By Benjamin Tegbeh| LPR News, Abidjan
The African Development Bank during the mission of the mid-term review of the Country Strategy Document (2018-2022) has included a recommendation and the need to organize a training session on environmental issues and social safeguards.
It is with this in mind that a workshop to strengthen the Project Management Units (PMU) financed by the ADB in Côte d’Ivoire, on the implementation and monitoring of environmental and social safeguard instruments has opened in the Ivoirian commercial capital city, Abidjan.
At the official opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 18, 2021, according to information gathered the Liberia Public Radio, representative of the Minister of Planning and Development, Dr. Yeo Nahoua, Director of the Cabinet of the said ministry indicated that the main objective is to bring the PMU to an adequate implementation of environmental and social safeguard documents prepare and publish during project preparation and to sensitize them to anticipate any environmental and social risk.
According to him, the issues of environmental and social safeguards constitute a strategic tool for both the ADB and the Government in so far as they make it possible to identify risks, reduce development costs and improve the sustainability of projects, thus promoting the well-being of populations and the preservation of the environment.
The Ivorian government official noted that this is why he can count on the experience and professionalism of each and every participant so that at the end of the training results are achieved.
Mr. Joseph Martial Ribeiro, Deputy Director General of the African Development Bank (ADB) for the West Africa region, reiterated ADB’s commitment to support the development actions of the Côte d ‘ Ivoire.
According to him, over the past few years, the ADB’s portfolio in Côte d’Ivoire has increased fourfold over the period of 2015 to 2020, 448.5 million to 1.9 billion, due to the approval of major projects on the ADB public window and also on the non-sovereign window (private sector).
These operations are oriented towards the key sectors of the economy, namely: energy, transport, agriculture, social and governance.
There are around 170 participants from the ADB, the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of the Environment, the National Environment Agency (ANDE) as well as key staff of PMU (Coordinator, expert in environmental and social safeguards, specialist in monitoring and evaluation, expert in procurement, administrative and financial manager) who taking part in this workshop which takes place from 18 to 20 May 2021, in the hybrid format (face-to-face for the national part and online for the ADB).
