Environmental monitoring of the credit lines of the African Development Bank in the Maghreb

Project description

Title: Environmental monitoring of credit lines of the African Development Bank in the Maghreb (INITIATIVE)
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia, Algeria
Lead executing agency: African Development Bank
Overall term: 2006 to 2011

Context

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has declared issues of gender, the environment and climate protection core themes of its Medium Term Strategy (2008-2012) and they will be mainstreamed in all the bank’s operations. Measures have already been taken at the organisational level: a department for quality management has been created and a working unit was established for gender, climate and sustainable development. This means that mainstreaming can be intensified in the coming years and the environmental guidelines for the AfDB can be updated.

In this way, the AfDB wants to increase its development effectiveness. After a phase of steadily improving quality at the entry point of project identification and planning, the Bank is now increasing its quality assurance efforts - i.e. the monitoring and supervision of the environmental impact of its projects. This should lead to a higher quality at project-exit, bringing progressive reductions in poverty and the attainment of the Millennium Goals.

Objective

The projects financed by the African Development Bank in Maghreb increasingly take the environmental impact of their work into account.

Approach

Against the backdrop of these developments, demand has risen within the African Development Bank (AfDB) for policy-advice from the environmental initiative. The project concentrates its support in the following areas:

  • Developing measures to support environmental mainstreaming in the activities of the AfDB
  • Developing and updating guidelines and handouts for environmental standards and quality assurance; supervising and evaluating total project development cycles
  • Supporting AfDB offices in Maghreb countries with environmental planning and the implementation and evaluation of programmes and projects
  • Monitoring the implementation of environmental guidelines in the AfDB and in Maghreb countries
  • Promoting knowledge management through training, and increasing capacity development on environmental issues within the AfDB and in Maghreb countries

Results achieved so far

By concentrating on the defined tasks of the project, it is possible to update the environmental regulations of the AfDB across departments, and to support the processes of change desired by the bank. The activities of the environmental initiative in the Maghreb region are pilot projects. After the successful introduction of sustainable, effective tools and methods it will be possible to transfer them to other regions of Africa.

Additional information