Intro
The World Bank Group (WBG or The World Bank) is a family of five international organizations: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD); The International Development Association (IDA); The International Finance Corporation (IFC); The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The World Bank provides low-interest loans, zero to low-interest credits, and grants to developing countries. These support a wide array of investments in such areas as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. additionally, it offers support to developing countries through policy advice, research and analysis, and technical assistance.
The World Bank’s overarching goals are to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity in a sustainable manner in all its partner countries. The World Bank’s safeguard policies form the cornerstone of the World Bank’s efforts to protect people and the environment and to ensure sustainable development. Inspired by these visions, the World Bank is updating the institution’s safeguard policies and developing a new Environment and Social Framework. The Framework maintains the World Bank’s long-established core principles, while at the same time responding to new challenges.
While the current safeguard policies have served the development community well by protecting the environment and the world’s poor and vulnerable in World Bank investment projects, the world has changed and new and varied development and environmental demands and challenges have arisen over time. The issues the borrowing countries face have shifted dramatically. The World Bank is now in the process of reviewing, updating and strengthening its environmental and social policies to keep pace with the changing times. The review began in 2012 with the goal to: Enhance protections for the poor and the environment through modernized standards; Provide inclusive access to development benefits through the introduction of a non-discrimination principle; Strengthen partnerships with borrowing countries through closer cooperation and increased use of borrower frameworks; and Strengthen the World Bank’s leadership through a modernized safeguards framework. In July of 2015, the Committee for Development Effectiveness (CODE) of the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors authorized a third phase of consultations, which involved NGOs and civil societies, on a revised (second) draft of the proposed Environmental and Social Framework.The feedback from the NGOs and civil societies were mostly negative. The draft was criticized as a dangerous rollback on evironmetal and social protections.
New Development Bank of BRICS and the World Bank are both development financing organizations. Compared to the well-developed and well-organized World Bank, New development Bank of BRICS is like a toddler in development finance, pursuing the goal of poverty alleviation and supporting the growth of developing countries. The safeguard policies of the World Bank are seen as best practice internationally. They carry a special value because they have helped to raise standards for the protection of the environment and the enhancement of the living conditions of people. New development Bank of BRICS, however, given the specific context it’s in, will take the safeguard policies of the World Bank as a reference and set its own safeguard policies for the projects it supports to fulfil its objective of meeting the demands of sustainable and inclusive development.
Alert
- World Bank to Begin Discussions on Proposal to Strengthen Social and Environmental Safeguards
- Rights Groups Say New World Bank Proposal Endangers People And Environment
- UN Financing for Development: the Fund and Bank’s role & influence
- Infrastructure lending must be based on environmental and social safeguards
- World Bank: Dangerous Rollback in Environmental, Social Protections-- New Framework Undermines President Kim’s Commitment to ‘No Dilution’
- Intense scrutiny on AIIB should spur it to fulfil its social and environmental mission
View
Zhu Jiejin, Associate Professor of Institute of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University:" On the one hand, the New Development Bank of BRICS will actively learn from the good practices and experience of the existing international standards, such as the EIA policies, security terms, procurement policies, the borrowing countries' evaluation of financial sustainability, to introduce practical safeguard policies for loaning. On the other hand, unlike the existing multilateral development banks, the New Development Bank of BRICS is not going to bind the loans and issues that are not related to economy together, such as human rights, good governance and democratization, etc. Instead, it will adopt nonpolitical safeguard policies."
OXFAM & Inclusive Development International: In order to achieve the objectives set out above, any Bank operation that has the potential to impact upon tenure rights, arrangements or systems should trigger the following safeguards:
1. An assessment and political economy analysis of the borrower country’s legal, policy and institutional framework governing tenure (including customary and traditional law), gaps and weaknesses, if any, between them and these safeguard measures and international obligations, and the mechanisms required to bridge such gaps to give effect to the objectives of these safeguard measures.
2. Meaningful consultation and active participation of affected persons about the proposed operation; its design and its implementation strategy; potential adverse impacts on tenure; and proposed safeguards to protect against adverse impacts, strengthen tenure rights and improve equitable access to land, housing and natural resources.
