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PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) APPRAISAL STAGE Report No.: AB3619 Maldives Environmental Management Project Project Name SOUTH ASIA Region Solid waste management (50%); Central government Sector administration (50%) P108078 Project ID REPUBLIC OF MALDIVES Borrower(s) Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water (MEEW) Implementing Agency [X] A [ ] B [ ] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) Environment Category February 13, 2008 Date PID Prepared March 6, 2008 Date of Appraisal Authorization June 10, 2008 Date of Board Approval 1. Country and Sector Background 1. The Republic of Maldives is a small island nation located in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka. It consists of some 26 major atolls and hundreds of smaller islands. Of these islands, only 33 have an area greater than one square kilometer (km2). The total land area is less than 300 km2. Maldives is a country with more territorial sea than land. The population is about 319,000 and is highly concentrated on relatively few islands. The atolls are ringed by coral reefs that are the seventh largest in the world and among the richest in terms of species diversity and aesthetic appeal. The reefs host over 1,900 species of fish, 187 coral species, 350 crustaceans. Tourists are attracted to the Maldives for the pristine beaches and dive locations, the latter considered among the finest in the world. An estimated 500,000 tourists per year visit sites in the Maldives ─ nearly twice the country’s population. 2. The Maldives is largely a service-oriented economy. Due to its small population and limited endowments of land, the scope for agriculture and manufacturing is limited. Nature-based tourism is the primary industry, accounting for about 70 percent of GDP (in terms of direct and indirect contributions), followed by fishing and fish processing (10 percent of GDP). Revenues from these activities have been channeled largely into public investments in education, health and infrastructure, creating an economy that is graduating to middle-income status. Economic performance has been robust over the past two decades with growth averaging about 7 percent per year. 3. Nature-based tourism has recently served as the engine of growth and prosperity for the economy. The country has a tourism capacity of about 16,000 beds with an 82 percent occupancy rate. The sector is poised for rapid expansion, with plans for 10 new domestic airports to be managed by the private sector, improvements to existing transport facilities and leases to 51 additional resorts by 2009, which would amount to a 50 percent increase in bed capacity. While the time frame for this expansion is short, it signals a clear intention to strengthen the role of tourism as the key growth pole of the economy. 4. Like other small island states, the Maldives faces daunting environmental risks that threaten to undermine its economic achievements. In recent years, growing environmental pressures have emerged as a consequence of rising population densities, increased tourism and changing consumption patterns. Some islands with high population density confront growing problems of solid waste management, pollution from sewage and other effluents emanating from urban settlements, hotels, fish-processing plants, ships and other sources. In particular, with growing prosperity and buoyant tourism, the quantities of solid waste generated exceed disposal and treatment capacity. This poses a substantial and visible risk to the country’s reputation as an unspoiled tropical “paradise”. An estimated 248,000 tons of solid waste was generated in the Maldives in 2007 and this figure is predicted to rise over the next five years to 324,000 tons, a 30 percent increase. Current arrangements for solid waste management on inhabited islands are inadequate. Most wastes are dumped onto the island foreshore and burned at low combustion temperatures. In addition, approximately 510 tonnes per year of medical waste is estimated to be produced in the Maldives. Uncontrolled disposal of solid wastes, including medical waste, as it occurs today, is a threat to the coastal, marine and coral reef ecosystems and a blemish on the pristine marine landscape expected by tourists. 5. Sewage disposal is a further, though less visible, problem that can degrade seawater quality, and damage coral reefs—the keystone resource for revenues in the Maldives economy. Of particular concern are the continuing threats to marine assets from habitat degradation. Coral mining for construction and dredging of lagoons for reclamation have been identified as the most widespread causes of reef destruction. Other pressures include: damage caused by divers, the illegal collection of corals and the unsustainable exploitation of high value reef resources such as sea-cucumber, grouper and giant clams. On the islands, timber harvesting and the destruction of mangroves threaten terrestrial biodiversity, while pollutants from numerous sources have caused eutrophication of coral reefs. 6. In addition to anthropogenic pressures, climate change poses a still more far-reaching source of environmental risk. Geography has rendered the Maldives especially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Being land-scarce (96 percent of islands occupy less than 1 km2 in area) and low lying (over 80 percent of the country is less than 1 meter above sea level), the country is exposed to the risks of intensifying weather events such as damage caused by inundation, extreme winds and flooding from storms. 