Technical Engineering Support for the Implementation of Civil Infrastructure Projects — West Africa Coastal Area Program (WACA)

• PROJECT BACKGROUND

• Sectoral context

The West Africa Coastal Area (WACA) Program was created in response to countries’ requests for solutions and finance to help protect and restore the ecological, social, and economic assets of coastal areas in West Africa by addressing erosion and flooding. West Africa’s coastal communities are highly vulnerable to the impacts of coastal erosion, flooding, and pollution. Coastal retreat is resulting in the loss of housing, assets, and land, and solutions are expensive and uncoordinated. Degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems is leading to significant and potentially irreversible loss of critical ecosystems such as beaches, wetlands, and mangroves which are key for livelihoods, food security, and storm protection. These physical challenges, coupled with the broader crises driven by energy, fertilizer, and food shortages, rising interest rates and debt levels, and COVID-19 pandemic impacts are leading to low economic growth and increases in poverty. These challenges are often transboundary, multisectoral, and beyond the ability of one country or development partner to finance or effectively address.

To address these shared regional challenges, the WACA Resilience Investment Project (ResIP 2) was approved by the World Bank in December 2022. The project supports site-specific grey, green, and hybrid physical investments, and social subprojects at the community level to achieve measurable increases in protection from coastal erosion and flooding, pollution control, and to promote climate-resilient and nature-based coastal development. Project activities are expected to directly benefit people at project sites in the three beneficiary countries, who live along the coast and depend on it for their livelihoods.

The WACA ResIP 2 consists of one regional integration component and three country projects in The Gambia, Ghana, and Guinea-Bissau, each with the same design and organized in three components, namely, policy, investment, and coordination. As part of WACA ResIP2, Ghana is benefiting from an IDA Credit of US$ 150 million and a $5 million Grant from PROBLUE. This regional integration project also supports The Gambia ($45m), Guinea Bissau ($30m), and West African Economic and Monetary Union WAEMU ($16m).

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• WACA ResIP 2 Ghana

WACA ResIP 2 Ghana is designed to address the three key challenges to unlocking the potential of its blue economy: coastal erosion, flooding, and pollution; ecosystem degradation; and institutional fragmentation. While the ultimate objective of the project as stipulated in the Program Agreement Document (PAD) is to strengthen the resilience of coastal communities, the project’s overarching strategy to achieve this outcome is to focus on strengthening Ghana's blue economy and to restore and protect critical coastal ecosystems which provide essential services to nearby communities, including income generation and protection against natural disasters.

The WACA ResIP 2 project comprises four components as with all other countries with WACA investments.

Component 1: Strengthening Regional Integration. The regional integration component is to strengthen the effective coordination of interventions for coastal resilience in West Africa at the regional and national levels spearheaded by West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). This is achieved through the consolidation of the regional institutional set-up and harmonization of policy to seek economies of scale and the development of new strategic partnerships needed for the scale-up of response to the coastal resilience development challenge.

Component 2: Strengthening the Policy or Institutional Frameworks. The project supports the strengthening of institutional and policy frameworks around coastal development, protection, and natural resource management (exclusive of fisheries). Focus areas include strengthening existing national coordination mechanisms and development of mechanisms for sub-national coordination, including civil society coordination.

Policy actions under this component supports improved land use and marine spatial planning for resilient coastal development. This includes measures for institutional support that will improve collection and analysis of data critical for risk-informed decision-making. This includes, but is not limited to, data related to beach profile and crest elevation, spatial data, and improved local demographic and economic data, especially as related to sources of livelihood and gender disaggregation.

Component 3: Strengthening National Physical and Social Investments. The project supports a wide typology of site-specific grey, green, and hybrid physical investments, and social sub-projects at the community level to achieve measurable increases in protection from coastal erosion and flooding, pollution control, and promote climate-resilient coastal development. Physical investments supported by the project are based on coastal management strategies and climate-resilient development plans, including Multi-Sector Investment Plans (MSIPs), undertaken and ongoing in each country that identifies priority investments and actions for strengthening coastal resilience and mitigating the impacts of climate change through sustainable, integrated coastal zone management.

The project shall finance (a) green infrastructure such as dune fixation to protect beaches from erosion using vegetation and shrubs to trap sand, wetland and mangrove restoration and beach replenishment; (b) grey infrastructure such as the construction of breakwaters, seawalls, revetments, groynes, and dikes; (c) land claim and reclamation; (d) rehabilitation of flood banks; (e) rehabilitation and management of natural flood areas, including dredging to maintain natural flow in lagoons; (f) infrastructure, e.g. culverts, for improved drainage; and (g) sustainable land management practices in transboundary sub-watersheds and areas of high ecosystem value that drain into the coastal areas, and (h) measures to improve the management of natural habitats, including reduction of invasive species encroachment.

Specifically, physical interventions under component 3 will support adaptation measures for protection, retreat, accommodation, or a combination thereof at three locations: Korle Lagoon, Densu Delta, and Keta Lagoon Complex. Nature-based and physical solution measures will include protection and restoration of mangroves and other submerged native aquatic vegetation to reduce flooding hazards, and beach nourishment and dune rehabilitation to address coastal erosion. Grey solutions may include the construction of groynes, dykes, seawalls, revetments, or other infrastructure.

Component 4: Project Management. A Project Implementation Unit (PIU) has been established within the Ministry of Environment, Science, and Technology (MEST) to be responsible for the overall implementation of the project. The PIU is to be guided by a multi-stakeholder Project Steering Committee (PSC) Figure 1.

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• Institutional and Implementation Arrangements

Implementation of the WACA ResIP 2 Ghana Project is being led by Ministry of Environment, Science, and Technology (MEST), with support from Ministry of Works, Housing, and Water Resources (MWHWR), and Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR). The institutional and implementation arrangements include a Project Implementation Unit (PIU) at MEST for the day-to-day administration of the project. Focal Point Units (FPUs) at key implementing institutions (including Ghana Hydrological Authority (GHA), Forestry Commission (FC) and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA)) coordinate, monitor, and report on specific technical institutional tasks, targets, and deliverables (in collaboration with parent ministries) to MEST for effective project implementation and coordination. A Project Steering Committee and National Technical Committee provides oversight and advisory role to the PIU to ensure successful implementation of the project. A coalition of civil society organizations (CSOs) and individuals interested in and/or working on coastal governance and blue economy-related issues, under the umbrella of Coastal CSO Forum (CCF), will serve as gatekeepers for the project and will support the day-to-day implementation of project activities as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Organogram showing Institutional Implementation

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• Environment and Social Standards

The project is implemented under the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) of the World Bank, and the environmental and social (E&S) risk classification is High. The following E&S instruments have been prepared and disclosed by the project: Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP), Labour Management Procedures (LMP), Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF), Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF), Gender Assessment and Gender Based Violence (GBV) Action Plan, and Environment and Social Commitment Plan (ESCP).

• OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The WACA Resilience Investment Project (ResIP 2) is implementing several small to medium-sized infrastructure sub-projects. The main requirement for this assignment is to provide quality technical engineering support services to such sub-projects.

The WACA-PIU therefore wishes to engage the services of qualified, individual registered Civil Engineer to provide technical engineering support for different infrastructure projects. The civil engineer will provide technical and project management services to support the implementation of the construction projects. Listed below are the specific engineering support to be provided by the civil engineer during the design and construction stages of the sub-projects.

• Support architectural services

• Developing or reviewing specification/BOQ for the PIU

• Support procurement process for PIU

• Support preconstruction site inspections,

• Site handover

• Site and work supervision for PIU.

• Inspection