An Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) is being rolled out among Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to help accelerate priority electricity projects.
The framework, which was developed by SRK Consulting South Africa and commissioned by the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) in 2016, will facilitate the screening of key power projects in line with lenders’ requirements – in turn speeding up their implementation across the sub-continent. A key obstacle to energy access in southern Africa is the quality of the existing power grids, which limit the ability of new power generation to be harnessed and distributed. The SAPP – which supplies electricity to consumers in 16 SAPP utilities and independent power producers (IPPs) – is busy improving these grids.Project Advisory Unit
In 2009, the SAPP had identified a number of priority projects that would improve the region’s power grids, and by 2011 many of these were found to require extra developmental work to bring them to bankability stage. In response, the SAPP Coordination Centre – with financial assistance from the World Bank’s International Development Association – set up a Project Advisory Unit (PAU) that would accelerate the implementation of these projects. The PAU awarded SRK the contract to develop the ESMF and it was prepared in three phases. The first phase was the preparation of an inception report and initial consultation with the SAPP Environmental Sub-Committee – comprising representatives of SAPP utilities and IPPs. In the second phase, the terms of reference – and the framework itself – were developed after consultations with SAPP stakeholders including member utilities, relevant government institutions, international financial institutions, civil society organisations and research institutions. The draft ESMF was then presented to the SAPP stakeholders and finalised; this was the third and final stage.
