all environmental/social risks identified through stakeholder engagement.
The ESS activities will be undertaken both at the project and programme level. The project level constitutes of the 6 pilot municipalities for which interventions have been selected and prefeasibility studies undertaken. The programme level activities consider a long list of 40 preliminary sub-projects (municipalities), to be added to the programme. Outputs of the ESS activities will be annexed to the GCF funding proposal as supporting documents
Overall scope of Works
The ESS constitutes of 3 components these include: ESIA, ESMP and ESMF respectively. The ESIA and ESMP will be undertaken and developed at the project level and ESMF at the programme level.
The appointed consultant/s will be working closely with the Department of Environmental Affairs and the DBSA, as well as the gender and legal experts. The tasks, examined below, are anticipated to take approximately 320 working days. The outcomes of the ESIA undertaken for the 6 pilot municipalities are to be taken into account when developing the project level ESMP. Similarly, the ESIA and ESMP will inform the programme level ESMF.
The projects in the 6 municipalities have ESS categories B or 2 and are therefore medium risk projects, for which mitigation measures can be prescribed. The undertaking of the ESS activities must fulfil the requirements of the DBSA ESS standards (requirements) for the abovementioned category, as well as take into account the relevant legislative framework requirements (a defined by legal experts) per project.
The consultant is anticipated to cover the following:
ESIA
The ESIA is to include the following activities and outputs:
a) Working closely with the DEA (Municipal Waste Support Chief Directorate) identify and prioritise all relevant stakeholders to engage with (pre- and during/ throughout programme implementation) and develop a stakeholder engagement plan, to guide public participation (including interested and affected, vulnerable persons/communities) for the ESS (ESIA and ESMP) and gender activities (gender action plan and assessment) at both the project and programme level. It is intended that ESS and gender assessment stakeholder engagements are streamlined to avoid stakeholder fatigue as far as possible. The gender expert is to work closely with the ESS experts to ensure the necessary level of input into gender aspects of the stakeholder engagement plan, and ensure that both men and women are consulted.
The ESS and gender stakeholder engagement plan must consider legislative public participation requirements as well as the requirements of the DBSA ESS standards.
The ESS and gender stakeholder engagement plan must be annexed to the GCF funding proposal detailing the following:
b) Description of the project and existing environment (physical, socio-economic and gender) including justifications.
c) Description of legislative framework, relevant to the projects based on the legal advisory report outputs prepared by the legal expert stipulating environmental authorization requirements per project according to the legal framework.
d) Identification, prediction and assessment of major/ crucial environmental and social project impacts, through stakeholder consultations, secondary research (consult official STATS reports, IDPs, waste plans, social department reports from provincial and municipal level and the like) and site visits, this includes: impact/ risk categorization i.e. direct, indirect cumulative , residual etc. ,importance, baseline, probability of occurrence and level of significance) presented quantitatively and qualitatively where relevant. Both the beneficial and adverse impacts must be considered.
e) Undertaking of specialist studies as per the licensing requirements (legislative framework) for the organic waste treatment facility per municipality, these may include geotechnical studies, geo-hydrological studies etc. The specialist studies required will be determined by the verification of the sites per municipality, the technology/ treatment facility specifications, and the licensing requirements thereof.
f) Identification of mitigation measures associated with the project impacts identified.
g) Identification and assessment of alternative waste diversion technical interventions or solutions considered, and a comparative assessment of these from an environmental and social impact perspective. Furthermore, the potential social and environmental impacts to alternative sites will be assessed to identify the most sustainable option to minimize adverse environmental and social impacts. The feasibility of mitigating social and environmental impacts for alternative sites and interventions will be evaluated.
h) Assessment of institutional capacity available to implement the mitigation measures identified.
The outputs above must be documented in the form of an Impact Assessment Report.
The undertaking of ESIA activities in the 6 municipalities will occur concurrently.
ESMP
The ESMP includes the development of an environmental and social management plan detailing how the mitigation measures will be managed, monitored and reported at the project level during the implementation/ operational phase. The ESMP will be informed by the ESIA outputs, as well Development Bank of Southern Africa as further stakeholder engagement at the programme level as per the ESS and gender stakeholder engagement plan. The ESMP will detail all actions required to mitigate adverse impacts.
The ESMP includes:
ESMF
The ESMF is informed by the ESIA and the ESMP, as well as further stakeholder engagement at the programme level as per the ESS and gender stakeholder engagement plan. The requirements of the ESMF are consistent to those of the ESMP as stipulated above, however the ESMF addresses the programme level requirements for the management, monitoring and reporting of critical adverse environmental and social risks/ impacts.
Thus the ESMF will include inter alia (in addition to the ESMP requirements above at the programme level):
The monitoring indicators within the ESMP and ESMF will be incorporated into the programme level logic framework to be annexed to the GCF funding proposal application as a supporting document. After incorporating recommendations from GCF, DEA and the DBSA, complete and hand over the final ESMF.
Environmental Authorizations (Licensing)
Furthermore, the processing of licensing applications must be undertaken for the six municipalities (project level) as part of this work package. The licensing of the interventions in the six municipalities includes: applications to various licensing authorities which includes the lodging and processing of licensing documents as required by the legislative framework, and advertisement of a notice of submission to the respective authorities as part of the public participation process.
Required Skills and Experience
Qualifications
Experience
Tagged as: DBSA, South Africa
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