7. With the melting of polar ice caps, the Maldives is exposed to the risks of sea-level rise. With future sea level projected to rise within the range of 10 to 100 centimeters by the year 2100, the entire country could be submerged in the worst-case scenario. Rising sea temperatures also threaten the coral reefs and cause bleaching and death, with the most severe damage in areas that are stressed by pollutants, or damaged by physical disturbance.1 Coral bleaching events have been observed in the Maldives seven times since 1997 and are associated with elevated sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean. Recovery of corals from bleaching events has been slow especially on degraded and damaged reefs. 8. The coral reefs stand as the first line of defense for the islands against storm surges which are projected to increase in velocity and depth with climate change. Vulnerability to climate change hazards has been magnified by the damage to coral reefs that has impaired their protective functions.2 Adapting to climate change would call for multiple approaches that require integrating climate risks in the planning, design and location of new infrastructure, and may call for costly 1 Global Climate Change and Coral Reefs. IUCN 2003 Report to UNEP-IOC-ASPEI Global Task Team. This is because the orbital diameter of a wave decreases (increases) exponentially with depth (height). The implication is that a small rise in sea level has a disproportionately large impact on wave energy. 2 investments in protective barriers such as sea-walls 3 , and more proactive stewardship of the natural protective barriers formed by coral reefs. 9. With the Maldives’ high dependence on a few key environmental assets and as pressure on these assets rises, prudent economic management calls for strengthened environmental stewardship. The substantial environmental challenges facing the Maldives could become a formidable brake on economic growth, especially if these undermine tourism. High-end tourism is an inherently fragile activity that depends on consumer perceptions, adequate transport and a continuous effort by the private sector to maintain and improve the quality of the tourism product in a highly competitive global market. To retain its comparative advantage, the Maldives needs to maintain a clean and attractive environment for tourists who, in the main, are well-to-do foreigners. This calls for a considerable improvement in environmental management with policy principles being translated into measurable outcomes and an environmental infrastructure that matches the needs of a country on the threshold of middle income status. 10. Recognizing the economic significance of its environmental assets, successive national development plans have emphasized the need for adopting sound environmental practices. There is an overarching policy framework for environmental protection in the country. Tourist resorts are governed by comprehensive environmental regulations and have a strong economic incentive to protect the environment on the islands on which they hold concessions. To address the risks posed by climate change, the Government of Maldives has initiated a population consolidation policy with the creation of “safe islands.” The need for such a policy is widely promoted and accepted within government. There is a consensus that, in the long term, as sea levels rise, it would be impossible to protect and provide services to widely dispersed populations. However, there is little scientific information on climate risks at the atoll and island level, to guide the selection of these safe islands. 11. Despite government commitment and past efforts, mounting environmental pressures far outpace the country’s ability to manage its key environmental assets. The greatest constraint to implementation of environmental policies is the lack of technical and managerial capacity. There are insufficient staff and a shortage of skilled and qualified personnel in most environmental agencies. Information for sound policymaking is fragmented and sparse, with little systematic data on reef health and marine habitats. There are insufficient skills and institutional incentives to incorporate these concerns in policy development, and no organized constituency favoring environmental protection. These constraints prevent informed evaluation and evidence-based decision-making. 12. It is in this context that this proposed project seeks to enhance the medium-term sustainability and resilience of growth and development in the Maldives. This will be achieved through targeted interventions that strengthen environmental outcomes addressing the risks posed by climate change, and creating enabling conditions to match the environmental needs of a resourcedependent economy graduating to middle income status. This would involve support for capacity building, filling critical knowledge gaps, strengthening incentives for improved environmental outcomes and improving solid waste management. 2. Objectives 3 Several sea-walls have already been built around Malé and other islands at a very high cost. 13. The first Project Development Objective is that a solid waste management system is established and that inhabitants on selected islands use solid waste management facilities, reducing the risks of contamination associated with accumulated wastes and sea dumping. 14. The second Project Development Objective is to build human and technical capacity for environmental management so that the environmental dimension is integrated in the planning process using information and expertise developed in the Project. 