Page 1 PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PAD) CONCEPT STAGE Report No.: AB6400 Project Name Benin Emergency Urban Environment Project Region AFRICA Sector General water, sanitation and flood protection sector (55%); Solid waste management (25%); Sub-national government (20%) Project ID P113145 Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF BENIN Implementing Agencies 1. Ministry of Urban Development, Housing, Land Reform and Coastal Erosion Protection (MUDLRCEP) 01 BP: 3502 Cotonou, Benin Tel : +229 21 31 77 71 +229 21 31 77 71 Fax: +229 21 31 51 09 web: www.muh.bj.org 2. Ministry of Environment and Protection of Nature (MEPN) 01 BP: 3621 Cotonou, Benin Tel : +229 21 31 50 58 +229 21 31 50 58 Fax: +229 21 31 50 81 web: www.mepn.net Environment Category [ ] A [X] B [ ] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) Date PID Prepared January 20, 2011 Estimated Date of Appraisal Authorization January 20, 2011 Estimated Date of Board Approval April 21, 2011 1. Key development issues and rationale for Bank involvement Benin is considered to be among the countries with rapidly growing cities with a 5% rate growth per year . With many of these people moving from the rural areas in response to difficult living conditions, search for jobs and need for basic services, the majority of these migrants are ending up in the already crowded and poorly serviced parts of the city, further straining the already poor services in these areas. This rapid growth is being accompanied by significant problems with respect to the disposal of solid waste; degradation of water quality; urban air pollution; building in ecologically sensitive areas that are prone to seasonal flooding and an overall degradation of environmental quality. This is the backdrop with which the initial Urban Environment project was conceived and preparatory activities began. The project intended to support the strengthening of the government's capacity to mitigate and manage these problems while also ensuring that the solutions developed and implemented were environmentally compatible - essentially building a platform for sustainable urban development. Disasters in Benin and elsewhere are not random events but arise from convergence of hazards and vulnerable conditions. Disasters not only reveal underlying social, economic, political and environmental problems, but unfortunately contribute to worsening them. Environmental degradation, settlement patterns, livelihood choices and behavior all influence disaster risk, which in turn adversely affects human development and contributes to further environmental Page 2 degradation. The poorest are the most vulnerable to disasters because they are often pushed to settle on the most marginal lands and have least access to prevention, preparedness and early warning. Floods are the most important and recurring disaster in Benin. Indeed, floods are increasing on an alarming trend throughout West Africa (Figure 1). In Benin, some municipalities are regularly inundated for many months in the year, and some villages are constantly under water. However, the frequency and severity of these floods are increasing. Beginning in the middle of September 2010, unseasonably heavy rains struck the entire country. Whereas 136 mm of rain fell in September 2009, in 2010 it was 128 mm recorded on September 10 alone and the monthly total was 344 mm. The gravity of the 2010 flooding was unparalleled by anything the country has experienced during the last century. The rising water levels exceeded the thresholds of human settlements adapted to past flood events, taking populations by surprise and surpassing their traditional preventive, response and resilience mechanisms. Damage was severe throughout the country, affecting individuals living in both urban and rural areas where water levels rose to engulf houses and destroyed assets, food stocks, crops, and fields. There was also disruption to important social and political processes, such as the preparation of the computerized permanent electoral list in view of the 2010 presidential elections and the start of the academic school year, as many schools were used as temporary shelters. Figure 1: Floods and Droughts in West Africa, 1970-2010 (Source: The OFDA/CRED, UCL, Belgium) D F 1. The overall damages and losses from the 2010 flood disaster are estimated to amount to 2% of Benin’s GDP in 2010 as the preliminary figures of the 2010 flood damages and losses stand at US$ 157 and 100 million respectively. These figures do not however account for the opportunity loss, cost of illness and psycho-physical conditions associated with the morbidity and mortality resulting from the flood and the aftermath of the flood. Therefore, the burden of cholera (800 cases reported of which 60 died) was calculated and estimated at US$ 8.1 million. The total effects of this disaster (damages to infrastructure, agriculture and physical assets and the ensuring economic losses) were estimated in the PDNA at CFAF 124 billion (US$ 257 million). The impact on agriculture was particularly devastating; about 49,318 hectares of crops were destroyed and 17,300 square meters of fishing areas ruined. Public and private irrigation Page 3 infrastructures also sustained significant damage. Some 81,000 head of livestock and 73,428 poultry were lost. Further, the 2010 flood disaster affected more than 680,000 people and caused the death of 46 persons. Fifty-five out of 77 municipalities were affected in varying degrees. More than 50,000 houses were destroyed and 150,000 people were left without shelter. In addition, 