DBP received the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Good Practice Award (GPA) 2017 for its entry under the category Strategies in Achieving Desired Results on Outcomes. The award was conferred on DBP during ceremonies held on March 7, 2018 at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Central Office in Quezon City.
The Bank’s entry, “Institutionalizing Environmental, Social, and Climate Change Considerations in Project Evaluation and Monitoring in the Bank’s Credit Process through the Environmental Development Project (EDP),” was unanimously adjudged to have helped achieve the desired outcome of the project by promoting sustainable environment, social, and economic development.
The EDP, a policy-based lending project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), required as part of due diligence the identification of corresponding mitigation and risk reduction measures for the project’s potential environmental, social and climate change impacts.
Taking off from this practice applied to EDP projects and out of the Bank’s commitment to environmental protection and sustainable development, DBP issued Credit Policy 112 and Credit Guidelines 112 (CP&CG112) to institutionalize environmental, social, and climate change considerations in project evaluation and monitoring in DBP’s credit process.
DBP’s project evaluation consists of project screening and assessment. Project screening involves the categorization according to the project’s perceived environmental risk and includes the determination of natural and climate-induced hazards that may affect the project as well as its potential social impacts.
Project assessment discusses in detail the project’s technical aspects and environmental, social and economic impacts. It also identifies project performance indicators that would be monitored throughout the long term to see whether the project was able to achieve its environmental and socio-economic targets and ensure the project’s sustainability.
The Environmental Performance Monitoring (EPM) was initially required for environmental projects like EDP-funded projects but was eventually adopted for all DBP funded projects.
The mainstreaming process aims to influence clients in taking into consideration environmental and social safeguards and climate-related measures into their business operations through the Bank’s loan requirements and lending conditions.
The GPA is given by the NEDA- Project Implementation Officers System to encourage implementing agencies (IAs) or units to take stock of agencies’performance in implementing ODA projects, recognize IAs with good practices and multiply the benefits of such practices by allowing other IAs to learn from them.