A call has been made for the implementation of the continent’s framework on environmental and social risk to ensure sustainable management of projects.
Professor Charles Amoatey, Director, Academy Leadership and Executive Training, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), who made the call, said,”African countries must apply policies on Essential of Environmental and Social Risk Management (ESRM) in every project they design to ensure that all environmental risk issues are properly managed.”
Prof Amoatey said this on Monday at a five-day training programme for a course on ESRM in Accra.
The programme is organised by GIMPA in collaboration with the Regional Transport Research and Education Centre of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(KNUST), funded by the World Bank Group.
The training programme brought together 60 participants from the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, as well as local government and public service from the African continent, including Ghana, Nigeria. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Rwanda.
He said the aim of the programme was to train participants to manage ESRM associated with projects being implemented on the continent for sustainable development.
Several studies conducted on improving results in sub Saharan Africa showed that financial institutions in the region did not achieve satisfactory environmental, social, health, and safety ratings.
Also, there is a lack of capacity among these institutions as well as member states to implement environmental and social risk management.
Prof Amoatey said it was in response to the challenges that the ESRM programme was developed to increase the uptake of environmental and social standards and to improve the performance of these institutions and government agencies in the long-term.
“We need to work with the government and key stakeholders to develop appropriate policies for institutionalizing ESRM in all development interventions. We need to have a framework to properly estimate the risk for every project we implement to ensure that the environment is protected,” he said.
Prof Charles Adams, Director, Regional Transport Research and Education Centre, KNUST, said the programme would be delivered through a blended learning approach of online and face-to-face sessions.
The online session was organised from November 29 to 30, 2022, with the objective of equipping participants with knowledge for identifying and managing environmental and social risks associated with development projects.
He urged the participants to take advantage of the programme to network and share their respective country’s experiences to improve environmental and social risk management on the continent.
Mr Steffen Soulejman Janus, a representative from the World Bank, urged the participants to be agents of change by putting into practice the knowledge acquired.
That, he said, was crucial because all development projects were designed to improve sectors of the economy, and the success of a project was dependent on the benefits derived by society.
