Tajikistan STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL ASSESSMENT (SESA) OF THE MINERAL SECTOR

Transcription

1 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Tajikistan PRIVATE SECTOR COMPETITIVENESS AND FINANCIAL SECTOR STRENGTHENING PROJECT (P130091) STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL ASSESSMENT (SESA) OF THE MINERAL SECTOR TERMS OF REFERENCE (TOR) A. Background. This strategic environmental and social assessment (SESA) is developed within the context of a Private Sector Competitiveness and Financial Sector Strengthening Project. One component of the project responds to the Government of Tajikistan s (GoT) request for assistance in developing its Minerals Policy. The proposed SESA will help long-term country development outcomes by integrating environmental and social considerations in mining policy and sector growth. It will also make recommendations towards optimizing the environmental performance of new mining laws and regulations, which are currently under development by the Government of Tajikistan. The Project envisages the following activities under its mining component: E2980 Subcomponent 2a: Support to the GoT on implementing regulations in the mining sector for the new Law on Subsoil (expected to be passed in the first 6 months of 2012) to bring them in line with international best practices, including provisions governing the social and environmental duties, responsibilities and accountability of prospectors and operators, including appropriate monitoring and enforcement measures; the project would review, and if required - produce proposed updates for the legislation on environmental impact assessment, environmental management, remediation, emissions, waste management and the protection of water, nature, landscape and biodiversity in Tajikistan. 1. Assessment and recommendations on developing a law specific to mining sector activities (the Law on Subsoil pertains to oil, gas, and mining, contrary to the situation in most countries where mining has its own sector specific law or code); 2. Support to the GoT on revisions to the mining fiscal regime including an assessment of the total fiscal burden on mining operations; 1

2 3. Support to the GoT on the organizational structure for the mining, cadastre and geological survey functions carried out by various agencies of the GoT, including an assessment and recommendations on institutional design and responsibilities, current and future staffing needs, and a training strategy for staff in key regulatory roles. 4. Support to the GoT on policies and regulations for tendering of known mineral deposits (given the large amount of unexploited resources that were identified in the Soviet period); this would include the environmental and social provisions and regulations that prospective mine operators would be contractually and legally bound to adhere to. 5. Support to the GoT on programs and policies to enhance the domestic impacts of mining operations in the areas of mine site employment, procurement of local goods and services by mining companies and associated employment (e.g. surveying, food supply, mine clothing, servicing heavy machinery, small machine shop works), and infrastructure (through shared infrastructure or private-public partnerships where feasible); and 6. Provision and delivery of training programs to develop improved staff skills in relevant GoT agencies, including issues in the areas of the monitoring and evaluation of environmental and social impacts and benefit streams management. Subcomponent 2b: Development of a Modern Mining Cadastre and Associated Capacity Building 7. Conducting a diagnostic for setting up a mineral rights cadastre; 8. Support for the establishment of a modern, automated, transparent mineral rights cadastre system, including the creation of a digital inventory of all existing licenses; 9. Provision of hardware that is capable of handling an automated cadastre, taking into account the possibility of future extension of the cadastre to various provinces; 10. Support for the development of cadastral regulations (in line with the Law on Subsoil) to underpin the administration of the cadastral system; and 11. Training to relevant ministry employees to be able to administer the new system. Subcomponent 2c: Modernization of the Geological Survey Functions Investment, Technical Assistance and Capacity Building 12. Support for the development of a platform for the modernization of the geological information of Tajikistan, including requisite hardware and software; 13. Support for the modernization of the geological information policy framework and regulations and specifications for provision of information into a geodata bank; 2

3 14. Support for the conversion of existing maps to digital formats at international standards; and 15. Training to relevant ministry employees to be able to use the new system. Subcomponent 2d: Stakeholder Outreach Technical Assistance 16. Support for a series of workshops with (potentially) impacted stakeholder groups concerning issues surrounding the development of medium- and large-scale industrial mining, good international practice, and the potential benefits and risks of mining operations; 17. Diagnostic of the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sub-sector with respect to its social and environmental impacts (by means of a dedicated strategic environmental and social assessment), as well as the potential for value added activities in the gem sector; 18. Support for a series of workshops with (potentially) impacted stakeholder groups concerning issues surrounding the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, including good international practice on social, environmental, and benefit enhancement issues; and 19. Support for consultations with the mining industry, including the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, in a participatory discussion on impediments to business, including domestic procurement issues. This Consultancy deals mainly with the activities listed under subcomponents 2a and 2d. The Client for the Consultancy will be GoT, the source of funding will be a grant provided for technical assistance purposes to GoT by the World Bank / International development Association. B. Objectives The core objective of the SESA is to enable the Government of Tajikistan to make sectoral policies which promote environmental and social sustainability of the sector. The resulting specific objectives of the SESA fall into the following categories: (A) Understanding the sector s legal and regulatory framework: identify environmental and social priorities and key intersectoral environmental and social linkages associated to mining activities in Tajikistan; review and assess the environmental and social implications of a new Mining Law currently drafted by GoT and expected to be finalized in mid-2012; 3

