This document constitutes the Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) for the programme: “Scaling up the Deployment of Integrated Utility Services (IUS) to Support Energy Sector Transformation in the Caribbean”. The programme is being co-financed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and will be implemented in Barbados, Belize and Jamaica. The CDB also serves as the Accredited Entity and will therefore lead programme implementation.

The ESMF describes the relevant legal and institutional framework (Section 2) for this programme, which also includes a detailed description of how E&S risks will be identified, assessed, mitigated and managed throughout programme implementation. In particular, a national-level Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) will be developed in/with each country during the first year of programme implementation (PY1) that will provide more granular guidance to key programme execution stakeholders – notably the participating electric utilities, which serve as national Executing Entities – on E&S risk management. The national-level ESMPs will guide key stakeholders to ensure E&S risks are properly identified, assessed, mitigated and managed throughout the sub-project workflow, including by using standardised E&S risk screening checklists and (when needed) developing and implementing simplified Environmental, Social, Health and Safety (ESHS) plans. The envisaged sub-project workflow is also described in more detail in Section 2 of this ESMF.

The ESMF further includes detailed information on the environmental and social baseline (Section 3) as well as a preliminary assessment of potential E&S risks and impacts as well as suitable corresponding risk mitigation and management measures (Section 4). Overall, this preliminary assessment shows that the potential risks and negative impacts associated with the IUS programme are modest and manageable. The ESMF also includes a budget (Section 5) and Stakeholder Engagement Plan (Section 6). This is followed by detailed information about the programme-level Grievance Redress Mechanism (Section 7) as well as the grievance/complaints mechanisms managed by both CDB and the GCF Secretariat, all of which can be used to submit grievances and complaints related to the IUS programme. Finally, the ESMF includes information on the monitoring and reporting arrangements (Section 8).