Under Phase II of the Project “Quality Education Support Programme” (QESP II), the German Government is providing financial support through KfW for rehabilitation, extension and new construction of primary education infrastructure in Egypt. The KfW foundation of the assessment of environmental, social and climate impacts for financed projects is their compliance with relevant national laws and legal requirements, as well as the assessment requirements of KfW Development Bank.
- The KfW Development Bank adopts the Environmental and Social Standards of the World Bank Group (i.e. for public agencies the Environmental and Social Standards (ESS), and relevant Operational Polices of the World Bank and the IFC Performance Standards (PS) for cooperation with the private sector) and their General and sector-specific Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Guidelines, as well as the Core Labour Standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
- A total of 40 school locations, in Sharqiya Governorate, proposed by the Egyptian General Authority for Educational Buildings (GAEB) were to be assessed to select a short list of 20 eligible for tendering. The selected projects will represent pilot cases for establishing a sustainable school construction management process.
- Environics was commissioned to provide support to GAEB to integrate the KfW standards and requirements into their school selection process, as well as into the bidding documents and contracts. Accordingly, Environics prepared the standardized selection process criteria and the required ESMS, and is providing support during implementation, as well as accompanying capacity building and awareness.
- Environics scope of work includes:
- Development of standard selection criteria document taking into consideration the Environmental and Social (E&S) aspects, to be applicable for all GAEB schools, for incorporation within GAEB’s applied internal procedures;
- Development of the Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS) requirements for GAEB to be reflected in their bidding documents for construction contractors for the selected and planned schools as well as within the construction contracts;
- Provision of orientation/induction and capacity building of GAEB staff, including members at GAEB Headquarters, as well as the field engineers at the relevant Branches who will be responsible for following up on the ESMS implementation with the construction contractors;
- Provision of technical support to GAEB field teams (field engineers) during project construction phase of 20 schools on monitoring the implementation of the ESMS;
- High level monitoring for the construction activities for 8 schools.