BRICS bank "ignores" transparency on environmental issues, refuses to involve civil society for policy framework

WB President Jim Yong Kim and NDB President KV Kamath
after signing MoU in September 2016

By A Representative

Amidst the high-profile BRICS summit entering the second day in Goa, two senior experts, Juana Kweitel, Programs Director of Conectas Human Rights in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Srinivas Krishnaswamy, CEO of Vasudha Foundation in New Delhi, have said that even a year after BRICS launched its New Development Bank (NDB) has failed to be a “tooled” as a “real engine for sustainable development.”

BRICS is acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

“The NDB is now up and running – having approved in its first year USD 911 million worth of infrastructure and energy projects within the BRICS countries”, the experts have said in a commentary, adding, “This first tranche of projects includes various energy investments, with an encouraging nod to renewables, including rooftop solar, and wind.”

“Another factor distinguishing the NDB is that it has started to lend to countries in domestic currencies, rather than pegging all loans to the dollar, a practice which has tended to saddle countries with more debt”, they point out.

Following this, the experts say, the NDB “has its sights set on scaling up – adding additional member countries, allowing financing outside of the five BRICS countries, and expanding operations to include lending to the private sector.”

However, the experts warn, “The BRICS Bank works to position itself as a major player for sustainable development, several big obstacles stand in its way.”

“First and foremost”, they point out, “The NDB has not yet defined what it sees as sustainable development or set forth sustainability criteria for its investments. While the Bank has an exclusion list, which identifies certain investments as ineligible for NDB financing, that list does not include, for instance, unsustainable fuel sources like coal.”

“If the NDB is going to be something new, it will need to break away from the export-oriented, extractivist development model that has proven itself a failure. And that break will take a clear roadmap”, the experts add.

“Second”, the experts say, “While the Bank has given a nod to environmental sustainability, it has doggedly ignored the basic tenets of social sustainability – transparency and participation. The Bank did not involve civil society in the formation of its social and environmental policy framework, despite repeated calls for consultation.”

“While the Bank released an Interim Policy on Information Disclosure, it hasn’t put in place the necessary measures or mechanisms to ensure that communities who might be impacted by NDB investments have the information they need, the opportunity to influence project decisions, and access to remedy if they are harmed”, the experts underline.

“Finally”, the experts underline, “It is questionable whether the NDB’s new policy framework is robust enough to ensure sustainability or to prevent harms. In its social and environmental framework, the NDB opted for more aspirational principles rather than concrete requirements for environmental and social performance.”

In fact, they say, “the framework allows the NDB to preference the use of countries’ domestic systems, without clear criteria or processes by which such standards will be assessed. While Bank officials have stated that they will work to ensure enforcement of local laws and regulations, this loophole is a major concern since many countries are systematically dismantling their national environmental and social protections, as is the case with Brazil.”

Comments

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai* The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Subaltern voices go digital: Three Indian projects rewriting history from the ground up

By A Representative A new wave of digital humanities (DH) work in India is shifting the focus away from university classrooms and English-language scholarship, instead prioritizing multilingual, community-driven archives that amplify subaltern voices . According to a review published in the Journal of Asian Studies , projects such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), the Oral History Narmada archive , and the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre are redefining how the country remembers its past — often without government funding or institutional support.

Beyond Lata: How Asha Bhosle redefined the female voice with her underrated versatility

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The news of iconic Asha Bhosle’s ‘untimely’ demise has shocked music lovers across the country. Asha Tai was 92 years young. Normally, people celebrate a passing at this age, but Asha Bhosle—much like another legend, Dev Anand—never made us feel she was growing old. She was perhaps the most versatile artist in Bombay cinema. Hailing from a family devoted to music, Asha’s journey to success and fame was not easy. Her elder sister, Lata Mangeshkar, had already become the voice of women in cinema, and most contemporaries like Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, and Noor Jehan had slowly faded into oblivion. Frankly, there was no second or third to Lata Mangeshkar; she became the first—and perhaps the only—choice for music directors and all those who mattered in filmmaking. Asha started her musical journey at age 10 with a Marathi film, but her first break in Hindustani cinema came with the film "Chunariya" (1948). Though she was not the first choice of ...

Search This Blog