China: Henan Flood Emergency Rehabilitation and Recovery Project

OBJECTIVE

The project objectives are to support the post-disaster rehabilitation and recovery in the municipalities of Zhengzhou, Xinxiang, and Jiaozuo of Henan Province, and to strengthen the capacity of the three municipalities in integrated flood risk management and flood emergency response.

DESCRIPTION

This project is an emergency operation in response to the urgent need of the government for post-flood disaster recovery and reconstruction. The project will finance activities in three municipalities of Zhengzhou, Xinxiang and Jiaozuo, which are among the most severely impacted by the flooding. Interventions will focus on rehabilitation and reconstruction of damaged infrastructure while the long-term sustainability and climate resilience are taken into account. The project will support post-disaster recovery in three sectors, which are critical to social and economic recovery of the province. The three sectors are water resources and flood management, urban, and transport.

Component 1: Zhengzhou Post-disaster Recovery Program. This component will finance civil works and goods required for rehabilitation and reconstruction activities in urban and rural areas, and some expansion or improvement of the flood and drainage management infrastructure in the city of Zhengzhou. The subcomponents are: (a) integrated Jinshui River management project, (b) rehabilitation of rural roads and bridges, and (c) rehabilitation of the Ying River in Dengfeng City; (d) development of an integrated flood risk management system and strengthening the capacity for emergency response; and (e) project management support for capacity building in procurement, financial management, environmental and social (ES) management and other technical areas.

Component 2: Xinxiang Post-disaster Recovery Program. This component will support activities to recover damaged infrastructure in the three sectors in Xinxiang municipality. The subprojects consist of: (a) rehabilitation of rivers and canals including river dredging and dike strengthening; (b) rehabilitation of national and provincial expressways, urban bus terminals and purchase of electrical buses; (c) rehabilitation and improvement of urban drainage systems; (d) development of integrated flood emergency response system; and (e) project management support.

Component 3: Jiaozuo Post-disaster Recovery Program. This component will finance interventions to support the recovery of Jiaozuo municipality, including: (a) rehabilitation of rivers and canals including river dredging and dike strengthening; (b) rehabilitation and improvement of the urban canals, drainage and sewage systems, and roads; (c) development of an integrated flood emergency response system including a smart river management system and a smart urban water management system; and (d) project management support.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL INFORMATION

The AIIB’s Environmental and Social Policy (ESP), including the Environment and Social Standards (ESSs) and the Environmental and Social Exclusion List is applicable to the proposed project. The Bank’s Environment and Social Standard 1 & 2 (ESS1 & 2) are triggered based on initial screening and due diligence with respect to specific contexts of the subprojects that were proposed by the clients.

The proposed project involves rehabilitation and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure in the three sectors as mentioned above. The project has been assigned Category A, given the number of sub-projects involving construction activities spreading across the three project municipalities. These sub-projects will require environmental and social safeguard measures corresponding to various civil works to be executed during implementation.

Given the emergency nature of the project, especially under the COVID-19 pandemic situation, a phased approach, permitted under the ESP for Situations of Urgent Need of Assistance is appropriate, has been considered to address environmental and social risks and impacts. The proposed ES instruments are as follows.

• Environmental and Social Management Planning Framework (ESMPF). Since this is an emergency operation and the details of the project scope and activities have not been fully identified, a framework appraoch is approriate. The framework document has been prepared and it covers mainly: (1) background and objectives; (2) description of the project; (3) policy framework on environmental and social issues; (4) approach to addressing ES issues; (5) screening, impact assessment and management for ES issues; (6) institutional arrangement with respective responsibilities and processing procedures; (7) Grievance Redress Mechinism (GRM) and accountability mechanism; and (8) supervision, monitoring and evaluation and reporting arrangements.
• Environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) and environmental and social management plan (ESMP). During project implementation, ESIAs and ESMPs required for those identified sub-projects will be prepared according to screening of ES impacts and risks for the proposed specific project activities, under the guidance of ESMPF. If land acquisition and resettlement are required or associated with any proposed project activities, a resettlement plan (RP) shall be prepared.

Public consultations will be held to disseminate information on all environmental and social documentation prepared for the project. A Project level Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) will be established in the project areas. All ES documents prepared for the project will be disclosed on the websites of the Government/ Client and AIIB, respectively.