We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle  

21 December 2011

PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA – UNICON awarded Asian Development Bank contract for Strengthening and Use of Country Safeguard Systems.

The Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) have developed country safeguards systems (CSS) according to their needs. These safeguards systems have similar objectives, but their requirements, procedures, and guidelines differ. In support of greater country ownership and alignment with country systems, Asian Development Bank (ADB) assists the Pacific DMCs to strengthen their CSS. It is expected that strengthened CSS will not only lead to increased use of CSS in projects supported by ADB and other development partners, but it will also enhance the Pacific DMCs’ ownership and will benefit all projects including those domestically-funded.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the largest country among the Pacific DMCs and receives the largest share of ADB assistance in the region. ADB’s major infrastructure projects in PNG are in the transport and energy sectors. Several agencies in PNG have experience in applying PNG’s CSS in domestically-funded projects and development partners’ safeguard policies in projects funded by development partners. Nonetheless, there are still weaknesses in implementing safeguards in both development partner-assisted and government-funded projects. There is a need to strengthen implementation of PNG’s CSS on the environment, particularly in the areas of preparing and implementing environmental assessment documents, linking environmental assessment documents with bidding/contract documents, and implementing environmental management plans (EMP).

This project aims to strengthen PNG’s CSS in the near term. It focuses on analysis of PNG’s safeguard systems and on preparation of an action plan to enhance capacity of the existing country systems, institutions and procedures on environmental safeguards in the energy (hydropower and transmission) sector. This project is considered as the first phase of technical assistance support to achieving the Government’s interest in strengthened CSS capacity.