3. Rationale for Bank Involvement 15. The proposed Project is strongly aligned with the Government of Maldives’ priorities and the Bank’s recent Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). The Bank’s CAS acknowledges the significant threats to economic prosperity posed by environmental degradation and the risks of climate change. A strategic priority of the CAS is to selectively target limited resources where assistance is most needed and effective. Accordingly, strengthening environmental management and building greater resilience to climate variability and change have been identified as a major pillar of the CAS. 16. The Bank has extensive experience in supporting solid waste management in South Asia and in other regions. In the Maldives, the Bank is engaged in managing a European Union-funded solid waste management project under the Post-Tsunami Emergency Recovery Project. The Government of Maldives has also requested assistance to implement its newly enunciated National Solid Waste Management Policy. The Bank is well positioned to assist in this endeavor with its expertise in institutional development, public private partnerships and financial sustainability. 17. The Bank has also accumulated significant experience and expertise in general and specific areas of the environment over the past 25 years. National Environmental Action Plans have been developed in practically all IDA countries and the Bank has supported national environmental projects in countries as varied as India, Brazil and Poland. Some of these projects are aimed primarily at capacity building, while others involve interventions in fragile ecosystems, including specialized projects dealing with climate change in islands of the Caribbean and projects focusing on marine, coastal and coral reef conservation4. 18. Finally, climate change has emerged as an important priority in the Bank’s deepening engagement in promoting responsible stewardship of global public goods. The Maldives represents the iconic case of a small island economy facing unprecedented threats from climate change and sea level rise. How the country approaches these challenges could have important lessons for other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) that depend on coastal resources for economic development and environmental security. This Project would therefore have important demonstration effects for other vulnerable island economies. Success in this project would provide valuable lessons for other states in learning how to build climate resilience by conserving the integrity of coastal ecosystems. 4 Among them, Mexico: Adaptation to Climate Change in the Coastal Wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico (P100438), Integrated Coastal Zone Management Project, the completed GEF- Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (P053349) and its follow up project under preparation, the Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System II (P103923), Tanzania: Marine and Coastal Environment Management (P082492), Seychelles: Biodiversity Conservation and Marine Pollution Abatement Project (P002383), among others. 4. Description 19. The proposed Project would have four components: (1) A regional solid waste management program for the North Central region; (2) Capacity building for environmental management; (3) Technical assistance to strengthen environmental management and a pilot regional strategic environmental assessment, and (4) Project management and communications. 20. Component 1: Regional Solid Waste Management Program. Solid waste management is especially challenging in the Maldives. With a population spread across numerous islands, there is little scope for harnessing economies of scale. Thus, the costs of service delivery are high. With restricted land endowments, the space available for waste disposal is limited, calling for the waste stream to be minimized through such means as recycling and composting. The country’s fragile marine ecosystem requires that special attention be given to the choice of technology and system design to mitigate adverse impacts, particularly those that could damage the Maldives’ primary asset: its relatively unspoiled marine environment. This combination of risks and challenges is unique to the Maldives and demands specifically tailored solutions. 21. In accounting for the Maldives’ uniquely dispersed geography and its fragile ecology, the program will would operate at multiple levels. First, the construction of Island Waste Management Centers (IWMCs) would provide facilities for island communities to reduce the volume of waste requiring final disposal by sorting, recycling, and composting. Communities would be consulted and determine the level of sorting that would occur on each island. The residual waste would be temporarily stored in a safe and environmentally responsible manner in the IWMC. Second, a Regional Waste Management Facility (RWMF) built on an uninhabited island or an island with compatible land uses (e.g. an industrial island), would serve as the destination for residual waste from the IWMCs and participating resorts.5 Third, these would be supported by allied services such as community programs, waste transfer and transportation facilities, technical assistance and financial systems, all of which would be subject to government regulation and guided by stringent environmental criteria. The facilities would be designed and built to the highest appropriate standards that are economically viable to reduce the risk of contamination from solid wastes. Special attention would be paid to medical wastes and toxic wastes that would require special handling and management. 