Bangladesh: Infrastructure Development Financing Facility

OBJECTIVE

To promote infrastructure investment in Bangladesh through the provision of private sector financing solution.

DESCRIPTION

The Project is a senior unsecured term loan of up to USD 50 million to Eastern Bank Limited (EBL) to finance multi-sector infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. As a Borrower of the facility, EBL will utilize the loan proceeds to onlend to sub-borrowers engaged in infrastructure development activities in the country.

Established in 1992, EBL is a private commercial bank that provides a full range of banking products and services and operates through three core businesses segments comprising of corporate, retail and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), and treasury.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL INFORMATION

AIIB’s Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) including the Environmental and Social Exclusion List (ESEL) and relevant Environmental and Social Standards (ESSs) apply to this FI Project. The Project has been placed in Category FI, since it is an on-lending operation through EBL. The Environmental and Social Management System (ESMS) of EBL, will be updated to comply with the ESP and will be used as the Project’s environmental and social (ES) instrument. Coal mining, coal transportation and coal-fired power plants, as well as infrastructure services exclusively dedicated to support any of these activities and gas-related sub-projects or investments will be excluded.

Environmental and Social. EBL will expand its financing footprint in multiple infrastructure sub-sectors including energy, transport, water, digital infrastructure, social infrastructure etc. to be finalized in the next stage of diligence. The environmental and social impacts of these activities are dependent on the location, scale and nature of the sub-project. This will be elaborated further during the ESDD.

EBL discloses key elements of its Environmental and Social Risk Management Framework (ESRMF) and ES performance on its website. The same channel will be used to disclose the required ES information of the project. An overview of updated ESMS will be disclosed in a timely and appropriate manner. In addition, for all higher ES risk sub-projects, EBL will be required to disclose annually, a summary of the ES documentation of the preceding 12 months. This includes ES documentation on specific sub-projects written in local language and disclosed in a timely, accessible, gender sensitive, inclusive, and culturally appropriate manner. The requirement for proportionate Stakeholder consultation and disclosure by the sub-borrowers will be assessed during the appraisal process.

During project implementation, EBL will be required submission of relevant ES documentation and annual ES monitoring reports in an agreed format providing an update on the implementation of the enhanced ESMS, and a summary of the ES performance of each selected sub-project. AIIB will conduct post-reviews on the selection and implementation of sub-projects as part of its regular supervision, This includes potential site visits and detailed review of the ES documentation of selected sub-projects.

Project Level External Communication Mechanism (ECM). The service quality team manages grievances received by the Bank. E&S complaints received by this grievance redress mechanism (GRM) will be forwarded to the Credit Risk Management Team (CRM) for time bound action and remediation. As project-level GRM, the external communication mechanism (ECM) can be accessed via website/email, express hotlines, and physical visit to the branches. The ECM will be reviewed during the appraisal stage to identify gaps and propose gap filling measures to bring it in line with AIIB's ESF. In addition to this, project-level GRM will be required of each selected sub-project. The information of ECM and subproject-level GRM including AIIB’s project-affected people’s mechanism (PPM) will be disseminated to the relevant stakeholders in a timely and appropriate manner.