In its continuing effort to prevent negative impacts on people and the environment in the implementation of public-private partnership (PPP) projects, the PPP Governing Board issued Resolution No. 2018-12-02, or the “Safeguards in PPP: Mainstreaming Environmental, Displacement, Social and Gender Concerns” on December 14, 2018.
The Safeguards in PPP is expected to help minimize delays that might arise from the implementing agencies’ limited resources and capacity to review all safeguard policies which are currently fragmented in various issuances.
The guideline outlines several safeguard standards and consolidates them into a single document to ensure the streamlining of the PPP project development and approval process. It will help implementing agencies address safeguard issues throughout the PPP project cycle by (1) identifying the issues and their corresponding mitigating measures, (2) integrating these measures into the project terms and the PPP contract, and (3) implementing monitoring mechanisms to ensure that safeguard measures are complied with and any unforeseen environmental and social issues are managed properly.
The scope of the guideline includes issues such as:
- safeguards from environmental impacts;
- resilience to climate change;
- managing operational concerns on right-of-way (ROW), including acquisition of private and public properties and resettlement of informal settler families;
- considerations for indigenous peoples;protection and consideration of vulnerable groups such as persons with disability;
- gender quality and women empowerment; and
- culture and heritage preservation.
The PPP Governing Board is the overall policymaking body for all PPP-related matters and is composed of the Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning as Chairperson, the Secretary of Finance as the Vice-Chairperson, the Secretary of Budget and Management, Secretary of Justice, Secretary of Trade and Industry, and the Executive Secretary.
In a statement released in December 2018, the PPP Center also announced that for 2019 it will be supporting “more green projects that have climate resiliency components to address the serious threat of climate change in the Philippines” through the Project Development and Monitoring Facility.
You can find the resolution on the safeguards in PPP and other policies under the “PPPGB Guidelines and Issuances” webpage here.