22. Component 2: Capacity Building for Environmental Management. The environmental agencies and regulators in the Maldives have a broad mandate, but their capacity to manage growing environmental pressures does not match the needs of a fragile environment on which the economy depends. The proposed Project is designed to at least partly fill the staffing gaps and capacity needs in the environment sector. Priority would be given to developing: (i) a core of competent generalists and specialists in the Ministry of Environment Energy and Water (MEEW), other relevant ministries (Planning, Fisheries, Tourism, and Construction) and in the private sector (particularly NGOs and the tourism sector) to guide the environmental assessment and decision-making process; (ii) a cadre of service providers to carry out monitoring and field surveillance activities making full use of modern technology; and (iii) a network of private citizens and stakeholders (e.g. fishermen, hotel and dive operators, boat operators and others) 5 Currently there is insufficient information on basic parameters to determine the location of the RWMF and this will be chosen through a comprehensive and thorough process designed to assure the highest feasible levels of environmental stewardship, described below. with the training needed to serve as the “eyes” and “ears” of the Ministry and also provide inputs for monitoring activities in the Project. The emphasis would be on training existing government staff and others for whom there is a reasonable expectation that their skills could be utilized in the near or medium term. 23. Training will be delivered through five modalities, namely: (a) community training and awareness raising; (b) specialized training leading to a certificate for roles not requiring academic credentials; (c) specialized training for technical tasks leading to an award such as a diploma or certificate; (d) undergraduate training of a new course in Environmental Management delivered by the Maldives College of Higher Education; and (e) scholarships for degree programs abroad (undergraduate and post-graduate). 24. All training modalities with the exception of modality (e) would be carried out in-country. Limited support will be provided for study abroad under modality (e) in universities in nonOECD countries, in areas that are of strategic environmental importance. 25. Component 3: Technical Assistance for Strengthened Environmental Management and Monitoring and a pilot Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment. Sparse information and the absence of baseline data remain one of the key impediments to improved environmental management in the Maldives. The primary objective of this component is to expand the knowledge base regarding critical natural resources on which the Maldives ecosystem and economy depend. In addition to filling major data gaps this component will also promote activities designed to stimulate discussions and policy deliberations that would lead to greater community awareness and better decision making. It will support activities of strategic significance: the problem of erosion that is projected to worsen with climate change, promoting natural adaptive capacity to climate change through improved stewardship and sustainability of the bait fishery, which is also linked to reef health. The modalities through which this would be achieved include monitoring and assessments of terrestrial resources (i.e., mangroves and coastal erosion), marine resources (i.e., coral reef status and bait fisheries) by communities and professional scientists and support for satellite imagery with the aim of integrating the environmental dimension in planning. Community monitoring is supported since it is an effective way of creating awareness and also of collecting basic data in a systematic fashion from a large number of sites. The capacity to monitor and acquire data would be enhanced by the acquisition of a research vessel appropriately outfitted with and other necessary research instruments. To bring together these activities and generate community awareness, this component would support a pilot Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment (RSEA) to (i) integrate and synthesize the assessments in ways that would inform policy and (ii) demonstrate the utility of incorporating environmental parameters in development decisions. 26. Component 4: Project Management and Communications. This pertains to the day-to-day operations of the Project including overall project management, component management, liaising and coordinating with other agencies and programs, financial management, procurement, monitoring and evaluation and project communications. The effective design and management of the latter aspect would be key to achieving the desired project outcomes, particularly in what regards to the solid waste management and the RSEA components. 5. Financing Source: BORROWER/RECIPIENT ($m.) 1.24 International Development Association (IDA) Total 12.50 13.74 6. Implementation 27. With its multi-agency focus, arrangements have been established to ensure coordination during project implementation. The Project Management Unit (PMU) would be lodged in the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water (MEEW). The overall Project is guided by a multisectoral National Steering Committee, chaired by the Minister of Environment, Energy and Water. 6 This would ensure greater visibility and policy commitment to environmental management for the duration of the project and beyond. A Technical Committee will provide guidance and oversight to the project. The Technical Committee will be chaired by an MEEW official, and would include two additional representatives from MEEW appointed by the Minister, the Project Director, representatives of the Marine Research Centre, the Ministry of Planning and National Development, the Ministry of Atoll Development and the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. 