3. Participatory and transparent identification and recording of all existing forms of tenure, including tenancy and subsidiary use and access rights, within the project’s area of influence.
4. An action plan for the conferral of legal security for the range of existing forms of tenure and, in cases in which it is necessary to meet the objectives of these safeguard measures, the legal recognition of the tenure rights of each affected person, household or community.
Center for International Environmental Law: To further strengthen the environmental aspects of the assessment policy, the Bank should draw on the following international standards, which constitute best practice:
1.The UN/ECE Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (the “Espoo Convention”) sets out the obligations of Parties to assess the environmental impact of activities at an early state of planning.
2.The UN/ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the “Aarhus Convention”), a multi-lateral environmental agreement, places increased emphasis on the rights of the public to be consulted on projects that will have environmental and social impacts.
3.Article 8(j) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity contains the Akwe: Kon Guidelines for the development of cultural, environmental, and social impact assessments regarding proposed developments likely to impact sacred sites and on lands and waters traditionally occupied or used by indigenous and local communities.
4.Various international legal instruments discussed, for instance, in the sections specific to Forests and Ecosystems and Biodiversity, reference standards with respect to impact assessments.
Sustainable Development and Strategies Group: The Safeguard policies call for Environmental Assessments to be accessible to key stakeholders and produced in a language understandable to key stakeholders…
SDSG recommends that the Environmental Assessment requirements include assessment of social impacts. Alternatively a social impact assessment could be set up as a separate process/requirement. In order to promote environmental protection and sustainable development, then the social impacts on stakeholders (including effects on the way people live, work, play, their culture, economics, and beliefs) should be examined in addition to environmental consequences.
Furthermore, the consultation requirements of an Environmental Assessment need to be heavily emphasized and examined...
Additionally, more should be required than mere information dissemination, such as interactive consultation where there is feedback and implementation of that feedback that is a more effective consultation for Environmental Assessments...
Madhuresh Kumar, National Organizer of the National Alliance of People’s Movements in India: “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.”
Kyle Peters, World Bank vice president for operations policy and country services: “This is a broadening and strengthening of the existing policies and not watering it down. We’re aiming to get a new and strong set of environmental and social standards that will uplift sustainable development [while] being mindful of economic burdens that development can place on future generations.”
Resource
- Report: Understanding the Asian Development Bank’s Safeguard Policy,OXFAM
- Report: Development Banks in the BRICS-- Transparency Policies and Socio-Environmental Safeguards，Rightingfinance
- Critique: Lessons Learned?--- The Implications of the ADB’s Review of Safeguard Policy Implementation for the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,ULU Foundation
- Cretique: World Bank turns Its back on rights protections for the poor, global civil society response gathers momentum,Inclusive Development International
- Briefing from IMF: Safeguards Assessments—2014 Update,IMF
Case Study
In this Alert, Greenovation Hub Policy Center did a case study on the latest draft of the World Bank's Safeguard Policies, which was released by the World Bank. The study reviewed the developing process of the World Bank's Safeguard Policies, and then did an evaluation of the current Safeguard Policies, which included the opinions and suggestions of several NGOs.
Based the evaluation, the study moved to the interpretation of the latest draft released by the World Bank. It seemed that the feedback of the international communities towards the draft was quite negative. It was called a rollback on environmental and social protections, a dangerous turning back on rights protections of the poor as well.
Given that the New Development Bank of BRICS is on its way of completing its policies, this alert also made an effort to make some suggestions on the environmental and social safeguard policies by analyzing its principles and the relations between the BRICS countries.
Original Chinese Version: Study on the Review and Update of the World Bank's Safeguard Policies(CH)
Observation on China's Overseas Investment wishes to present multiple views and perspectives to enhance understanding concerning China's overseas investment and global footprint, so as to promote China's "going out" in a more responsible and more sustainable way.
We welcome experts and scholars sharing related cases and views with us.
Please send us your comment to policy@ghub.org.
We welcome your feedback and will share some selected insight upon permission in next issue.
