What are country safeguard systems?

The term ‘country safeguard systems’ refers to aspects of a country’s legal and institutional framework that pertain to environmental and social safeguards. This includes laws, regulations, rules, and procedures, as well as national, subnational, or sectoral implementing institutions and agencies.

Internatioanl financial insitutions increasingly call for greater reliance on state legal and regulatory frameworks for the realization of environmental and social developmental objectives. ADB refers to ‘country safeguard systems’ (CSS) under its 2009 Safeguard Policy Statement. ^{[[^1](# “ADB. 2009. Safeguard Policy Statement. Manila. p. 77.”)]} (CSS)The World Bank refers to this work as use of borrower systems.

What’s the purpose of this repository?

I use this repository to bring together different lines of research that I have done on country safeguard systesms. In many respects, this is more of an ‘information dump’ than anything else… and I am barely getting started even in organizing and sharing my own notes. CSS analysis involves an incredible amount of work—as rule of law tends to have a long history of documented analysis, and as laws (and governments) and constantly changing.

I’d appreciate help to building out this resources and sharing tracking and anlysis of legal change.

Am I working on other resources outside of this repository?

I have a few Google Spreadsheets under active development to track country laws.. primary with respect to social and environmental safeguards:

I also have a few spreadsheets that I work on from time to time that collect a range of information on social development issues. These I term ‘country profiles’ following the nomenclature of an initiative financed by the World Bank. These country profiles each have a specific theme. And (in line with my professional background), most focus on issues pertinent to Indigenous Peoples.

I am still opening access to many Google Sheets. If you find that a sheet is restricted, just request access…