A series of activities on environmental and social considerations in accordance with international donor’s guidelines are carried out in the projects of official development assistance. However some issues have been identified on implementation of the guidelines from the perspective of time and cost management. In this paper, activities and roles of the environmental & social consultant are described, and challenges on the activities and proposed solutions are discussed for realization of ideal implementation of the ODA projects.

The JICA Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations (hereinafter “JICA Guidelines”) are currently under process for revision after JICA has consistently applied them to the projects of official development assistance since July 2010. During the past ten years of its application, the circumstances surrounding JICA’s operations have dramatically changed, especially in environmental and social aspects. This paper briefly describes JICA’s efforts in terms of environmental and social considerations in the past ten years, and the major points of revising JICA Guidelines, which are under discussion.

In the city outskirts, there is a concern about biodiversity loss due to urbanization caused by development projects. To solve this problem, it is necessary to quantitatively ascertain an impact on biodiversity. In this study, I utilized HEP, a quantitative evaluation method for ecosystems, and sought an efficient assessment process while ensuring the accuracy that can be applied at a practical level, such as environmental assessment. Specifically, I performed HSI model construction and model accuracy verification by field survey for kingfishers, which are indicators of the good waterside environment in the suburbs of the city. In addition, assuming virtual development projects, I examined the applicability at a practical level.

Offshore wind power plant is one of the promising energy sources as a marine renewable energy. Its effect on marine species including fishes, marine mammals, sea birds and etc. have been researching in the world. The offshore wind power plants could attract or distract marine species. The aggregation of marine species is called reef effect. This paper shows the recent trend of the investigations and researches in terms of aggregation of marine species on and around artificial offshore structures in European and American countries. Especially, reef effect of the offshore wind power plants was summarized in this paper to announce the reef effect for Japanese regulators and stakeholders.