| |
Synergy
reviewed social and environmental policy adherence
of investments supported by the International
Finance Corporation (IFC) and Multilateral
Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
Challenge
The Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman
of the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
asked us to conduct a site visit in Kazakhstan
as well as desk research of over 100 projects
mainly in the infrastructure, energy and extractive
sectors, as part of its contribution to the
World Bank’s Extractive Industry Review.
The Caspian region contains the largest oil
reserves outside the Arabian Gulf. The IFC
sought to assess the broader adequacy and
relevance of the social and environmental
safeguards it requires of its beneficiaries
around the world.
Approach
• Synergy bridged the gap between global
capital and local context by visiting operations
in Kazakhstan.
• We consulted a wide-array of stakeholders:
international and national company management,
on-site employees, government officials at
various levels, NGOs, and local communities.
• We conducted an integrated, ‘big
picture’ analysis that incorporated
technical and non-technical aspects of environmental
and social compliance.
• Synergy scored the company’s
performance on a matrix designed to identify
key issues and measure compliance.
Value
• Our work contributes to improving
the IFC’s Safeguard Policies, especially
with respect to broadening impact assessment
provisions to cover social and political aspects
of investments.
• The assessment helped the project
team to understand how they had positioned
themselves within the local context. They
received clear feedback on their policies
and benchmarks for improving performance and
mitigating negative impacts
• By expanding our evaluation beyond
pure compliance, we were able to illuminate
several previously unidentified issues likely
to emerge in future
|
|
|
