PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) CONCEPT STAGE Report No.: AB1881 Project Name. West Africa Regional Biosafety Project Region

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1 PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) CONCEPT STAGE Report No.: AB1881 Project Name West Africa Regional Biosafety Project Region AFRICA Sector Crops (50%); Agro-industry (50%) Project ID P GEF Focal Area Biodiversity Borrower(s) MINISTRIES OF ENVIRONMENT Implementing Agency Environment Category [ ] A [ ] B [X] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) Date PID Prepared October 31, 2005 Estimated Date of April 15, 2006 Appraisal Authorization Estimated Date of Board September 12, 2006 Approval 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.

2 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 strategy 2, 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. 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 2 Elements for a Biosafety Strategy, GEF Council meeting, November, 2005

3 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

4 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: ($m.) BORROWER/RECIPIENT 9 GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY 6 Total 15

5 6. Contact point Contact Jean-Christophe Carret Title Natural Resources Economist Tel (202) Fax