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According to AIIB, The objective of the project is to strengthen the capability of the state and the national governments in India to respond to the needs of informal workers through a resilient and coordinated social protection system. The project is proposed under the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility (the Facility) of the Bank and co-financed with the World Bank (WB) as a development Policy Financing (DPF) under WB's policy on Development Policy Financing (DPF Policy).
The proposed investment will provide the Government of India (GoI) with budget support to mitigate the severe adverse social and economic impact of COVID-19. Specifically, it supports India's efforts to modernize its social protection system to serve the risks and needs emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid urbanization, structural transformations in the labor market and climate change.Relieving the social and economic distress amongst the most vulnerable groups affected by the COVID 19 pandemic - informal workers, migrant workers and returnee migrant workers - is at the core of the operation.
The program focuses on addressing the needs of the urban poor – mainly informal workers and migrants by implementing a set of structural reforms to the social protection system in India. The key structural reforms are intended to be achieved through four pillars namely,
(i) fostering deeper devolution to states to use resources for local needs/risks and disasters,
(ii) expanding the social protection net for underserved urban informal workers,
(iii) strengthening delivery of existing new initiatives through focus on improved methods for targeting and payments, and
(iv) climate action reforms to build adaptation and mitigation capacities for the most vulnerable.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL INFORMATION
The loan will be cofinanced with WB as lead cofinancier, and the program's environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts have been assessed in accordance with WB's DPF Policy. AIIB's Environmental and Social Policy (ESP) was designed to apply to investment projects and has no provisions for its application to DPF operations. Therefore, as permitted by the decision of AIIB's Board of Directors set forth in the Decisions to Support the COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility, WB's DPF Policy will apply to this operation in lieu of AIIB's ESP. This will ensure a harmonized approach to addressing the environmental and social (ES) risks and impacts of the program.
WB has conducted assessments under its DPF Policy to determine whether the proposed operation is likely to (i) cause significant social consequences and poverty levels (especially on the poor and vulnerable sections of the society), and (ii) have significant impact on the country's environment, forests and natural resources. Given that mitigating the social and economic distress among the vulnerable groups is at the core of the operation, WB has determined that the proposed interventions are likely to have largely positive social impacts. The program focuses on directly transferring social protection benefits to women and provides extra weightage to the tribal households in targeting of benefits (due to the constitutional protection accorded to these groups). The program will provide fast and flexible cash support to address ecological and climate-based vulnerabilities. The program will also incentivize allocation of resources available to cities based on achievements on air quality.
PROJECT TEAM LEADER
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank:
Hari Bhaskar
Principal Investment Operations Specialist
World Bank:
Qaiser Khan
Lead Economist
BORROWER
Dr. Prasanna V Salian
Deputy Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs
Ministry of Finance
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
You can submit an information request for project information at: https://www.aiib.org/en/contact/information-request/index.html
ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF AIIB
The AIIB has established the Accountability Mechanism for Project-Affected People (PPM). The PPM provides Òan opportunity for an independent and impartial review of submissions from Project-affected people who believe they have been or are likely to be adversely affected by AIIBÕs failure to implement the ESP in situations when their concerns cannot be addressed satisfactorily through Project level GRMs or AIIB Management processes.Ó Two or more project-affected people can file a complaint. Under the current AIIB policy, when the bank co-finances a project with another development bank, it may apply the other bank's standards. You can refer to the Project Summary Information document to find out which standards apply. You can learn more about the PPM and how to file a complaint at: https://www.aiib.org/en/about-aiib/who-we-are/project-affected-peoples-mechanism/how-we-assist-you/index.html
The complaint submission form can be accessed in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Bengali, Chinese, English, Tagalog, Hindi, Nepali, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu. The submission form can be found at: https://www.aiib.org/en/about-aiib/who-we-are/project-affected-peoples-mechanism/submission/index.html
