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The World Bank Afghanistan Water Supply and Sanitation Services and Institutional Support Program (P169970) Public Disclosure Authorized For Official Use Only Appraisal Environmental and Social Review Summary Public Disclosure Authorized Appraisal Stage (ESRS Appraisal Stage) Date Prepared/Updated: 02/26/2020 | Report No: ESRSA00453 Public Disclosure Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Feb 27, 2020 Page 1 of 13 The World Bank Afghanistan Water Supply and Sanitation Services and Institutional Support Program (P169970) BASIC INFORMATION A. Basic Project Data Country Region Project ID Parent Project ID (if any) Afghanistan SOUTH ASIA P169970 Project Name Afghanistan Water Supply and Sanitation Services and Institutional Support Program Practice Area (Lead) Financing Instrument Estimated Appraisal Date Estimated Board Date Water Investment Project 3/17/2020 5/28/2020 Financing For Official Use Only Borrower(s) Implementing Agency(ies) Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Urban Water Afghanistan Supply and Sewerage Corporation (AUWSSC) Proposed Development Objective(s) The Project Development Objective (PDO) is to improve access to and quality of water supply in Kandahar city, and to strengthen the performance of AUWSSC and in particular its Kandahar Strategic Business Unit (KnSBU). Public Disclosure Financing (in USD Million) Amount Total Project Cost 232.00 B. Is the project being prepared in a Situation of Urgent Need of Assistance or Capacity Constraints, as per Bank IPF Policy, para. 12? No C. Summary Description of Proposed Project [including overview of Country, Sectoral & Institutional Contexts and Relationship to CPF] The overall objective of the proposed Program is to improve access to safe water and sanitation in selected areas of Afghanistan as well as to strengthen sector capacity. This program development objective (PrDO) is expected to be achieved over a 12-year period through a Series of Projects (SoP), of which the operation detailed in this document is the first. The program approach will ensure continuity of the sector engagement and enhanced coordination, as well as supporting the sustainability of other Word Bank interventions that include WSS components such as the Cities Investment Program (P160619), the Urban Development Support Project (P147147) and the Citizens' Charter Afghanistan Project (P160567). Feb 27, 2020 Page 2 of 13 The World Bank Afghanistan Water Supply and Sanitation Services and Institutional Support Program (P169970) The Program is expected to consist of three projects that will overlap in time and vary in geography, with a consistent component-level design to facilitate scaling-up. The three projects are expected to commence in 2020, 2025 and 2027, respectively. The anticipated duration of each project is expected to be five years. Overall SoP completion is expected by 2032. The focus of the proposed SoP on improving water and sanitation services in urban areas is in line with the concentration of need in large cities, the Bank’s earlier support to the national urban utility, and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s (GoIRA) desire to improve public services in major urban centers. In Afghanistan’s cities, major infrastructure investments are needed as existing water and sanitation facilities have been damaged by decades of conflict, and the limited existing system have not kept up with the rapid growth in demand. To manage such urban infrastructure sustainability, reform efforts under the SoP will focus on the national utility AUWSSC which continues to struggle with providing affordable, reliable and sustainable services, reaching only about a fifth of urban households. The first of the series of projects (“SoP-1”, or “the Project”) will finance water supply infrastructure and capacity For Official Use Only building to improve water services to Kandahar city. Kandahar is Afghanistan’s second largest metropolitan area with an estimated population of approximately 1,000,000 people, although reliable data is scarce, and estimates are as high as 1.5 million. Kandahar is located in a highly drought prone part of the country. The city’s domestic water demand is fully reliant on groundwater which is declining in many areas due to excess extraction. The city’s historic water infrastructure has deteriorated while demand has increased rapidly. The existing water network covers fewer than 8,000 households, while the vast majority of the population obtains water from private wells drawing from a shallow, unconfined aquifer which is depleting and also seriously contaminated due to the absence of a sewerage system, as several studies have shown. The existing piped network was constructed in the early 1970s and has seen only limited rehabilitation and extension in recent years with support from UN-Habitat, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the World Bank. The network is exclusively supplied through wells drawing from a deep aquifer below Kandahar. The wells that remain functional presently supply approximately 5,000 cubic meters per day, less than 10 percent of the water needed to Public Disclosure ensure that the population’s most basic needs are met. Current AUWSSC supply is not being treated as chlorination systems are no longer in working order. The quality of water is thus reportedly poor, and supply is intermittent. The existing Dahla Dam reservoir has approximately 300 million cubic meters (mcm), which is assessed to be sufficient to supply the volume of water needed for the project (approx. 