278 schools were flooded, 128,000 of crops and farmland were ruined, and an estimated 12,000 metric tons of food stocks were lost due to destroyed storage facilities. Flooding also increased poverty and vulnerability. Aside from loss of assets, poverty incidence was affected by the floods through two channels that reduced the purchasing power of a number of households: loss of income and rise in prices. More acute in rural areas, the poverty rate increased by 1.1 points equivalent to 96,514 individuals or 19,303 households. The flood severity, which was unequal across the 55 affected communes, was acute in 13 communes, which affected 71% of the population after the floods and could further increase their vulnerability should rapid measures are not taken. The flooding of October, 2010 required a change in the objectives, preparation schedule and some content of the Urban Environment project which needed to be refocused to meet the request of the GOB and to address: the rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure; the cleaning of clogged drains; the upgrading certain infrastructure to better withstand floods that are likely to occur again in the future; the improvement of SWM, etc. The results of the PDNA clearly showed that it would not be enough to simply fix what was broken but it was critical that adequate preventive measures also be designed and implemented to mitigate the devastating effects of future floods. Despite this emergency and preventive focus, the issues of poor environmental quality remain and it is critical that the MEPN and its agencies be strengthened to address the long term negative environmental and health effects especially in urban areas. Government request and rationale for Bank involvement. The President of the Benin wrote the President of the World Bank on September 30, 2010 to request support to help the affected population, and this request was reiterated by the Beninese delegation during the Bank’s Annual Meetings in Washington. In response, the Bank sent a multi-sectoral (SD/HD/PREM) team in early October to make a preliminary assessment of the damage and plan next steps. The mission comprised site visits, a fly-over, and meetings with UN agencies, NGOs, and the inter-ministerial Crisis Committee. The scoping mission arrived at a time when priority needs and attention were focused on rescue and relief, rather than recovery in the post-disaster period. The mission emphasized to Government and UN partners that the Bank’s comparative advantage was not immediate support for food, housing, and medical services, but rather assistance in the medium- term and long-term to address structural problems related to food insecurity, infrastructure, and climate change/disaster risk management. The key finding of the scoping mission was to immediately undertake a PDNA. The Bank was able to leverage US$ 150,000 from the Global Fund for Disaster Relief and Recovery (GFDRR) to support Government in carrying out the PDNA. In November 2010, a large multi-sectoral mission from the Bank, representatives of the UN system, the European Commission and the GFDRR, worked jointly with GOB to prepare the PDNA. The report was completed in January 2011 and is being currently processed for publication. Page 4 The proposed emergency project is a direct output of the PDNA findings . In light of the disaster, Bank management realigned the Urban Environment Project already under preparation to address key issues raised in PDNA. The 2010 flood damages and losses as assessed required interventions on urban drainage systems, SWM, wastewater and flood risk management while building the badly needed capacity of the MEPN and Ministry of Interior (MOI) Directorate for Prevention and Civil Protection (DPPC). Indeed, improving the urban environmental management is meant to prevent future flooding, which will particularly avert urban damages and losses in terms of human, social, physical, capital and natural assets (Table 1). Bank management added a special allocation of US$ 20 million IDA funds to the initial US$ 30 million allocation, and gave permission to prepare an emergency operation under OP 8.0. In addition to the proposed Emergency Urban Project, the Bank response to the PDNA in rural areas consists in an “Agricultural Productivity and Diversification Project” (P115886) that is currently being appraised for Benin. The Project aims to restore and improve productivity and value addition for selected value chains, in part to respond to flood damage and losses in the sector. The Project is financed with US$ 31 million of IDA and US$ 15 million from the Multi- Donor Trust Fund for Food Price Crisis Response. The Bank has been supporting urban environmental management for almost two decades . While previous Bank support for urban services focused on much needed infrastructure and capacity building, the support during the current CAS period (2009-2012) would be re-oriented towards improving urban environmental management including SWM, controlling urban transport pollution, increasing access to urban sanitation, and drainage services, and strengthening the institutional capacity for environmental management. The first Bank urban project (1993-1997) focused on infrastructure rehabilitation and environmental sanitation in Cotonou and Porto- Novo. This project was followed by the first Decentralized City Management Project (PGUD-1, 2000-04) in Cotonou, Porto-Novo and Parakou and the second Decentralized City Management Project (PGUD-2, 2006-10), which was granted an additional envelope in 2008 to cover secondary cities. These