Public Disclosure Notice 1 – Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) Sanitation and Water Project

The Government of Ghana, acting through the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, is implementing the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA SWP) with financing from the World Bank. The project development objective of the GAMA SWP is to increase access to improved sanitation and improved water supply in GAMA with emphasis on low income communities and to strengthen management of environmental sanitation in the GAMA.

The Ghana Government is now seeking Additional Financing (AF) from the World Bank to complete ongoing sanitation and water services construction and rehabilitation activities. The AF includes extension of the project to cover all the 25 Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies in GAMA and geographical extension of the project to cover 8 Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies in the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) in order to replicate the parent GAMA project activities in the Ashanti region of Ghana and to support the preparation for new scale-up national programmatic intervention.

The Additional Financing project has four components. They are:

Component 1 – Provision of Environmental Sanitation Services to priority low income areas in GAMA and GKMA: The objective of this component is to increase access to environmental sanitation services in low-income areas of the GAMA and GKMA, with strong focus on liquid sanitation (excreta disposal).

Component 2: Improvement in Operational Efficiency and expansion of water distribution networks GAMA and GKMA: The objective of this component is to improve and expand the water distribution network in selected GAMA and GKMA communities

Component 3: Planning, improvement and expansion of environmental sanitation services. The component supports planning, improvement and expansion of environmental sanitation services, including through wastewater and septic sludge management investments, and development of planning for integrated sanitation and drainage in GKMA.

Component 4: Project Implementation and institutional strengthening. The component is designed to provide institutional strengthening and technical assistance (TA) to municipal, metropolitan and national institutions, as well as promoting of private sector initiatives including the operation and management of sludge processing.

The Environmental Assessment (EA) for the parent GAMA project is Category A and triggered the World Bank Environmental Assessment Policy (BP/OP 4.01). As required, the parent project prepared an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) to guide the implementation of sustainable environmental and social measures on the project.

This Additional Financing (AF) project also maintains the same EA category. In addition, like the parent project, the AF trigger Environmental Assessment Policy (BP/OP 4. 01). The AF involves a number of sub-projects and some of the locations where the sub-projects will be implemented are not known in sufficient detail at this time of the project preparation. In compliance with the World Bank Policy on Environmental Assessment ((BP/OP 4.01), the existing parent GAMA ESMF has been updated into this current ESMF to incorporate the additional interventions under the Additional Financing. The updated ESMF presents the environmental and social safeguards requirements of the project, institutional arrangements and capacity required to use the Framework. It assesses the potential adverse environmental and social impacts commonly associated with the sub-projects and proposes ways to avoid, minimize and mitigate them. It establishes clear procedures and methodologies for environmental and social planning, reviews, approval, and implementation of safeguards instruments. Additionally, it provides an initial screening system for sub-projects, stakeholder engagement and consultation arrangements, roles, responsibilities, and procedures for monitoring and reporting environmental and social concerns during the project implementation.

The World Bank Policy requires that the ESMF is disclosed to the public during project preparation. This public disclosure notice serves to inform all stakeholders and members of the public that copies of the ESMF can be accessed from the website of the Ministry and the GAMA Project on the link below:

http://data.mswrpcu.com/dataset/environmental-and-social-safeguards/resource/dd27e5c5-2907-45a7-b709-538da9b73f65

Hard copies of the ESMF can be accessed at the underlisted offices/locations:

GAMA:

All the Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies in GAMA

EPA Head Office, Accra

Lands Commission of the Ministry of Lands and Forestry, Accra

GKMA

Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Kumasi

Asokwa Municipal Assembly, Asokwa-Kumasi

Oforikrom Municipal Assembly, Oforikrom-Kumasi

Ejisu Municipal Assembly, Ejisu

Asokore Mampong Municipal Assembly, Asokore Mampong