4 identify all environmental and social legislation as well as technical standards that would have relevance for the mining sector (e.g. on EIA, environmental management, pollution control, land use, nature protection, water resource protection, remediation and recultivation, environmental damage liability, and similar), as well as technical standards (e.g. safety guidelines for underground works, slopes, dams, tailings management facilities). (B) Assessing current environmental and social baseline relevant to the mining sector, and current environmental and social performance of mining activities, and key impacts on human population and environment: assess effects of existing mining related policies and potential effects of mining policy proposals on environmental and social priorities and key linkages; assess in-country institutional and governance capacity to address these effects; analyze current mining practice, its regulatory oversight (including of environmental and social issues), enforcement practice and effectiveness of technical and environmental standards and regulations; identify major deviations from good international practice assess, on a general scale, the types, nature and scale of environmental and social impacts incurred by mining activities, and their cumulative effect on VECs 1 and sensitive receptors; provide in a order of magnitude manner, estimates in monetary terms of the costs of these cumulative impacts to the national economy. (C) Develop strategies for improved environmental and social sector performance, including implementation guidance: provide quality benchmark criteria based on international comparisons, existing case studies, examples and best practices on how other developing countries have addressed similar institutional and governance weaknesses for promoting environmentally and socially responsible mining development to those identified for mining in Tajikistan; formulate mining related policy recommendations and corresponding tools, for their inclusion in a comprehensive minerals policy to address institutional and governance weaknesses ensuring consideration of perceptions and concerns of main stakeholders and, especially, vulnerable groups; and, 1 valued ecosystem components 4

5 recommend systems that will enable future adjustments of mining related policies in response to experience, new information or changes in stakeholder preferences; these should include mechanisms that would facilitate future policy reviews and changes, if stakeholder reactions, or practical implementation and enforcement constraints, or other not yet foreseeable factors indicate that there is a demand for such adjustments; the goal is to provide and instrument for iterative improvements of policy tools in reaction to experience with their implementation, including stakeholder feedback. All above objectives need to be seen in the context of the mining sector s division into subsectors, such as e.g. large scale corporate mining, SME driven mining or small scale and artisanal mining, or divisions into specific resources (e.g. coal, minerals, aggregates, gemstones) or methods and technologies (e.g. above ground / underground, leaching, use of toxic agents). These subsectors are expected to involve strongly diverging technologies, and specific resulting environmental and social dimensions and impact types, enforcement practice, and cumulative effects, and thus may require specific regulatory and institutional responses. C. Scope of Work. The SESA will be supervised by the Government of Tajikistan in consultation with the World Bank team and carried out by an experienced international Consultant. It is highly recommendable to form an association with a Tajik Consultant with expertise in mining regulation, including on its environmental and social performance. It is also highly recommendable to identify local NGOs during the inception phase and initiate a professional dialogue about the scope and planned activities of the SESA. The local Consultant should also have solid experience on public participation and consultation and would assist with the SESA s disclosure and the subsequent participatory process. Under these Terms of Reference, the Consultant will carry out the following tasks: 5

