Page 1 INTEGRATED SAFEGUARDS DATASHEET APPRAISAL STAGE I. Basic Information Date prepared/updated: 04/11/2007 Report No.: AC2907 1. Basic Project Data Country: India Project ID: P090764 Project Name: Bihar Rural Livelihoods Development "Jeevika" Project Task Team Leader: Parmesh Shah Estimated Appraisal Date: April 16, 2007 Estimated Board Date: June 14, 2007 Managing Unit: SASAR Lending Instrument: Specific Investment Loan Sector: General agriculture, fishing and forestry sector (70%);Other social services (20%);Agricultural marketing and trade (10%) Theme: Other rural development (P);Rural services and infrastructure (S);Participation and civic engagement (S);Gender (S) IBRD Amount (US$m.): 0.00 IDA Amount (US$m.): 63.00 GEF Amount (US$m.): 0.00 PCF Amount (US$m.): 0.00 Other financing amounts by source: BORROWER/RECIPIENT 7.00 7.00 Environmental Category: B - Partial Assessment Simplified Processing Simple [] Repeater [] Is this project processed under OP 8.50 (Emergency Recovery) Yes [ ] No [X] 2. Project Objectives The project objective is to enhance social and economic empowerment of the rural poor in Bihar Key performance indicators are: ? Self managed community institutions established for a majority of participant households ? Increase in income for project participant households ? Increase in food security for project participant households 3. Project Description The proposed operation would finance a five year project. The project?s four main components are: Component I: Community Institution Development (US$ 11 million): This component is the core investment of the project and would be implemented in a phased manner. The first phase will involve strengthening and building vibrant and self managed primary institutions of the poor including Self Help Groups (SHGs) based on internal thrift and Page 2 revolution of savings. During the second phase, the primary level SHGs will be federated at the village level to form village organizations (VOs), which will be provided project investments for various activities through a participatory micro planning process. The third phase would involve supporting federation of VOs to aggregate as higher level apex federated community organizations at the block or cluster level for taking up livelihood enhancement and income generating activities and develop linkages with market institutions. This component will facilitate empowering community organizations to develop direct linkages with financial service providers including commercial banks. The communities will also be provided skills and tools to develop social accountability mechanisms to enable transparency and good governance of the institutions of the poor and build effective service delivery partnerships with local government. The component will also facilitate better village-level communication strategies on issues affecting social and economic activities of interest to the rural poor. Component II: Community Investment Fund (US$ 42 million): The Community Investment Fund (CIF) is designed to transfer financial and technical resources to the CBOs on a demand driven basis through a participatory micro planning process for use as a catalyst to improve their livelihoods and build their institutions. Some of the key elements that could be supported using the CIF funds are for a) income generation and livelihood improvements; b) addressing food security needs ; c) promoting skill development to increase employment and employability of the rural poor households, including rural youths and d) investing in limited productive community-level infrastructure facilities. (Annex ? 4 for details). In addition, at least 10% of the CIF can be used by the Community to pilot-test a) social risk management interventions in areas like health and disability ; and b) alternate public service delivery models in cooperation with service providers and local governments. These resources would be transferred to village organizations as a grant. The VO is expected to use this resource as revolving fund to finance various self-help groups in the village based on the micro planning process. The VO will be free to fix terms and conditions under which the resource will be lent to SHGs. This revolved fund, combined with the savings of self help groups is expected to multiply the project funds by two to three times, thus increasing overall credit availability for the self help groups. The experiences gained by community institutions in using these funds will also enable them to leverage higher investment from Banks and other commercial sector agencies and increase creditworthiness of the poor. Component III Technical Assistance Fund (US$10 million): The Technical Assistance Funds (TAFs) will improve quantity and quality of service provision by public and private service providers. The fund will also promote use of Public/Private Partnerships in improving the supply of key livelihood services for the community organizations and federations. Key elements and/or activities that will be supported by this component include: a) Setting-up of a Microfinance Investment and Technical Assistance Fund (MITA) to provide technical assistance to self help groups and VOs to undertake financial and credit management. b) Establishing a business development facility (BDF) to mobilize both public (including Agriculture technology Management Agency (ATMA) and cooperatives) and Page 3 private sector initiatives (including NGOs and non-profits) in agriculture, livestock and non farm sectors ? to promote vertical integration of smallholder agriculture with private investment in extension services, input supply, local level procurement, post-harvest value addition initiatives including agro-processing and marketing support ? to develop livelihood clusters in the non-farm sector and to provide support in developing backward and forward linkages to the households and communities engaged in the sector c) Supporting NGO capacity building to help