28. The PMU will be responsible for monitoring progress, evaluating outcomes and implementing this component. Procurement and fund flows would be managed by the PMU and includes agencies in MEEW that have had experience and involvement in donor-funded projects and specifically with World Bank policies and guidelines by implementing the South Ari Solid Waste Management Project.7 29. The PMU includes a manager assigned to oversee all project components and has hired an HR specialist who would help guide implementation and monitoring of the capacity building component. The relevant officer and consultant would further refine the capacity needs assessment and develop explicit criteria for open and competitive selection of candidates for the various certificate, diploma and degree programs offered under the project. This function calls for close coordination with key agencies with needs for environmental specialists. The Maldives College of Higher Education (MCHE) would help satisfy these demands by designing and offering diploma and degree programs in Environmental Management. MCHE would also, with project support, develop a permanent program in environmental management staffed by selected graduates in environmental management with additional postgraduate work. Community-level training may be carried out by a qualified NGO with experience in community mobilization in the Maldives. 30. The PMU would be kept lean with a core group of career officials serving as overall coordinator and managers for each component. Other staff would be recruited from government ranks if available, or as consultants on renewable contracts contingent on performance. As the training component advances, the trained persons may be recruited as members of the project management team 7. Sustainability 31. The Project has been designed with an emphasis on sustainability and it addresses some of the root causes of weak environmental management ― inadequate information and capacity. 6 This committee is in the process of formation and will be operational prior to appraisal. The South Ari Waste Management Project is part of post-Tsunami relief activities sponsored by the European Union. Since 2006, it has been managed by the World Bank. 7 Strengthening environmental outcomes in the Maldives would depend on civil society, government agencies, and decision makers understanding the risks to the economy through the accumulation of reliable information and proactively addressing these. The Project addresses these risks through a vigorous communication sub-component that would help build support in the general public and among decision makers. Through its support for in-country education in environmental management, the Project assures a supply of relevant skills that would extend beyond its life. Sustainability of the SWM component is one of the fundamental aspects of its design. It incorporates community ownership, leadership and participation, training, strengthening capacity and would be designed to assure financial viability. In the final analysis, the project’s sustainability will depend on the public finding tangible value in protecting their environment. 32. With regard to the sustainability of waste management services, the project design has benefited from earlier experiences aimed at providing SWM including a recent one sponsored by the Canadian Red Cross. There were a number of problems with this program including problems in contracting works for IWMCs, long delays in constructing IWMCs and premature operation of the few IWMCs that were built. A useful lesson learned from this experience is that IWMCs cannot operate satisfactorily unless three conditions are met: (i) agreement has been reached with each participating community regarding the modality of waste management and islanders have agreed to collaborate; (ii) the waste volume is reduced by composting of organic wastes on the island of origin8 and (iii) residual wastes are transported off the island to a disposal site at regular intervals. With careful attention to lessons learned from previous experiences on the Maldives, a viable SWM system can be implemented. 8. Lessons Learned from Past Operations in the Country/Sector 33. Component 1: Regional Solid Waste Management Program. The SWM component takes account of lessons from past and existing solid waste management activities in the Maldives as well as lessons and best practices in the region. The Maldivian islands are marked by considerable variation in local conditions, with differences in: (i) the composition of waste between resort islands and inhabited islands, (ii) customs including the extent of community participation and (iii) economic enterprise. Consequently there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to solid waste management at the island level. Many past endeavors have failed because of inadequate consultation and insufficient assessment of local conditions. Three important lessons have emerged from these operations. First, there is a need for programs to take account of local conditions, which vary widely across atolls and within atolls. Second, strong consultation and community buy-in remains the key to a successful operation and sustainability of the system. Third, it is essential that IWMCs are linked to regional waste management facilities with a regular waste transfer system. 34. The SWM component incorporates these lessons. Considerable weight will be given to local preferences through both the Participatory Rural Appraisal process and an effective public awareness program combined with a communications campaign. Technical, Financial and Social Assessments will ensure that Island Waste Management Plans reflect local conditions and requirements. The experience from the existing IWMCs shows that community participation in the recycling and resource recovery program is poor in most islands because of the need for an attitudinal change in the community, the lack of a mechanism for resale of recyclables and the 8 Composting can be done at a household level or at a community level. This can be determined by each community although, in either case, there needs to be training and outreach to show islanders how to properly compost their organic waste to avoid its becoming a nuisance. absence of facilities to transport residual waste