6 Task 1: SESA Inception Phase During the inception phase the Consultant will gather all information required to carry out the assignment in line with the subsequent TOR. Key issues to be addressed are: (i) identification of all key partners in Tajikistan that will play a role in carrying out the assignment, both Governmental / administrative, academic, from civil society and the private sector.; (ii) screening, collection, quality checking, and structuring of available information on the Tajik mining sector, both current regulatory regime, activities and practice, and the new mining law anticipated to become active in 2012; (iii) identification and collection of all environmental and social legislation, e.g. on pollution management, environmental assessment, nature protection, water resources protection, labor and social protection, resettlement, as well as international agreements and conventions to which Tajikistan is a signatory; (iv) provide a methodology for the rough monetary estimate of the cost of mining-sector related environmental degradation and pollution, (v) development of a work program describing the main activities for detailed data collection and analysis, including consultation/validation with stakeholders and; and, (vi) the schedule of expected deliverables to be submitted. Task 2: Stakeholder Analysis and Preparation of the Initial Stakeholder Engagement The Consultant prepare a plan for stakeholder analysis and discussion of the mining sector; will provide relevant information on methodologies and techniques best fitted to the Tajik context; will organize a first round of stakeholder engagement in Tajikistan to include workshops and semi-structured key informant interviews. The stakeholder engagement will aim at identifying stakeholders perceptions and priority concerns related to mining development and their expectations on expected government actions/policies to address them. The engagement will also identify institutional and governance issues affecting the mining sector. On the one hand, stakeholders are expected to identify environmental and social priority concerns in relation to the mining sector. On the other hand, they will suggest key issues that need to be included in a policy framework or policy proposals to address these environmental and social priority concerns. The workshops should be also inform of, and engaging stakeholders in the SESA process. This initial process should also result in a basic mapping of key stakeholders public, private, civil society, beneficiary etc. in the mining sector along with a summary of key interests or stakes. These TOR contain a list of references (see section F.) which would be made available to the Consultant upon notice to proceed. One of the studies focuses on Tajikistan s political economy and will provide much of the information required under Task 2. 6

7 Task 3: Understanding the Distributional Benefits and Impacts of Mining Policy and Sector Growth The Consultant will also assess the effects of mining policies on key environmental and social issues. A proposed key tool will be to organize and implement demographically disaggregated Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and analyzing the results of these. It is expected that the Consultant will hold no more than 5 FGDs under this activity comprising participants a session. In addition to primary population segments, FGDs will also prioritize the perspectives of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups (identified on the basis of factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, literacy, physical or mental disability, poverty or economic disadvantage and dependence on unique natural resources) and data gathered will be on a disaggregated basis. The objectives of the focus groups discussions will be to (i) take into account in the SESA the attitudes, perceptions and expectations of vulnerable stakeholders such as women, youth, and laborers;(ii) beneficiary perceptions of ongoing and potential future distribution of economic, environmental and social benefits and costs from mining development. ; (iii) identify any known or potential sources of conflicts among groups that may stem from further development of the mining sector. Task 4: Assessing Current Environmental and Social Baseline and Performance of Mining Sector, and Key Impacts on Human Population and Environment The Consultant will assess the effects of existing mining related policies, as well as potential effects of mining policy proposals, on environmental and social valued components and priorities. Key activities will be to analyze current mining practice, its regulatory oversight (including of environmental and social issues), enforcement practice and effectiveness of technical and environmental standards and regulations, identify major deviations from good international practice, and assess, on a general scale, the types, nature and scale of environmental and social impacts incurred by mining activities, and their cumulative effect on VECs 2 and sensitive receptors. The Consultant will identify environmental and social priorities related to the mining sector and to assess the effects of existing and proposed policies on these priorities. The Consultant will collect all necessary supporting evidence and develop methods and techniques for the most effective way to validate these results in consultations with the identified stakeholders, taking into account the perceptions of weaker and vulnerable stakeholders. 2 valued ecosystem components 7

8 The Consultant will analyze and, as much as possible (but at least in an order-ofmagnitude manner), to quantify in economic/monetary terms the effects of existing and proposed mining related policies, and the resulting cumulative social and environmental impacts, on environmental and social priorities associated with the mining sector. Other sectors and social groups, that might be influenced directly or indirectly by mining activities (e.g. agriculture, water resources management, migrant labor, women) will also be included into the analysis. The Consultant will prepare a rough cost benefit analysis for a scenario if the causal factors, such as institutional and governance weaknesses, would be addressed and remedied. Task 5: Develop Strategies for Improved Environmental and Social Sector Performance, Including Implementation Guidance Under this task the Consultant will provide quality benchmark criteria based on international comparisons, case studies, examples and best practices on how other countries have addressed similar institutional and governance weaknesses for promoting environmentally and socially responsible mining development to those identified for mining in Tajikistan. The Consultant will review good and best international practice, collect examples and case studies, and make concrete recommendations for addressing the institutional weaknesses for environmental and social management identified for the mining sector in Tajikistan. Among the issues to be analyzed by the Consultant, at least the following will be reviewed: (i) sector institutional capacity for environmental and social management; (ii) mechanisms for incorporating environmental and social considerations into all mining subsectors, including artisan and small scale mining; and, (iii) benefit sharing arrangements to promote regional and local development from mining activities in a manner that enhances positive outcomes and mitigates risks and adverse social and environmental impacts. It is important that GoT is aware of the typical institutional weaknesses that make the degradation and depletion of valued environmental components and natural resources more likely, and the types of institutions (including laws and regulations), and their operational mode, that could counter such trends. The core result from the study should be concrete, practical advice to the Government how to improve the policies, create positive incentives, effective regulatory tools and implement better enforcement. Thus, resulting from the comparative analysis of international good and best practice the Consultant will formulate mining related policy recommendations and corresponding tools, for their inclusion into a comprehensive minerals policy to address institutional and governance weaknesses ensuring consideration of perceptions and concerns of main stakeholders and, especially, vulnerable groups. The Consultant will make reference to the mining law currently being developed and based on the work under this assignment - make concrete annotations and recommendations for changes and modifications. 8

