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Ahead of July 30 World Bank board meet, world opposition to "relaxation" in safeguards for poor grows
By Our Representative
The
National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM), the apex body of India’s top
rights bodies, has released fresh details on rising opposition by civil society
organizations around the world decrying a leaked draft of the World Bank’s proposed new policies,
which allegedly seek to “avoid” harmful impacts from the development projects
that it finances. “As many as 97 NGOs and civil society networks and 17
distinguished individuals from Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America, North
America and Europe sent a statement to the World Bank’s Board, demanding the
draft be sent back and re-written with serious safeguards to protect the land,
housing and livelihood the poor" (click HERE to read), NAPM has said.
Joji Carino, Director of the Forest Peoples Programme, UK, has
said, “We have engaged with social and environmental safeguard development with
the World Bank for over twenty years and have never seen a proposal with
potential for such widespread negative impacts for indigenous peoples around
the world. The proposed ‘opt-out’ for protections for indigenous peoples, in
particular, would undermine existing international human rights law and the
significant advances seen in respect for indigenous peoples rights in national
laws.”
Theodore Downing, President of the International
Network on Displacement and Resettlement, a 14-year old network of involuntary
resettlement professionals based in the United States, has contended, “The
proposed changes eviscerate existing international standards - knowingly
placing millions of people at risks of impoverishment.”
“The Bank is trying to exonerate itself from all
responsibility for the devastating effects of the displacement it finances,
while giving private equity funds to some of the world’s most abusive
governments unfettered discretion to uproot the poor as they fit,” said David
Pred, Managing Director of Inclusive Development International, US.
TepVanny, a community leader from Boeung Kak Lake, said, “Land
titling projects are exempted from the coverage of the draft resettlement
policy. This will leave affected communities completely unprotected from forced
eviction by their government, as happened in the case of Cambodia’s Boeung Kak
Lake community whose homes were demolished after they were deemed not to have
ownership rights under a Bank-titling project. If this policy is adopted, many
communities around the world will be forcibly evicted like mine was, and they
will not be able to seek any recourse from the Bank.”
“Tep Vanny, a community leader from Boeung Kak Lake. After
filing a complaint with the World Bank’s Inspection Panel about the
controversial project, Tep Vanny and local organisations finally secured title
for hundreds of families that were previously threatened with eviction. With
the proposed changes to the Bank’s policy, that would not have been possible”,
NAPM comments.
NAPM adds, “Despite the growing land-grabbing crisis
displacing countless indigenous communities, small farmers, fisher-folk and
pastoralists throughout the global south, the draft policy fails to incorporate
any serious protections to prevent Bank funds from supporting land-grabs.
“In Ethiopia, World Bank funds have been used to
facilitate one the world’s biggest land grabs, with the indigenous populations
of entire regions being uprooted to make way for agro-industrial investments.We
had hoped that the new safeguards would include strong requirements to prevent
governments like Ethiopia from abusing its people with Bank funds, but we are
shocked to see the Bank instead opening the flood-gates for more abuses,” said
Obang Metho, Executive Director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.
“Not only is the current draft an unconscionable weakening,
it is a complete misrepresentation of two years of consultations with civil
society. The Bank's Board must not endorse this draft, and at a minimum
must insist that these fundamental loopholes be addressed before the next round
of consultations," said SasankaThilakasiri, Policy Advisor for Oxfam
International.
NAPM’s Madhuresh Kumar believes, “This draft effectively
winds back the clock to the 1970s, before the Bank had binding policies in
place to protect the poor and the environment. We see nothing more than a
naked attempt by the Bank to shield itself from accountability for the
destructive impacts of the mega-projects it is planning.” He adds, “Most
shockingly, the draft policies provide an opt-out option for governments that
do not wish to provide essential land and natural resource rights protections
to Indigenous Peoples.”
“The draft also weakens protections for people who will be
evicted from their homes, land and livelihoods, increasing the risk that
Bank-financed projects will impoverish people, exacerbate inequality and cause
human rights violations. The proposal scraps critical rules that have been in
place for thirty years requiring the Bank to take concerted measures to avoid
and minimise displacement and for resettlement action plans capable of
restoring the livelihoods of the displaced to be in place before committing
funds to projects”, NAPM says.
It adds, the draft “provides multiple opportunities for
borrower governments, or even private intermediary banks, to use their own
standards for impact assessment, compensation and resettlement, without clear
criteria on when and how this would be acceptable.”
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