Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project (RETA 6456-REG)

Name of Client:
Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Country:
Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam

Length of Consultancy Assignment:
Start Date: 16 March 2009
Completion Date: 30 November 2010

Detailed Narrative Description of Project:

The RETA was envisaged to improve the ability of communities in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam and prepare for, respond to, and recover from the negative impact of floods and droughts. It designed separate investment projects for Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Viet Nam.

Each investment project will comprise a balanced program of structural and nonstructural measures identified by the country concerned to manage its risks of flood and drought. Priorities for investments will be set through the preparation of one regional and four national road maps. The RETA was implemented in close collaboration with the Mekong River Commission (MRC)’s Flood Management and Mitigation Project (FMMP).

The key activities of the RETA were to: (i) identify and prioritize flood and drought issues regionally within the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) and within each country through regional and national road maps developed to improve flood and drought risk management; (ii) develop a prioritized program of structural and nonstructural flood risk management (FRM) and disaster risk management (DRM) interventions in each country, and (iii) prepare feasibility studies for proposed investment projects in Cambodia on the basis of the national roadmaps.


PRIMEX fielded the services of a Social/Resettlement Specialist with the following tasks: (i) supervision of the activities of the national resettlement and social development specialist in each country of assignment, including meaningful public consultations and project disclosures in selected villages traversed by the irrigation systems, inventory of losses (IOL), and socioeconomic surveys of displaced persons (DPs); (ii) in compliance with the relevant laws of the three countries and consistent with Safeguard Requirement No. 2 of ADB’s Safeguard Policy Statement (SPS) of June 2009, preparation of the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Framework (LARF) and Land Acquisition and Resettlement Plan (LARP) incorporating ADB’s other policy themes, such as Gender and Development (1998), Public Communications Policy (2005), and Accountability Mechanism (2003), as well as the prescriptions from the Handbook on Social Analysis (2007), Poverty Handbook (2006), and Poverty Reduction Strategy; (iii) preparation of the Social and Poverty Analysis and the Summary Poverty Reduction and Social Strategy (SPRSS); (iv) development of social “effectiveness” indices for the various general categories of flood risk management (FRM) and disaster risk management (DRM) measures; (v) use of these indices to undertake feasibility appraisals of the identified regional and national FRM and DRM interventions; (vi) detailed analysis of the social feasibility of the identified interventions, as required for ADB financing; (vii) conduct of social analyses according to ADB guidelines and policies, and assessment of project risks and mitigation strategies; (viii) preparation of an SPRSS and a resettlement framework; and (viii) assistance to the chief technical adviser/team leader and FRM/DRM specialists/national team leaders in the preparation of the requisite reports as per the TOR.