IFC holds consultations on environmental and social standards

Accra, June 21, GNA - The International Finance Corporation, (IFC) a member of the World Bank Group, has pledged to strongly support the adoption of best practices to maintain its environmental and social-funded projects. Speaking at a stakeholders' forum, Mr Greg Radford, IFC Director for Environment and Social Development, said environmental and social specialists were assigned to work with clients to help fashion out the best practices for the projects.

In addition, a concrete monitoring and evaluation process is carried out to ensure that project partners adhere to the terms of good environmental governance.

The Accra consultation is part of series of global consultations with academics, civil society groups, financial institutions, government, private sector representatives and other resource persons to discuss efforts to improve IFC's standards on sustainability.

Mr Radford said environmental and social performances were an integral part of the evaluation of any project, especially when companies were seeking additional funding for projects in which the IFC had a stake. He said the worldwide consultations, which were already almost through, were necessary to better help address emerging issues that had reshaped the operating environment, such as Climate Change.

Mr Radford said IFC would wrap up the consultations in October this year, with new and updated standards, coming into force in January 2011. Ms Mary-Jean Ndlovu, IFC Country Manager for Ghana, said enhancing the performance standards would help to implement innovative projects in the Africa region to continue its sustainable economic growth. 21 June 10