Environmental and Social Safeguards

The Malawi Government through all the implementing ministries, government departments and agencies (MDAs) under the leadership of Ministry of Water and Sanitation with funding from the World Bank are putting enormous seriousness on implementation of environmental and social safeguards policies in the project.

As the project ensures actualization of the investments, the aim is to ensure that the people and the environment are protected from potential adverse impacts. In order to achieve this, the project ensures that it has guiding tools that help to identify, avoid, and minimize harm to people and the environment. These tools require the project to address certain environmental and social risks in order to successfully meet the goal of the project.

Safeguard Policies, Environmental and Social Framework
In order to ensure that safeguard and environmental issues are well managed, the project has safeguards unit. The safeguard units ensures that there is compliance with rules and regulations on environmental and social policies, regulations and guidelines in Malawi and the World Bank’s environmental and social operation policies.

The Unit is responsible for environment and social risk management and ensuring that all project activities comply with the requirements and timelines in the Environment and Social Commitment Plan (ESCP) and environmental and social safeguards as outlined in the governing safeguards instruments such as the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP), the Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF), the Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF), the Process Framework (PF) and Labour Management Procedures (LMP). The Unit has 3 Officers (2 Officers from Environmental Affairs Department, 1 Officer from Department of Water Resources) and Social Specialist and Environmental Specialist.