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PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID)
CONCEPT STAGE
Report No.: AB1881
Project Name
Region
Sector
Project ID
GEF Focal Area
Borrower(s)
Implementing Agency
Environment Category
Date PID Prepared
Estimated Date of
Appraisal Authorization
Estimated Date of Board
Approval
West Africa Regional Biosafety Project
AFRICA
Crops (50%); Agro-industry (50%)
P096058
Biodiversity
MINISTRIES OF ENVIRONMENT
[ ] A [ ] B [X] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined)
October 31, 2005
April 15, 2006
September 12, 2006
1. Key development issues and rationale for Bank involvement
The cotton sector plays a critical role in the economies of West and Central African countries,
whereby the livelihood of several million people are dependent upon it. This makes the
performance of the sector decisive for economic growth and for determining the width and depth
of poverty. These countries were able to gain market share in the cotton sector over the past
three decades, but falling prices and increasing market pressures make it important for these
countries to find innovative ways to improve their competitiveness, and to seek for more
favorable trade conditions.
Agricultural biotechnology provides a vast potential opportunity for the countries of West and
Central Africa to increase their cotton productivity, thereby improving their competitiveness. Bt
cotton is a transgenic variety of cotton that reduces pesticides dependence because of its
resistence to the main pest, the cotton bollworm. Apart from a few countries, evidence to-date
indicates that none of the West African cotton producing countries are importing or producing Bt
cotton commercially. In Burkina Faso, field trials for Bt cotton have been initiated. Mali may
follow similar direction in its USAID-funded Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS). Benin,
despite being the largest producer in the sub-region, has not embarked on the evaluation of cost
benefit analysis for the production of BT cotton. Senegal is the most advance country in the
region on research in biotechnology and had in fact pursued a policy to increase its cotton
production to 100,000 mt. This has prompted other countries in the sub-region to increase their
cotton production.
While transgenic cotton may have great potential for these countries in the region, a full analysis
pertaining to cost benefits, risks associated to the adoption and diffusion of biotechnologies, and
opportunity costs for non-adoption of such technology should be undertaken before Bt cotton is
introduced into the environment. Other issues associated to biotechnology are related to the
marginalization of small size local economy, access to healthcare, environmental, political,
social, ethical and religious concerns.
In managing these concerns, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) seeks to ensure the safe
transfer, handling, and use of living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern
biotechnology by enumerating the setting up of appropriate procedures and the application of
scientific tools in risk assessment and management. Thus, requiring signatory countries to the
CPB to put in place a regulatory framework on technical evaluation on risk assessment and
management on the environment, food and feed safety and capacity building of personnel and
institutions with the primary objective of balancing opportunities and perceived risks from
biotechnology.
Out of the six countries included in this project, five have ratified the CPB: Benin, Burkina Faso,
Togo, Mali, Senegal, and Côte d'Ivoire is expected to do so soon.
For the World Bank, improving biosafety through a strengthened biosafety framework is
therefore urgently needed in those countries to establish biosafety capacity that permits a holistic
evaluation of transgenic crops, consistent with the implementation of the CBP, while seizing the
opportunity for the establishment of research and regulatory framework at the regional level for
the West Africa subregion. This initiative is also significant because many countries in West and
Central Africa through their sector strategy and Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) are setting a
high priority on policy reforms to improve the production of cotton to address poverty reduction.
The World Bank’s lending portfolio on agriculture and rural development and GEF-related
operations in targeted countries have direct relevance to the objectives of this project. The broad
experiences of the Bank in providing technical and knowledge support related to pertinent policy
issues particularly on agriculture, trade, intellectual property rights, science and technology and
international convention compliance direct it as the appropriate institution to assist the six
countries in improving their national biosafety capacities.1 The Bank also recognized the
importance of helping these cotton producing countries and has supported in the design and
implementation of a comprehensive reform program that focuses on privatization strategy of the
filiere, build capacities among the producers organizations, accelerate technology adoption,
improve the cost structure of cotton production, promote quality, and improve cotton sales
management. The Bank has recently undertook analytical work including a series of biosafetyrelated studies, to improve the content and outcomes of the ongoing reforms in the sub-region.
2. Proposed objective(s)
The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to implement the CPB in six West African
Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries at the national level and, according to the
GEF strategy2, at the sub-regional level through centers of excellence such as the West and
Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (WECARD) and the Institut
du Sahel (INSAH). While transgenic cotton is a strong driver for developing the present project
and for choosing targeted countries, the project’s goal is to build overall capacity in risk
assessment and management related to all LMOs. LMOs cow pea, plantain, tomato and cassava
may indeed be developed in the future by the private sectors and the international agricultural
research centers.
2
“Elements for a Biosafety Strategy,” GEF Council meeting, November, 2005
To achieve the PDO, the approach will focus on strengthening the biosafety regulatory and risk
assessment and management capacities, building National Biosafety Agencies (NBAs), training
various stakeholders, promoting public awareness, and developing sub-regional knowledge
generation and coordination. This multi-country and regional project will complement and build
upon the experiences of the UNEP/GEF-funded framework development projects and
complement efforts underway in Mali under the USAID-funded PBS.
