By Biruk Kassahun
Prior to any construction intervention, the EASTRIP Environmental and Social Safeguarding Management Framework (ESMF) recommends a capacity building and training program for all the environmental and social safeguards focal points at the Regional Flagship TVET Institute (RFTI) level and other key stakeholders involved directly in the implementation of the project.
Now, Hawassa Polytechnic College is under the final stage of initiating the civil work for RFTI construction. Providing basic environmental and social safeguards training will help the concerned actors to address any compliance, grievance as well as ease the implementation of the World Bank ESMF at each phase of the project.
Based on this, the college facilitated three-day basic training on environmental and social safeguards for fifteen key stakeholders, selected from college management and Project Implementation Unit (PIU) members at Ethiopian Management Institute. The Institute is one of the leading and has proven experience in providing similar training in the country.
The overall objective of the training is to mainstream environmental and social consideration into participatory processes of sub-project identification, planning, implementation and mitigation, as well as monitoring of the mitigation activities in the sub-projects and main projects activities.
Professionals from Hawassa city Administration Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Administrator from respective construction site and member of Grievance Redress Committee who are playing ESMF were among the participants of the training.
The Writer is the Monitoring and & Evaluation Specialist at Hawassa Polytechnic College