them develop into specialist service providers with high competency. d) Instituting an innovation fund to support innovations by individuals, enterprises, organizations and institutions in the public and private sector aimed at improving rural livelihoods Component IV. Project Management (US$ 7 million): This component would facilitate overall co-ordination, implementation, and financial management, monitoring and learning of the project at state and district levels. It would include setting up and strengthening state and district level project units, providing office infrastructure and logistic support, and setting up monitoring, evaluation and learning systems. This component will be managed by the District Project Coordination Unit (DPCU) and State Project Management Unit (SPMU) and the important activities include identification and contracting resource/support agencies, disbursement of salaries and other benefits to staff, procurement and maintenance of vehicles, office and equipment, and liasioning and convergence with other agencies and government departments 4. Project Location and salient physical characteristics relevant to the safeguard analysis The project will be implemented in six districts of Bihar State: Gaya, Khagaria, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Nalanda and Purnea . The project seeks to build the social and economic institutions of the poor and disadvantaged population in six districts of Bihar State. Of the six project districts, significant Scheduled Tribe (ST) population is present only in Purnea district. 5. Environmental and Social Safeguards Specialists Ms Varalakshmi Vemuru (SASES) Mr Sanjay Pahuja (SASES) Page 4 6. Safeguard Policies Triggered Yes No Environmental Assessment (OP/BP 4.01) X Natural Habitats (OP/BP 4.04) X Forests (OP/BP 4.36) X Pest Management (OP 4.09) X Physical Cultural Resources (OP/BP 4.11) X Indigenous Peoples (OP/BP 4.10) X Involuntary Resettlement (OP/BP 4.12) X Safety of Dams (OP/BP 4.37) X Projects on International Waterways (OP/BP 7.50) X Projects in Disputed Areas (OP/BP 7.60) X II. Key Safeguard Policy Issues and Their Management A. Summary of Key Safeguard Issues 1. Describe any safeguard issues and impacts associated with the proposed project. Identify and describe any potential large scale, significant and/or irreversible impacts: Separate Social and Environment Assessments were carried out for the project which covered the safeguard issues. The assessments reveal no large scale, significant and/or irreversible impacts due to the proposed project interventions. 2. Describe any potential indirect and/or long term impacts due to anticipated future activities in the project area: No potential indirect and/or long term impacts are envisaged due to anticipated future activities in the project area. The environmental impacts associated with the anticipated future activities are not expected to be significant or adverse in the long-term, due to the nature and scale of the likely activities. Environmental aspects will be mainstreamed in the activity cycle to ensure that environmental concerns are addressed at the planning, design and implementation phases of the project-supported activities, and that the cumulative environmental impact of the activities is manageable. 3. Describe any project alternatives (if relevant) considered to help avoid or minimize adverse impacts. Since the project has adopted a community-based demand-driven approach for identifying project investments, the alternative options for environmental management of these investments would be considered during the design and planning phase of the activities, where applicable. 4. Describe measures taken by the borrower to address safeguard policy issues. Provide an assessment of borrower capacity to plan and implement the measures described. An Environmental Management Framework (EMF) has been devised to address the environmental issues and to mainstream them in the planning, design and implementation of project-supported activities. The EMF includes activity-specific Technical Environmental Guidelines (TEGs), environmental management indicators for the project monitoring and evaluation plan, and capacity-building for environmental awareness and Page 5 management. A simple organizational and process structure has been developed to ensure adequate and effective implementation of the EMF in the project. The environmental management process has been developed with the objectives of making it simple and user-friendly. The salient environmental aspects of the activities likely to be supported by the project are captured in the TEGs, which provide the required information to the project functionaries as well as the members of the SHG/producer group/federation which is proposing the activity. ? For each activity, a reference TEG document is to be provided to the BRLP functionaries and community institution members, giving an outline of the issues, and appropriate technical and management guidelines for action. ? A simple front-end TEG document has been prepared for the use of Community Coordinator/Community Resource Person/ Bookkeeper/SHG leaders/ SHG federation members, for discussion with SHG members/Producer Groups preceding the application for credit support. This form will be discussed and completed by the SHG/Producer Group members, and attached to the activity proposal/application form for further action. ? The environmental aspects of the proposed activities will be included in the overall appraisal of the proposals. If the environmental aspects are inadequately identified and/or addressed in the proposals (e.g. in the case of activities for which no TEGs are available), the EMF makes the provision for a rapid environmental evaluation and development of appropriate TEGs for the proposed activity, by the state-level environment resource agency. Even though the nature and small scale of the anticipated project investments have allowed for a simple