ADB’s environmental and social safeguards are a cornerstone of its support to inclusive economic growth and environmental sustainability in Asia and Pacific. ADB’s safeguard policy aims to help developing member countries address environmental and social risks in development projects and minimize and mitigate, if not avoid, adverse project impacts on people and the environment. After 10 years of implementing its 2009 Safeguards Policy Statement (SPS), ADB is conducting a comprehensive review of said policy statements. According to ADB, ‘with the changing contexts in countries and regions, the SPS needs to be updated to remain relevant and robust in responding to evolving development needs.’
As part of this review, ADB has conducted two phases already:
- Phase 1, ADB launched the review, and shared the initial Stakeholders Engagement Plan (SEP) which outlined the consultation and communication approaches. After the initial round of consultations and outreach, the SEP was updated to reflect stakeholder insights and issues.
- Phase 2, ADB conducted a series of stakeholder consultations based on key analytical studies, and their implications on policy revision.
One of the positive developments at the ADB is the inclusion of SOGIESC as one of the themes in their virtual phase 2 consultations. SOGIESC consultations were conducted on June 6 and 7, 2022.
Under Phase 3: Revision and Finalization of the Policy Recommendations, feedback from Phase 2 has been consolidated, organized, and analyzed to ensure consideration of both recurrent themes and specific policy revisions. A draft of the proposed Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) has been developed and broadly shared with internal and external stakeholders for comments.
Public comments will be held to further enrich the draft:
- ADB invites stakeholders to send written comments through email or through this web form, until 31 January 2024. If you prefer to provide comments offline, you may download the word version of this form and submit by email to [email protected].
- Stakeholder consultations will be held from November 2023 to March 2024.
