Environmental and Social Safeguarding technical services to support the role out of the Disaster & Risk Management (DRM) Sub-projects for the ECRP II Project

Project Context and Scope

The Enhancing Community Resilience and Local Governance Project Phase II (ECRP II), funded by the World Bank and implemented by the Government of South Sudan through the Ministry of Finance and Planning, is currently underway in four states and two administrative areas in South Sudan. The project aims to enhance access to services, increase flood resilience, and enhance the institutional capacity of both national and subnational governments in service delivery and disaster risk management.

The Republic of South Sudan faces multiple, recurrent hazards, including floods, droughts, conflicts, and disease outbreaks, which continue to undermine development gains and the resilience of communities. To address these challenges, ECRP II aims to strengthen the institutional capacity of national and state Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Councils. Strengthening these structures is critical for effective disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and risk reduction across the country.

The project is targeting to implement key DRM sub-projects in 2026. As required by the project, such sub-projects should be subjected to Environmental and Social risk assessment processes including the development of appropriate environmental and social risk management tools prior to the implementation of the targeted sub-projects.   

To ensure critical environmental and social risk management tools are prepared as required by the ESMF, ECRP II seeks to engage two (2) individual consultants to provide environmental and social safeguarding technical services to support the role out of the Disaster & Risk Management (DRM) Sub-projects in four locations namely Unity, Upper Nile, and Jonglei states, and in Greater Pibor Administrative Area. The services will lead to the production of Environmental and Social Management Plans that will pave way to the implementation of the targeted DRM sub-projects under ECRP II.  

This consultancy aligns with South Sudan’s focus on the sustainable utilization of natural resources, prevention of pollution and environmental degradation. It provides a platform to contribute towards sustainable DRM solutions in the country. Moreover, the work will also bolster the country’s efforts to meet its commitments under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Objectives

Overall Objective

The overall objective of the consultancy is to lead the environmental and social risk assessment processes for the targeted DRM subprojects and the subsequent production of appropriate environmental and social risk management tools e.g. screening reports and detailed ESMPs. 

Specific Objectives

Scope of Work

The consultants will undertake the development of environmental and social risk management tools for targeted DRM sub-projects using the approved ECRP II methodology in four targeted areas: Unity, Upper Nile, Jonglei states and Pibor administrative area.  The work will involve production of at least the following sub reports that will be consolidated to form one report: 

Non-technical summary: The consultants shall produce non-technical Summaries highlighting significant impacts in a way that can be easily understood by a non-technical audience, in particular local stakeholders. The summary includes how the identified impacts should be managed and points out any outstanding issues that require further action. 

Sub-Project description: Working together with the engineering teams, a detailed project description shall be produced by the consultants describing the main parameters of the proposed sub-project. 

Analysis of policy, legal and administrative framework: The consultants will have to describe the policy, legal and administrative framework applicable to the proposed subprojects. The focus should be on identifying any laws and regulations that pertain to governance of environmental and social matters relevant to the sub-projects. This includes regulations about environmental and/or social impact assessments to which the sub-projects must adhere. An explanation of the requirements must be provided highlighting compliance obligations for the project.

Stakeholder identification and analysis: Working together with the community outreach assistants, meaningful stakeholder engagement should be done by the consultants. The purpose of the stakeholder engagement, which includes identification and analysis, is to understand potential impacts on stakeholders and to clarify who should be involved in the ESMP process and how. This is done by listing all relevant stakeholders based on the existing ECRP II stakeholder analysis developed during the project design process and on general knowledge about the project context and its main stakeholders. The stakeholder engagement should elaborate the following: 

Stakeholders should be disaggregated between men and women where relevant and feasible; age groups should also be considered when segregating stakeholders. It is useful to present the key findings of the stakeholder analysis in a matrix. Stakeholder analysis is considered a work in progress that should be adjusted as more information becomes available during the ESMP process and throughout the project implementation process. 

Environmental and social baseline: Describe and analyse the environmental and social context in which the sub-project operates. While some broad contextual information is necessary, the analysis should focus on the immediate context of the sub-project site and aspects that relate to the identified impacts in order to be relevant to decisions about the sub-project design, operation, or mitigation measures. 

 Assessment of environmental and social impacts: This step is the most important part of the environmental and social risk management tool. It itemizes and describes the identified impacts, makes predictions in terms of their probability and assesses their significance. The assessment should give particular attention to impacts related to the ESMF such as adverse impacts on people’s livelihood through access restrictions or resettlement, on indigenous peoples, on cultural heritage or on biodiversity. However, its coverage should also involve other potential social impacts including impacts on women or vulnerable groups or risks triggered by the project failing to take climate change effects into consideration. 

Participatory research and assessment tools should be employed wherever sensible to increase stakeholder’s understanding of the project, provide opportunity for raising issues and enable participation of affected groups in the identification of mitigation measures, as discussed in section 9. 

Analysis of alternatives: The purpose of the analysis of alternatives is to identify other options, including not implementing the sub-project, to achieve the sub-project objectives and compare their impacts with the original proposal. 

Environmental and social management plan (ESMP) Compilation: A main output of the process is a strategy for managing risks and mitigating impacts. The identification of mitigation measures is done in consultation with affected groups and is guided by the mitigation hierarchy. The mitigation hierarchy implies that all reasonable attempts must first be made to avoid negative social or environmental impacts. If avoidance is not possible without challenging the conservation objective of the project, measures should be taken to minimise the impacts to acceptable levels and address remaining residual impacts with adequate and fair compensation measures. 

The risk management strategy is documented in an Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) that describes: the mitigation measures developed during the ESIA, an implementation schedule and required resources and responsibilities. The technical and operational feasibility, cultural adequacy and sustainability of proposed measures must be demonstrated as well as requirements for capacity building and institutional strengthening, where relevant. The ESMP should also indicate how the measures designed to avoid impacts will be monitored for effectiveness. The guidance note for developing the ESMP provides further instructions and includes templates for the ESMP and for monitoring the plan. 

Stakeholder consultation: Stakeholder engagement is a key principle of the ESMF and an important procedural tool for a successful ESMP. It improves understanding of local conditions and stakeholders’ concerns and is essential for identifying effective strategies for mitigating negative impacts.

Methodology

The consultancy will adopt a participatory, conflict evidence-based approach and context sensitive in the development of relevant environmental and social risk management tools. The general applicable methodology is presented in the flow chart below: 

PMU Roles/Obligations 

The consultant will be responsible for producing the following deliverables:

Timeline:

The consultancy is expected to be completed within 4 months, with the following timeline: # Key Activity  Deliverables  Timeline/# days  Payment Schedule  i Inception meeting Inception report  7 days    ii Environmental and Social Screening ES Screening reports  30 days  25% iii Environmental and Social Risk Management tools Drafting including addressing of comments  ESMPs  60 days  50% vi Finalization and submission of the Environmental and Social Risk Management reports  WB approved ESMPs 23 days  25%

Total contractual period   120 days 

100%

Master’s Degree in Environmental Sciences, Social Science or a related field from an accredited academic institution with at least five years of relevant professional experience. Experience