to a RWMF. In some instances this has created a serious environmental and public health problem in the inhabited islands, with waste accumulation spilling onto beaches. In other cases island communities dump mixed solid wastes along the shoreline, with adverse consequences for reef habitat. Financial sustainability of the operations of the IWMCs has been identified as one of the main reasons for failure. Attempts to achieve full cost recovery from island communities have typically failed. In this Project, island communities will be expected to pay some portion of the cost, with the balance being subsidized on a declining basis for the first two years of operations. The long-term goal is full cost recovery from the community, but this will need to be achieved gradually. Financial sustainability of the waste transfer system and operation of the regional waste management facility is assured here through cross-subsidization from the resort islands with the shortfall financed by the Government. 35. Component 2: Capacity Building. Numerous donors have supported short and intensive workshops to help build skills and the knowledge in specific areas of environmental management in the Maldives. A central lesson learned is that these events appear to have had little impact on the skills base and management capacity, being limited in scope and duration. Building institutional skills and capacity is a long-term process that requires continuing engagement and gradual acquisition of skills. It also requires an incentive system that will help motivate and retain qualified personnel. Accordingly, this project proposes a multi-tiered system of capacity enhancement that targets skills deficit across a spectrum of environmental management needs. Capacity building at the tertiary level would help create a collection of professionals with specialized skills. In-country training would produce a larger pool of vocational expertise in environmental management and technical skills and it would help mitigate a potential “brain drain” since it is known that many Maldivians, after earning their degrees abroad, never return to the Maldives. It would also help to build the capacity in the Maldives to continue the education of aspiring environmental managers. The migration of qualified staff to the more lucrative private sector remains a further obstacle to building capacity across all public agencies in the country. By addressing the supply constraint, the approach supported in this Project would create a sufficiently large number of qualified technical skills within the country that would alleviate the drain from the public sector. 36. Component 3: Technical Assistance for Strengthened Environmental Management and Monitoring and a pilot Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment. The current system of environmental management in the Maldives relies heavily on piecemeal approaches such as the EIA process, or short-term project interventions where the focus is on gaining clearance for individual projects. Experience in the Maldives and elsewhere has shown that individual projects may have a limited impact but the cumulative effect of multiple projects can be substantive. The knowledge components seek to create the conditions for building the knowledge base to facilitate informed decision-making that could identify emerging and cumulative risks. 37. The constraints posed by the information deficit have been highlighted in a 2005 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report for the Maldives supported by the European Union. The impact has been limited with little awareness of the exercise even in the environmental agencies. The conclusions of the SEA were based largely on subjective assessments and the exercise was constrained by sparse data and inadequate information. The current project seeks to avoid these problems with its strong commitment to supporting evidence-based decision making by establishing baseline information that would help strengthen implementation and outcomes 9. Safeguard Policies (including public consultation) Safeguard Policies Triggered by the Project Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01) Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) Pest Management (OP 4.09) Physical Cultural Resources (OP/BP 4.11) Involuntary Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) Forests (OP/BP 4.36) Safety of Dams (OP/BP 4.37) Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP 7.60)* Projects on International Waterways (OP/BP 7.50) Yes [X ] [X ] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] No [] [] [X ] [ X] [ X] [ X] [ X] [X ] [ X] [X ] 38. The Technical Assistance and Institutional Capacity Building components of the project are unlikely to have any adverse environmental impacts and would generally be beneficial to environmental management in the Maldives. While improved solid waste management would have similarly beneficial impacts on the environment in the long term, there could be potential adverse environmental impacts during the construction and operation of the IWMCs and the RWMF. Though all activities supported under this project would result in improved environmental outcomes, the project nevertheless has been assigned a Category A rating due to the fragile ecosystems that comprise the Maldives. 39. The Regional Solid Waste Management Component would involve community-level waste recycling and resource recovery facilities in the islands, which would most likely involve composting of the organic fraction of the waste as well as regional solid waste treatment and/or disposal facilities for residual municipal solid waste, as well as medical and toxic wastes disposal. Considering the fragile ecosystems of the Maldives and that the Atolls are ringed by coral reefs that are among the world’s richest in species diversity and aesthetic appeal, the construction and operation of these facilities could generate further environmental impacts. 