World Bank Australia Safeguards Partnership

WBASP coordinates and facilitates several events each year around the region. A key event is the meeting of the Regional Development Partners Community of Practice (COP) on environmental and social sustainability in the East Asia and Pacific Region. Held twice yearly, these meetings bring together environmental and social specialists from ADB, DFAT, JICA, USAID, the World Bank Group, and other development partners working in the region such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The CoP meeting provides a forum to share knowledge and experiences environment and social management, sustainability of infrastructure projects, and to identify common themes for further collaboration.

Taking advantage of the gathering of the environmental and social specialists during the CoP meeting, other events are often held at the same time, such as the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) workshop held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2016 and an outreach event with the private sector in Myanmar in March 2019 to discuss challenges and opportunities to collaborate on environmental and social safeguard capacity building activities.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Workshop.  A two-day workshop titled “Making Safeguards Work for Investors, Governments and Communities: PPPs for Infrastructure Development in Asia” was held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2106. This event was one of the first activities between the collaboration partners (ADB, DFAT, JICA, and the World Bank) after signing the Principles of Collaboration for Country Safeguard Systems. IFC, the AIIB, the EIB, USAID, and representatives from academia, and private- and public-sector organizations involved in PPPs also participated. Participants shared their perspectives on environmental and social risk management and considered the respective role of all the actors in managing environmental and social risks to mobilize private sector investment in infrastructure. Several recommendations from the workshop are being implemented under WBASP and to further advance the work, a PPP roundtable was held in 2019 with participation from the development partners and the private sector.

WBASP is also instrumental in bringing together specialists and representatives from government to share knowledge and experiences. The Asia Day Development Forum held during the 36th Annual Conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) in Nagoya, Japan in May 2016 and the Pacific day held at the 39th IAIA annual conference in Brisbane Australia in 2019 are two examples.

2019 Pacific Day: Pacific Day brought together government officials, practitioners, academics, development partners and other key stakeholders to discuss, exchange views and share their experience in the application of environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) to meet the challenges of sustainable growth and development in the region. Discussions highlighted some of the challenges and more importantly ways to move forward such as having a holistic and integrated approach for environmental and social sustainability, mainstreaming E&S considerations and improving cross-sectoral collaboration, capacity building and having outcome-based monitoring and enforcement.

Upcoming Events

• November 19-20, 2019: Development Partners Community of Practices (COP) Meeting. Jakarta Indonesia
• November 21, 2019: Outreach Event to Development Partners, Private Sector and other Stakeholders Working in Indonesia. Jakarta, Indonesia

Publications

• The World Bank Australia Partnership: Summary of Phase 1
• Making Safeguards Work for Investors, Governments and Communities: PPPs for Infrastructure Development in Asia
• Summary Report Pacific Day. Pacific Islands Knowledge Sharing Forum at the 29^th Annual Conference of the International Association of Impact Assessment
• The World Bank Australia Partnership Informational Brochure
• Learning Center for Environmental and social Sustainability Informational Brochure
• Principles of Collaboration for Country Safeguards Systems between the Asian Development Bank, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank