JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations (January 2022)

JICA promulgated "The JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" (January 2022) and "the JICA Objection Procedures based on the Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" (January 2022) on January 4, 2022, and will enforce them on April 1, 2022.

"The JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" (January 2022) and "the JICA Objection Procedures based on the Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" (January 2022) are applicable to projects whose applications are submitted by project proponents on or after April 1, 2022. For projects whose applications are made before March 31, 2022, please continue to use "the JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" (April 2010) as the applicable guidelines and the Objection Procedures corresponding to the applicable guidelines.

In addition, "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" have also been revised. For projects to which the JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations (January 2022) apply, please also refer to the revised FAQ.

As in the past, this revision of the JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations aims to achieve international standards of environmental and social considerations, and to enable faster and practical project formulation as well as implementation. There is no change on the basic concept or framework of the JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations, such as that the responsibility for environmental and social considerations lies with the project proponents, and that JICA provides support for and review of environmental and social considerations.

The main changes have been made taking into account the environmental and social policies of multilateral development agencies such as the World Bank, and include: efforts to estimate and disclose the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions as a response to climate change; changes to disclosure of environmental assessment reports for the purpose of early dissemination to stakeholders and early achievement of positive development impacts; strengthening of efforts related to local stakeholder consultations.

This revision has been carried out in three stages since 2018. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those involved in the revision and those who provided public comments for their cooperation.

JICA "Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations" specifies that "JICA will create a comprehensive review of the guidelines within ten years of their enforcement on the bases of its findings." JICA had studied environmental and social safeguard practices as per the Guidelines since February 2018.