40. Environmental Impacts of Significant Concern in the Regional SWM component: Of the potential adverse environmental impacts the most serious would likely arise from the RWMF. Past experience indicates that because of high population densities and “not-in-my-backyard”type community opposition it would be difficult to locate a regional solid waste management facility on an inhabited island. Therefore, the only available alternative is to either construct the RWMF on an uninhabited island or on an inhabited island with compatible land uses. Preliminary information suggests that it is unlikely that there would be uninhabited islands with adequate land to construct a regional waste disposal site to receive the total un-segregated waste stream generated in the four selected atolls in the North Central Region, over a 20-year period. This means that recycling and resource recovery must be undertaken to minimize the volume of the waste being sent to the RWMF. With the high level of organic matter in the waste stream, the easily degraded organic fraction could be composted at the island level. If this happens, it may be possible to identify an uninhabited island with adequate area for a RWMF. However, if there is an unbroken reef surrounding the islands, excavation of the reef for a channel to enable barges and/or landing craft to access the island could result in adverse environmental impacts. Preference would therefore need to be given to an uninhabited island with easy access to its beaches. In the event there still is not adequate space for residue disposal at the regional level, the residual waste may be incinerated at the RWMF and the ash landfilled in an engineered * By supporting the proposed project, the Bank does not intend to prejudice the final determination of the parties' claims on the disputed areas controlled landfill. If the waste stream can be managed at the island level to improve the calorific value of the residual waste, appropriate waste-to-energy options, too, could become viable. The alternative of reclaiming a lagoon for waste disposal is already taking place in the existing waste disposal site in Thilafushi in the Malé Atoll. However, this will most likely create much more significant adverse environmental impacts than incineration or waste-to-energy. 41. Alternatively, the option of having more than one island serving as a RWMF so that no reclamation is necessary, will need to be considered. While conventional wisdom argues for economies of scale, where one site is better than several, in this instance the ecological costs would need to be given precedence over financial considerations. However, appropriate site and waste treatment technological options will be selected through a process that entails a systematic and balanced assessment of a range of different waste management options, in order to identify the option which provides the maximum environmental, economic and social benefits, through a process known as the BPEO, the identified risks can be addressed adequately. 42. Potential Safeguard Policies applicable to the other Project Components: The technical assistance component may identify urgent rehabilitation works for coral reefs requiring project support. This may trigger OP/BP 4.04, Natural Habitats, depending on the specific activities that would be carried out. Since specific interventions to protect the coral reefs would be known only after the strategic assessment, the Framework would also provide a template to undertake an environmental assessment and preparation of Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) for these interventions as well. 43. Institutional Capacity for Safeguards Management: The institutional capacity at MEEW is weak. The main objective of this Project is to strengthen the institutional capacity of environmental management institutions. Therefore, while their capacity is weak at present, significant emphasis is being placed under the Project for improvement of their ability to monitor and enforce environmental legislation and regulations. International consultants would be recruited to supervise the construction of the regional waste management facility on behalf of the Government. A team from MEEW (ERC) would work with the supervisory consultants which would provide them “hands-on” training on techniques of landfill construction and other waste management options as well as on mitigation of environmental impacts. Safeguards compliance of the regional waste disposal facility would be independently verified by an Environmental Review that would be conducted twice during the second year of operation of the RWMF. Another Environmental Review would be conducted during the last year of the Project. 44. Public Disclosure of Safeguards Documents: The Environmental and Social Safeguards Assessment and Management Framework has been publicly disclosed in the Maldives on February 17, 2008 and in the Bank’s Infoshop. 10. List of Factual Technical Documents a) Maldives Country Assistance Strategy b) Project Concept Note c) Concept Stage Project Information Document d) Concept Stage Integrated Safeguard Datasheet e) Draft 7th National Development Plan, Government of Maldives f) Environmental and Social Management Framework g) Report on the Economic Analysis of the Project with appendices and full references list h) Project Preparation Agreement, Procurement Plan and Disbursement Letter, January 3, 2008. Contact: Richard Damania Title: Sr. Environmental Economist Tel: (202) 473-3844 Email: [email protected] 11. For more information contact: The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-4500 Fax: (202) 522-1500 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.worldbank.org/infoshop