150,000 cubic meters per day, which is equivalent to 4 percent of the average annual inflow to the reservoir (i.e. 1,380 mcm/year). Project Components The project will consist of four components: Component 1 will finance Water Supply Infrastructure and Efficiency Improvements; Component 2 will fund Sector Reform, Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building; Component 3 is supporting Project Management and Monitoring; and Component 4: Contingent Emergency Response Component. To facilitate scaling-up as the Program moves forward, it is expected that future SoPs will have a structure consistent with these four components, albeit with varying scope and target areas. D. Environmental and Social Overview D.1. Project location(s) and salient characteristics relevant to the ES assessment [geographic, environmental, social] The project will be implemented in the northern Kandahar province, which is located in the southeastern part of Afghanistan, at an elevation of 1,010 m. The province’s area is 53,500 km2 and lies between 32°-30’ N and 29°-30’ N latitude and between 64°-30’ E and 67°-50’ E longitude. The project area is part of the Helmand River basin. It has an Feb 27, 2020 Page 3 of 13 The World Bank Afghanistan Water Supply and Sanitation Services and Institutional Support Program (P169970) average discharge of approximately 140 m3/s but is highly variable both annually and seasonally as the waters are primarily snow melt from the ridge of mountains running through the center of the country. The plains in the western and southern regions are characterized by hot semi-arid and hot desert climates. In January the temperature may drop to under -15°c at the highest altitudes, while in July the temperatures vary between 0°c and 26°c depending on the elevation. The project will supply water to Kandahar city from the existing Dahla Dam reservoir through a raw water transmission pipeline to WTP (Water Treatment Plant), approximately 30 km southwest of the Dam. The exact location and design of WTP is yet to be finalized, however two options for the location of the WTP are being considered; option one just downstream at the dam and option two is near the Kandahar city. The areas expected to be impacted by construction activities are: (i) Construction area for water abstraction at the main dam sight (intake structure); (ii) access roads as and where required; (iii) alignments of the transmission main to Kandahar City (twin pipe) (iv) WTP, pumping station and reservoir; (v) Water network in Kandahar City; (vi) Borrow areas; (vii) Contractor’s camps where required. It is expected that a conventional water treatment process system will be used. Further water For Official Use Only quality testing will be performed to provide more clarity on the seasonal variation of the water quality for water treatment process optimal design. The project has adopted a framework approach, the utility has prepared an ESMF for the project since the exact locations and sub-projects are not clearly defined at the appraisal stage. The ESMF refers to conducting an ESIA for entire civil works as well as preparing site specific ESMPs for sub-projects. The draft ESMF has been consulted twice both in Kandahar and in Kabul and was disclosed in country on January 29, 2020. D. 2. Borrower’s Institutional Capacity AWSSC as a water utility and implementing agency has no experience with the ESF implementation. The utility has hired dedicated environmental and social specialists in the HQ and has announced two more positions in Kandahar. The key project staff have been oriented on the ESF however the application of the new Bank framework expends Public Disclosure significant environmental and social responsibility, therefore the project ESMF covers robust training plans and allocate the required resources. The need of training, capacity building, and other support activities including institutional capacity assessment will be conducted during early project implementation stage and stipulate necessary capacity strengthening recommendations for the Utility. The ESMF has comprehensive capacity building plan, however the capacity strengthening has also been captured in the project ESCP. This will help to have a clear vision of concurring, adopting, and are capable of implementing the ESF and other the various management plans and instruments for project environmental, social, health and safety risks. In particular, acquiring capacity to carry out continuous stakeholder engagement will be key to address risks related to the project operations, as well as to oversee implementation of plans being prepared to manage labor, community health and safety, land acquisition (if needed) and cultural heritage issues.