PRESS RELEASE
Friends of the Earth International - CEE
Bankwatch Network
Washington (US), 12 February 2004
Nobel Laureates and 300 NGOs Urge Changes
in World Bank Practices
Washington (US), 12 February 2004 -- As
part of a mounting campaign to change World
Bank involvement in the oil and mining
sectors, Archbishop Desmond Tutu today joined
four other Nobel Peace Prize winners and over
300 organisations calling on Bank President
James Wolfensohn to accept and adopt the
recommendations of a review that he
commissioned.Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody
Williams released the letter, which was also
signed by Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Sir Joseph
Rotblat, Betty Williams and Mairead
Maguire.
A draft copy of the World Bank
management's response [1] to the
recommendations was leaked last week. It
indicates that the Bank is veering away from
accepting the recommendations. The
implementation of these recommendations would
be an important step towards ensuring that
World Bank Group investments alleviate
poverty and benefit local communities.
At a meeting today in Melbourne with
Australian campaign groups, President
Wolfensohn expressed his regret that the
response had been leaked before he had seen
it and committed to taking as much time as
required to ensure that justice is done to
the three year review process.
Wolfensohn initiated the Extractive
Industries Review (EIR) at the World Bank
Annual Meetings in Prague in 2000. The
underlying aim was to evaluate to what extent
the extractive industries contribute to
poverty alleviation.
The Final Report validates many of the
concerns that communities and civil society
organisations have been raising with the
World Bank Group for more than two decades.
Human rights groups, environmental
organisations, development agencies,
community and indigenous peoples
representatives, have welcomed the
Report.
Archbishop Tutu and the other four
Laureates write in their letter to Wolfensohn
: "War, poverty, climate change, greed,
corruption, and ongoing violations of human
rights - all of these scourges are all too
often linked to the oil and mining
industries. Your efforts to create a world
without poverty need not exacerbate these
problems. The Review provides you an
extraordinary opportunity to direct the
resources of the World Bank Group in a way
that is truly oriented towards a better
future for all humanity." [2]
The EIR concluded that if the World Bank
Group intends to pursue its mandate of
poverty alleviation, then it should not
support extractive industries unless the
broad set of enabling conditions outlined in
the Report's recommendations are in place
first. Furthermore, the EIR found that
support for coal and oil, as well as projects
in critical natural habitats and areas of
conflict, does not represent the best use of
public World Bank money to promote and
support sustainable development. Thus the EIR
recommended that the World Bank Group should
phase-out its financing for these types of
projects and reallocate its funds towards
renewable energy. [3]
"The key question of the EIR was whether
World Bank investments benefit people in
poverty," said Petr Hlobil of CEE Bankwatch.
"The EIR report provides a clear answer -
without major changes in World Bank
investment policies the poor are still not
going to be better off, human rights will
continue to be violated and environmental
damage will increase."
Janneke Bruil, of Friends of the Earth
International, added, "We hope that President
Wolfensohn will take the results of this
wide-ranging consultation into account and
that he will deliver on the good faith which
he showed by initiating the EIR in the first
place."
Contacts:
Carol Welch, Friends of the Earth US, +1
202 491 31 97 (USA) International Program
Director, Friends of the Earth US.
www.foe.org
Petr Hlobil - + 420-2-7481 65 71 (Czech
Republic)
International Oil and Climate Coordinator
CEE Bankwatch Network www.bankwatch.org
Janneke Bruil - +31 20 622 13 69 (The
Netherlands)
Coordinator International Financial
institutions Program Friends of the Earth
International
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] View the leaked World Bank draft
response here:
www.bankwatch.org/issues/wb-imf/eir/downloads/response_wbg_eir_draft_01-04.pdf
[3] 94 per cent the World Bank's energy
portfolio currently supports fossil fuel
projects; 6 per cent goes to support
renewables projects.
The recommendations
of the EIR include:
· obtaining prior informed consent of
local communities and indigenous peoples
affected by extractive projects as a
precondition for financing
· phase out lending in support of oil and
coal and to invest its scarce development
resources in renewable energy by setting
lending targets of renewable energy lending
by 20% a year
· respect for indigenous peoples' land
rights
· ensuring that revenues of Bank-financed
projects benefit all affected local
groups
· requiring that freedom of association be
present in Bank financed projects as a basic
human/labour rights requirement
· ensuring that good governance structures
are in place before project finance and
implementation occurs
· protecting biodiversity through
establishing "no go" areas for
internationally recognized critical
habitats
· requiring that submarine and riverine
tailings disposal not be used in World Bank
Group supported mining projects
· no more financing of extractive industries
in areas of armed conflict
· increasing revenue transparency and
improving public disclosure about projects;
and promoting overdue key institutional
reforms to deal with the long documented
"pressure to lend" in the World Bank
that has resulted in weak environmental and
social protection policies
· ensuring that World Bank group policies
and operations concerning extractive
industries must be, at a minimum, consistent
with its obligations, as a subject of
international law, in relation to
international human rights law.
For more information on the EIR, go to
www.eireview.org
and
www.eireview.info
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