9 The Consultant will also recommend regulatory and governance systems / mechanisms (e.g. periodic regulatory reviews with broad stakeholder participation and participation of international observers / advisors) that will enable future adjustments of mining related policies in response to experience, new information or changes in stakeholder preferences. To the extent possible proposed systems and mechanisms should identify expected social/environmental indicators to be tracked and relevant baselines and benchmarks to ensure measurement of progress and results related to the social and environmental goals identified through the SESA. Where possible, the consultant should consider proposing concrete participatory monitoring mechanisms drawing on existing or new approaches that best suit the context for ensuring social accountability for development of Tajikistan s mining sector, e.g. scorecards, third party monitoring etc. The Consultant will document and present all relevant findings in a concise, structured, organized and accessible manner in a draft SESA report. Task 6: Consultation of Draft SESA report The draft SESA report will be disclosed to the identified relevant stakeholders and if seen useful discussed with focus groups. The Consultant will organize, facilitate and document all participatory/stakeholder engagement. Documentation would, at a minimum, include the manner in which meetings were prepared (announcements, invitations, venues, lead time between announcements and meetings), meeting details (agenda, materials presented, documents discussed), demographic data on participants collected through participant worksheets (anonymity to be granted when requested by the participants), participant comments, concerns and transcripts/summaries. The Consultant shall keep the records in an organized database and summarize the main findings in a stakeholder consultation report. With the comments received in the stakeholder consultation process the draft SESA shall be updated and brought into its final form. D. Qualification of Consultant The assignment will require a joint effort of high level experts with extensive experience both in the implementation of international best practice and the specific challenges of mine sector development in developing countries. The Consultant will be expected to be a reputable international Firm with a convincing track record and a well-stocked list of references to evidence its experience. The experts to be provided will have to be at senior level with at least 15 years of relevant sector experience. The key staff for whom CVs will be provided are 9

10 (i) team leader and SESA expert, expertise in environmental or social sciences or a related field, and with proven track record in conducting and managing SESAs in the mining sector; (ii) expert on mining sector environmental management with extensive experience in end of cycle management, especially mine waste, mine drainage and mine closure; with proven experience of practical environmental management of active mines as well as mine closure and remediation; (iii) social expert with extensive experience in mine-related social impact assessment and management, social accountability and governance, communication, consultation and public participation. A legal expert would not be part of the core team, but should be nominated to provide specific input on demand. She / he should have extensive experience with mining regulation, desirable would be experience from both the regulator s and the regulated side. E. Reporting and duration of assignment The Consultant will prepare and submit the following reports: (1) Inception report (responding to Task 1): 6 weeks after notice to proceed (NTP) (2) Initial stakeholder analysis report (responding to Task 2): 10 weeks after NTP (3) Draft 1 SESA report (responding to Tasks 3 and 4), focusing on presenting findings of the analytical work performed on regulatory system and environmental / social impacts: 16 weeks after NTP (4) Draft 2 SESA report (responding to Task 5) and focusing on recommendations for improved sectoral performance; 20 weeks after NTP (5) Stakeholder Consultation report and final SESA report (responding to Task 6) 24 weeks after NTP 10

11 F. References The following documents from previous or parallel work carried out on the broader theme of the assignment will be made available to the Consultant at notice to proceed: 1) CAS - country assistance strategy 2) CEA country environmental analysis 3) Political Economy Analysis of the Extractive Sector in Tajikistan by Adam Smith International, by the World Bank Group. 4) Tajikistan's Roadmap to an Investment Boom in Mining by Peter Kaznacheev. 5) Review and Recommendations of the Legislative and Normative Act of the Republic of Tajikistan in Subsoil Usage, by K.G. Arne. 11