|
foe
paraguay campaigner Omar Arach reports
from the annual meeting of the
inter-american development bank
|
The
Inter-American
Development Bank
is the principal
source of multilateral financing for
economic, social and institutional
development projects in Latin America and the
Caribbean .
This year its annual meeting is took place
in Lima between March 29th to 31st.
Calendar of events
around IDB 2004 annual
meeting.
background
information about idb
Smoke-screens and fruitfulness
Lima March 26 2004
This morning a number of FoE groups met up
with representatives of the bank with a
responsability for
Regional Infrastructure Integration in South
America
. We were accompanied by our
friends from the
Bank
Information Centre
(USA),
Ecologia
e Acao
(Brazil),
Foro
Ecologista
(Argentina),
Public
Services International
(USA),
Asia-Pacific
Exchange
(USA) and
Interaction
(USA).
Representing the IDB were Mauro Marcondes,
coordinator of the regional infrastructure
integration initiative, directors and
subdirectors of the
regional
operations departments
for South America,
and other officials.
The meeting helped us get a clearer idea
about this threatening initiative that is
being promoted and executed by the South
American governments, with technical help
from the IDB,
Andean Development Corporation
and
Fonplata
.
In the afternoon, we had the 'traditional'
meeting between the
executive vice-president
of the IDB,
Dennis Flannery, and civil society. The
themes on the agenda were the Bank's
environmental, transparency and indigenous
peoples' policies. There were about 40
representatives of civil society. Flannery
was accompanied by about ten officials of
numerous departments and divisions, who
presented the Bank's
organisational
structure
.
The pre-established agenda repeatedly
referred to the
Camisea project
, which has generated
considerable opposition from a range of
national and international organizations.
Although strong criticism was launched
against the Bank for its role in the Camisea
project, for its poor environmental policies,
for the lack of information, transparency and
participation, a real debate did not take
place. The vice-president did not adress
these criticisms nor did he try to. Rather,
he tried to neutralise them with a
smoke-screen of tired rhetoric.
After this meeting, we organized - yet
another - meeting in the NGO room with Janine
Ferretti of the
sustainable
development department
of the IDB. In
this meeting, a smaller group of
organizations including FoEI,
FoE
Paraguay
, FoE Haiti,
FoE Brazil
,
Ecologia
e Acao
,
environmental defense
,
Interaction
, the
Bank
Information Centre
and
Asia-Pacific
Exchange
. For this reason, or because of
the attitude of this official, the meeting
was much more fruitful in terms of obtaining
useful information to continue the
campaign.
It is strange to hear a member of the Bank
say that she needs external pressure in order
to push certain ideas through the
institution. In this meeting, we started to
draw up an action plan to influence the
establishment of an environmental policy at
the Bank.
The best part of the day, from a certain
point of view, happened in the evening. After
various detours through some labyrinthine
parts of the city, we met at Señorío del
Sulco, a nice restaurant on the boulevard.
Here we found out why people say that Lima
has some of the best cuisine in the world. We
also discovered once more the liberating
effects of pisco sour.
read the diary from:
monday march
29
saturday march
27
thursday march
25
Read more about the Inter-american
Development Bank:
CENSAT Agua Viva- FoE Colombia:
www.censat.org
(in
spanish)
Rios Vivos Coalition:
www.riosvivos.org.br
(english,
spanish and portuguese)
Bank Information Center, United States:
www.bicusa.org
ACERCA on Plan Puebla Panama:
www.asej.org
IDB website:
www.iadb.org
(english and
spanish)
|