The Global Environment Objective (GEO) of the project is to help six WAEMU countries to
assess and manage the environmental risks of agricultural biotechnology to ensure the safe
transfer, handling, and use of transgenic crops in the region, which will contribute to their ability
to implement the CPB..
This project will develop both national and sub-regional capacity principally in public
environmental and food and feed safety institutions in risk assessment and management, and
socio-economic impact assessment of transgenic crops. This strengthened biosafety capacity will
permit the selected countries to make informed decisions as to the benefits and risks of trade and
production of transgenic crops, and will assist them in determining where, when, and how these
crops and their food and feed products may be best utilized to contribute to national development
priorities, while ensuring compliance with the CPB.
3. Preliminary description
The establishment of biosafety capacity in the West and Central African sub-region is a
challenging task due to the complexity of the subject matter that demands for an inter
disciplinary approach on cross-cutting issues ranging from science, economics, law, social
studies, institutional governance and politics. A traditional way of building capacity is by
empowering one country to build and strengthen its technical and scientific capacities with the
hope that other countries will pursue a similar strategy. In the case of biosafety, it is submitted
that this approach is time consuming and costly to attain a desirable International Standards and
uniformity. Furthermore, such investment demands for a long-term commitment from
Governments who are facing much more challenging issues relating to poverty alleviation, rural
development, and equity.
Hence, a regional approach is proposed. This is a process that builds upon the existing
collaboration at the sub-regional level utilizing the existing capacity and enhance it by
facilitating its access to international experts from US, Canada, and Europe. In addition, this
strategy would seek to collaborate and not duplicate other ongoing donor-supported biosafety
investments, notably those of UNEP (at the national level), the French Development Agency
(AFD) and USAID (at the regional level). Such an approach would be faster, cost effective, and
potentially sustainable. Most of the proposed capacity building activities will be implemented at
the regional level with the full participation from the identified national institutions responsible
for implementing the provisions of the CP.
Taking the above concerns into consideration and their needs for prompt intervention, this
project will address key aspects for the establishment of functional biosafety capacity through a
strategic collaboration among Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, and Togo at the
regional front through WEAMU, WECARD and INSAH and at national levels. The strategic
implementation of the project acknowleges the different levels of institutional capacities of the
six countries in the safe handling, transfer and use of LMOs. Burkina Faso is a clear leader in
this area undertaking field trials on Bt cotton with Mali taking similar path while Senegal is most
advanced in biotechnology research. Benin and Togo have confirmed their strong interest to
participate in the sub-regional biosafety network because they are concerned about lossing their
comparative advantages if their neighbors are moving towards the commercialization of Bt
cotton. Côte d'Ivoire has not initiated any potential evaluation for the introduction of Bt cotton.
Given these differences, the project expects to adopt a two-tiered approach to its implementation
where the details of such approaches will be defined during project preparartion.
The following project design is being considered:
Component 1:Regional Design and Dissemination of Technical Tools to Assess and
Manage Risks
This component is primarily to facilitate sharing of information among partners and stakeholders
and also to contribute to the long term sustainability of the project beyond its lifetime. The
activities under this component are: (i) to establish a web-based regional biosafety clearing house
mechanism; (ii) to design environmental risk assessment tools; (iii) to design food and feed
safety assessment tools; and (iv) tools for biosafety clearing house dissemination at the national
and regional levels.
Component 2: Implementation and Management of Biosafety Regulatory Framework at
the National Level
This component is focusing on strengthening the existing national biosafety regulatory
frameworks in the six countries. The activities under this component are: (i) to review the
existing national biosafety legislations; (ii) to stimulate and build public awareness on biosafety
issues; (iii) to enhance the capacities of the National Biosafety Agencies on coordination for
biosafety activities; and (iv) to provide support and build the capacities of the National Project
Co-ordinators.
Component 3: Harmonization of Biosafety and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) policies
within the WEAMU framework
This component is aimed to facilitate the interaction, building of consensus and formulation of
regional biosafety and IPRs policies, from all national stakeholders. The activities under this
component are: (i) to establish a forum for stakeholders to deliberate and negotiate on biosafety
and IPRs issues; (ii) to undertake socio economic impact assessment and set up a biosafety
observatory at the regional level; (iii) to build the capacity of selected officials to negotiate on
IPRs issues for cash and staple crops; (iv) to facilitate a regional dialogue for policy makers; and
(v) to strengthen the capacity on project management, monitoring and evaluation.
4.
Safeguard policies that might apply
The Project Concept has been screened by the regional safeguards coordinator and has been
classified as Category C, meaning it is likely to have minimal or no adverse environmental
impacts. No further environmental assessment is required.
5. Tentative financing
Source:
BORROWER/RECIPIENT
($m.)
9
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY
Total
6. Contact point
Contact
Jean-Christophe Carret
Title
Natural Resources Economist
Tel
(202) 473-5965
Fax
Email
[email protected]
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