urban projects laid the foundation for municipal capacity building in the planning, implementation and monitoring of municipal services and improvements in urban infrastructure such as support to drainage, roads, construction of landfills in key cities. The PGUD-2 placed emphasis on SWM component in Porto Novo by helping the city to develop a long term vision for integrated SWM and implementing a priority action plan with studies, technical support, and construction of a landfill. Thus, the proposed emergency project builds on the Porto Novo experience to replicate parts of the collection experience to other cities. However, issues such as improved collection of solid waste in Cotonou and neighboring municipalities, wastewater treatment, and preparedness and adaptation to the natural disaster- climate change continuum in urban planning have hardly been addressed by Bank lending and other donor interventions in Benin. Through the new project, the Bank seeks to address some of these challenges 2. Proposed objective(s) The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to improve infrastructure and mitigate the negative environmental impact of floods in Greater Cotonou and to increase Benin’s level of preparedness for future flooding. Page 5 3. Preliminary description There are five components in the project: Component 1 - Drainage improvement and rehabilitation (US$ 23.56 million equivalent): The activities to be funded consist mainly of rehabilitating and improvements to 3 main drainage networks in key areas of Greater Cotonou affected by the 2010 flood by calibrating, grading, cleaning and expanding drains and channels, and elevating a bridge. Component 2 - Municipal solid waste management (US$ 13.82 million equivalent) : The objective is to enable Cotonou and affected neighboring municipalities to mitigate environmental and health impacts resulting from the obstruction of drainage systems caused mainly by the indiscriminate dumping of solid waste in the open that was exacerbated by the floods of October 2010. This will be achieved by substantially improving: (i) collection, transport and disposal of solid wastes through construction of collection points, transfer stations, controlled dumpsites, and one additional cell at an existing landfill site; and (ii) capacity development support to Government, municipalities, communities and NGOs. Component 3 - Improved wastewater management and sanitation (US$ 4.7 million equivalent): This component aims at reducing the negative environmental and health impacts associated with the mix of floods and untreated wastewater due to the poor nature of sanitation system in Greater Cotonou. This will be achieved by the development of an appropriate institutional framework for the effective and sustainable management of urban wastewater in Benin, preparation of a wastewater master plan for greater Cotonou and Porto Novo, and the implementation of a small- scale decentralized sanitary drainage and wastewater treatment pilot project. Component 4 - Flooding and disaster risk preparedness and management (US$ 5.03 million equivalent): This will increase the level of preparedness and develop a system for flood risk management including an early warning system, information and awareness program, and strengthen the capacity of the institutions involved in flood and disaster risk management. Component 5 - Project management (US$ 2.89 million equivalent): This component is designed to provide effective and efficient management support for the implementation (including monitoring and evaluation) of the project. 4. Safeguard policies that might apply The project is classified as Environmental Category B as the potential environmental and social impacts are not likely to be significant, and most of the project activities are intended to mitigate the negative environmental impacts and health hazards resulting from the current flooding situation. In light of the scope of works, such as rehabilitating drains and channels and construction of municipal solid waste collection points, the impacts are likely to be small-scale and site-specific and thus easily manageable. The project triggers two safeguards policies: OP/BP 4.01 on Environmental Assessment and OP/BP 4.12 on Involuntary Resettlement. The two safeguards instruments: an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) and the Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) prepared and disclosed for the Urban Environment project will be revised and updated and re-disclosed before commencement of the civil works. In Page 6 accordance with OP 8.00 and to guide the environmental assessment and mitigation process, an Environmental and Social Screening and Assessment Framework (ESSAF) will be developed. The ESSAF provides guidance on the approach to be taken during project implementation for the screening and design of sub-projects and planning of mitigation measures. The PMU and the implementing agencies of PGUD- 2 are very experienced in the Bank’s environmental and social safeguards compliance, including implementing a highly satisfactory Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) that involved payment of compensation and provision of a range of amenities and services, and community development activities. 5. Tentative financing Source: ($m.) BORROWER/RECIPIENT 5 International Development Association (IDA) 50 Total 55 6. Contact point Name: Africa Eshogba Olojoba Title: Sr. Environmental Specialist Tel: 225-22 400 425 Fax: 225-22 400 461 Email: aolojoba@worldbank.org Location: Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire