As each individual project also requires interdisciplinary approaches, teamwork and interdepartmental collaboration are integral parts of our everyday working environment. We are committed to working with our clients to achieve results that are SOUND, CREATIVE and SUSTAINABLE – ENVIRONMENTALLY, SOCIALLY and ECONOMICALLY. To achieve successful outcomes, we are committed to strong project partnership, teamwork and open and clear communication.
Areas of Expertise
Environmental & Social Safeguards Assessment
GWC provides a full range of ESIA and SEA services to clients across all our business sectors and throughout all our operating areas. GWC offers a wide range of advisory and environmental consulting services to help our clients meet their strategic and project needs. GWC provides a diverse range of services to assist clients who need to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in support of a specific development, or a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of a larger scale concept or planning policy. The level of support GWC can offer ranges from individual technical sections through to complete management of the SEA / EIA and the associated planning process. We are particularly used to assessing large, complex projects across all Business Areas and throughout all of our international operating areas.
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- Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) is a process used to assess the environmental and socio-economic consequences (which can be positive as well as negative) of a project and provides information to decision makers and stakeholders prior to deciding whether or not to permit a project.
- Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) are prepared to ensure that environmental, socio-economic and sustainability aspects are considered effectively in policy, plan and programme making.
Our Approach
GWC approach to Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) work is iterative, working constructively to assess impacts and then to optimize project proposals to minimize those impacts whilst maintaining project viability. GWC’s EIA managers have expertise in specific business sectors which they use to work pro-actively with their colleagues and clients to achieve a positive outcome.
Our specific areas of expertise are related to ESIA in which we strive to utilize our broad base of environmental and social scientific knowledge, research and analysis methods to identify impacts and design strategies to manage these impacts in the most cost effective, sustainable and community sensitive manner. From managing budgets and timescales to bringing together the ESIA Report (or Environmental Statement), GWC has vast experience of project managing a wide range of ESIA’s from conception to submission.
GWC can manage and deliver an entire EIA project from concept, pre-feasibility through to feasibility using experienced EIA project managers and its teams of technical specialists; or our technical experts can provide input on one or more discrete EIA topics. We also have key staff that are able to provide technical peer review as may be required for the more contentious projects to ensure that the assessment is robust and thorough.
Our Specific services
ESIA Project Management: GWC has a depth of knowledge and experience in the field of environmental and social assessment and have applied this knowledge in a range of projects within extractive, power and other industrial sectors.
ESIA Scoping: GWC has vast experience in looking at projects with an impartial eye and providing an opinion on what environmental topics can be scoped out and those that are necessary.
ESIA Screening: We have substantial experience in assessing whether proposed developments require an ESIA and experience of formulating ESIA screening requests to the appropriate regulators.
Environmental & Social Due Diligence (ESDD): GWC has a depth of knowledge and experience in the field of environmental and social due diligence, working in various countries and sectors.
Environmental Audits: Undertaking routine scheme audits provides confidence in management and operational procedures, but also valuable operational information to enhance operational efficiencies.
Gender Action Plan: GWC favor’s a qualitative approach to better understand the root cause of the gender gaps in order to provide sustainable and locally shaped solutions.
Land Acquisition & Resettlement Actions Plans (RAP): We help our clients to meet their corporate social commitments; to achieve their business goals by securing land, resources and project finance; and manage future risks and liabilities.
Social and Environmental Management Plans (ESMP): GWC has a very strong experience elaborating such documents in close collaboration with projects developers, International Financial Institutions (IFI), government agencies and stakeholders.
Stakeholder Engagement & Consultation: A core principle for sustainable development is that a decision, project or initiative needs to be financially viable, environmentally responsible and socially acceptable.
Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP): Our teams propose a structured and operational communication system that includes all the different stakeholders and adapts the nature, scale and frequency of engagement.
GWC aims at assisting businesses, investors, and governments capture opportunities, transform operations, manage risk, and drive growth in an orderly transition to a low-carbon, sustainable economy. We strive to find sustainable solutions and proactively propose climate-friendly actions in all our services, we work with our clients to enable and realize low-carbon and climate-resilient development.
Climate Change and Adaptation Consultancy
Climate change has become one of the most important developmental and business issues of our time. We’ll help you understand the low-carbon emissions landscape, manage risk and opportunity, and build the business case for climate leadership through development of climate change strategies and solutions.
Further to this we assist organization under our Climate Adaptation program which envisions to build the resilience of communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. We introduce best practices, alternate livelihood opportunities, innovative technologies and financial instruments and community-owned models to strengthen the response of the communities and build the resilience of the economy to manage the risks associated with changing climatic patterns
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- Screening of climate change Risks and Opportunities
- Climate Change and Carbon Management
- Climate change adaptation and resilience strategies
- Climate Change adaptation
- Vulnerability assessment
- Building Resilience-Focused Institutions
Sustainability Consulting
Sustainability has become a major focus for companies and is being integrated into strategic planning. GWC assists organizations, both public and private in embedding sustainability principles into the core of their business culture. We help the clients to identify, create, and execute customized sustainability solutions that enhance their competitive advantage as well as deliver value to their stakeholders and the environment. Allowing clients to address sustainability issues that are most prudent to their operations, while at the same time increasing economic value, social value and environmental value.
Our long term, innovative sustainability solutions help businesses reduce risk, improve sustainability, increase efficiency and maintain long term reputation and economic gains. Our approach to sustainability focuses on a “business-first” perspective- combining our technical expertise in various sectors with strategic expertise, increasing institutional sustainability capabilities. Our team of consultants have sustainability expertise in various fields including agriculture, tourism Forestry, manufacturing urban planning, Mining etc.
Our services include amongst
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- Sustainability Leadership Consulting
- Self-Development of Sustainability Reports
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Environmental Foot printing
- Supplier Sustainability Assessment
- Sustainability Auditing
- Sustainability Planning
Green Economy
The green economy is not a new concept: but it is becoming ever more popular. Green economies are those that are built around low carbon, sustainable ventures that prioritize the planet and the wellbeing of humans and the environment. We assist your organization or policy actions to move towards the international acceptable green practices – and that will benefit your company, organization or policy as well.
Our goal is to ensure that your firm /policy make more of an impact, both economically and environmentally, by aligning with green economy principles. Our services to ensure this include amongst others:
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- Resource Efficiency
- Life Cycle Assessment
- Cleaner Production
- Circular Economy
- Green Technologies
- Green Finance
GWC develops and implements flexible, mixed-method approaches that blend qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct Project and program assessments—determining not just whether a program works, but how it works, why it works, and where it can work best—and create a study with long-term value for our clients. GWC has undertaken more than 20 household’s surveys including baseline, mid-term, and end-term evaluations.
Project Formulation and Analysis
We work with our clients not only in project formulation but also all the way to the evaluation phase and if need be further along. That is why we are the number one in project formulation and evaluation research and consultancy services in Eastern Africa. This is one of the indicators of the maturity of a research and consultancy firm. Our clients trust us, so much so that they lean on us from the inception to the evaluation phase of the projects they undertake. Below are a few examples of our vast experience in this particular area.
Project Design and Management
We provide professional project design and management services to a number of clients in a wide range of contexts. We deliver value for money by providing the highest standards of project management, utilizing our experienced project managers to realize business benefits and deliver projects to time, cost and quality. Our approaches provide a range of design services which include:
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- Stakeholder engagement through key informant interviews, focus group discussions and online surveys – these aim to provide a breadth of contextual information, identify effective project entry points, and highlight areas of potential synergy with existing interventions;
- Log frame based results design, ensuring a technically robust and practical theory of change;
- Value for Money planning and economic scenario building from the onset, focusing not only on the economic factors around commercial budgeting, but also recommending longer term VfM management models to ensure effective delivery;
- Scoping studies to provide a range of feasible and costed technical options for the client’s review
We have an excellent reputation for successfully delivering projects on time, on budget and maintaining required quality standards. We ensure that our clients’ corporate goals and business benefits are realized through a controlled, well-managed, visible set of activities to achieve the desired results.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Systems
We offer a wide range of Monitoring and evaluation consultancy services. We design computer-aided cost-effective M&E systems, we build organization’s M&E systems and capacity, we design project and programme performance tracking systems, and we conduct needs assessments and baseline studies, process or formative evaluations and conduct mid-term, process, output, outcome and impact evaluations.
Our monitoring and evaluation services are tailored to meeting client and project needs in a professional way but also to provide benefits to a wide range of other stakeholders. We provide solution to guide effective management decision making on what is working and not working, we provide solutions to guide development partner decision making, we provide solutions to guide government and its agencies make decisions, and we provide solutions through Building Models of Application.
Survey Design and Data Processing
If you are looking for impressive and dependable survey and data processing services, GWC is the right place for you. Equipped with state of the art data collection and processing tools, GWC is one of the leading companies in survey and data processing in Eastern Africa. In Rwanda we have a pool of about 40 enumerators all Rwandans whose field data collection capacity it has developed practically in various household surveys.
We continuously developing and enhancing tools and technologies to provide standard and custom data collection solutions to our clients’ objectives. We combine multiple technologies such as paper, mobile technology and Internet in innovative ways to provide timely, accurate, reliable and cost-effective data collection and management services.
We deploy use of mobile data collection methodology so as to improve the overall quality of outputs for quantitative survey as compared to pen and paper questionnaires, as it offers fully customizable survey options, including the ability to incorporate images, audio, pictures, and videos, advanced filtering and masking capabilities enabling reduced interview and fieldwork times.
We provide our clients with quality online mobile data collection services through developing and deploying mobile phone based surveys. We have had vast experience in deploying mobile data collection tools like: Open Data Kit (ODK), CSPro for android, Survey CTO, Survey to Go, Kobo Collect, etc.
Our data processing and analysis department is equipped with the full range of data interrogation software packages including STATA, SPSS, RStudio, Excel, NVIVO, EPI INFO, etc. Our data processing team are experienced in data cleaning, tabulation and analysis, thus we are able to provide our clients with data tabulations and raw data in a range of formats (Excel, SPSS, ASCII, etc.).
Our experts and partners are widely experienced and dedicated to make your job done. Our team keeps itself updated when it comes to surveying and data processing tools including software, and equipment that it has been years since we abandoned paper-based data collection and processing. That is why a number of governmental, bilateral and multilateral organizations have given us varied responsibilities, which we carried out up to their expectations. The list of experiences below could give an image of our vast experience in the area:
Diagnosis and Feasibility Studies
GWC prepares diagnostic and feasibility studies based on market studies and agronomic, economic, financial and social analyses of the field or sector in question.
GWC uses participatory processes in surveys and consultations with the different target groups concerned. The methods differ depending on the nature of research problem or topic.
GWC Consulting has approaches this by undertaking:
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- Needs assessment:
- Needs analysis:
- Social feasibility assessment
- Technical Analysis /feasibility
- Financial viability
- Environmental feasibility