and efficient design of the EMF, awareness-raising and capacity- building for environmental management have been included as integral components of the EMF. Therefore, the capacity for environmental management will be strengthened with the initiation of the project. Tribal (Indigenous Peoples) Development Plan A Tribal Development Plan as envisaged under OP/BP 4.10 has been developed which aims at building strong self reliant and self managing institutions of Tribals, and through these institutions enable them to access social and economic opportunities to overcome poverty and raise their living standards. The TDP has incorporated strategies identified during the Social Assessment, and a range of consultations on the major causes of their poverty and approaches and opportunities to overcome them. The tribal population under the project is largely restricted to one of the project districts Purnea, which has 4.4% tribal population with the other districts having less than 0.1% of dispersed tribal population. Though the activities to be implemented with the Tribal population is similar to rest of the project the specific needs and issues for the Tribal community were identified based on a process of free, prior and informed consultations. The key interventions and the implementation arrangements have been finalized based on multi- stakeholder consultations that the project undertook. The project is making plans and implementation arrangements to undertake information dissemination and mobilization in a culturally appropriate manner. Page 6 5. Identify the key stakeholders and describe the mechanisms for consultation and disclosure on safeguard policies, with an emphasis on potentially affected people. The EA study has been undertaken through a participatory approach, whereby stakeholder consultations were undertaken in the project districts, with the objective of collecting and validating information on environmental issues pertaining to the identified livelihood activities. The EA study and the design of the EMF have been conducted with inputs from subject experts as well as the field staff of relevant line agencies. The key stakeholders of the project are poor households in 42 blocks of six project districts of Bihar of whom the Scheduled Tribe (ST) population is an important stakeholder. The other stakeholders include local village community, line department staff (specifically Agriculture, Fisheries, Livestock, Horticulture, Rural Development, etc.), NGO/Civil Society, Academia and Research Organizations.During project preparation, all the key stakeholders were consulted through consultation workshops at the state, district, block and village level, and individual and group discussions in the field. The project through its various components and activities will actively engage with the range of stakeholders through project implementation and monitoring and learning. The EMF and the TDP will be disclosed as per the Bank?s disclosure policy. B. Disclosure Requirements Date Environmental Assessment/Audit/Management Plan/Other: Date of receipt by the Bank 03/15/2007 Date of "in-country" disclosure 04/10/2007 Date of submission to InfoShop 04/11/2007 For category A projects, date of distributing the Executive Summary of the EA to the Executive Directors Indigenous Peoples Plan/Planning Framework: Date of receipt by the Bank 04/09/2007 Date of "in-country" disclosure 04/10/2007 Date of submission to InfoShop 04/11/2007 * If the project triggers the Pest Management and/or Physical Cultural Resources, the respective issues are to be addressed and disclosed as part of the Environmental Assessment/Audit/or EMP. If in-country disclosure of any of the above documents is not expected, please explain why: C. Compliance Monitoring Indicators at the Corporate Level (to be filled in when the ISDS is finalized by the project decision meeting) OP/BP/GP 4.01 - Environment Assessment Does the project require a stand-alone EA (including EMP) report? Yes If yes, then did the Regional Environment Unit or Sector Manager (SM) No Page 7 review and approve the EA report? Are the cost and the accountabilities for the EMP incorporated in the credit/loan? Yes OP/BP 4.10 - Indigenous Peoples Has a separate Indigenous Peoples Plan/Planning Framework (as appropriate) been prepared in consultation with affected Indigenous Peoples? Yes If yes, then did the Regional unit responsible for safeguards or Sector Manager review the plan? Yes If the whole project is designed to benefit IP, has the design been reviewed and approved by the Regional Social Development Unit or Sector Manager? Yes The World Bank Policy on Disclosure of Information Have relevant safeguard policies documents been sent to the World Bank's Infoshop? No Have relevant documents been disclosed in-country in a public place in a form and language that are understandable and accessible to project-affected groups and local NGOs? No All Safeguard Policies Have satisfactory calendar, budget and clear institutional responsibilities been prepared for the implementation of measures related to safeguard policies? Yes Have costs related to safeguard policy measures been included in the project cost? Yes Does the Monitoring and Evaluation system of the project include the monitoring of safeguard impacts and measures related to safeguard policies? Yes Have satisfactory implementation arrangements been agreed with the borrower and the same been adequately reflected in the project legal documents? Yes D. Approvals Signed and submitted by: Name Date Task Team Leader: Mr Parmesh Shah 04/09/2007 Environmental Specialist: Mr Sanjay Pahuja 04/09/2007 Social Development Specialist Ms Varalakshmi Vemuru 04/09/2007 Additional Environmental and/or Social Development Specialist(s): Approved by: Regional Safeguards Coordinator: Mr Frederick Edmund Brusberg 04/10/2007 Comments: Sector Manager: Mr Adolfo Brizzi 04/09/2007 Comments: I have reviewed and approve this appraisal version.