From my e-mail<\/i>:<\/p>\n
This is an important one. Below is a sign-on letter regarding the World Bank’s implementation of the recommendations of the Extractive Industries Review, a process it initiated and which it is now poised to reject because the final document, to the Bank’s chagrin, asserted the priorities of sustainable development, poverty elimination, and human rights over mindless destruction and private profit. Please send sign-ons to signon@seen.org. (the letter is to some degree an appeal to Wolfensohn’s concern about his legacy at the WB, and so is not as confrontational as some other letters of this sort)<\/p>\n
Following the letter is an article from today’s Financial Times, which reports on a leaked copy of the draft response of WB management to the EIR — a near-total rejection of its recommendations. The article notes that this most likely means that the Board will simply rubber-stamp WB management’s instinct to duck and cover. True enough, but raising the stakes publicly, NOW, is the best hope there is of pressuring the Bank to take seriously the results of the report it commissioned for itself.<\/p>\n
Soren Ambrose Dear all-<\/p>\n Please find a letter to World Bank President James Wolfensohn re: the Not surprisingly, the Bank’s management is proposing rejecting all but Please send your name and organization to:<\/p>\n signon@seen.org<\/p>\n by Tuesday February 10th, 5pm GMT (noon, Washington)<\/p>\n Please distribute this far and wide through allied networks. Check www.seen.org <\/a>and www.foei.org<\/a> for more updates about the EIR and information about what you can do. Thanks in advance.<\/p>\n Peace,<\/p>\n Steve Kretzmann ******************************************************<\/p>\n February xx, 2004<\/p>\n Mr. James Wolfensohn<\/p>\n President<\/p>\n World Bank Group<\/p>\n 1818 H Street NW<\/p>\n Washington, DC 20433<\/p>\n Dear Mr. Wolfensohn:<\/p>\n We write to you today in good faith and with genuine hopes for meaningful action towards our mutual goals of poverty alleviation and sustainable development. As you know, Dr. Emil Salim has just completed the Final Report of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). We want to thank you for initiating this historic process in Prague more than three years ago, and for devoting significant World Bank Group (WBG) staff time and financial resources to the review over the last several years.<\/p>\n We also want to thank Dr. Salim for his adherence to the principle that ?genuine development requires partnership not only with governments and companies, but with civil society as well.? Dr. Salim?s commitment in this regard allows us to endorse his recommendations to you, and to encourage you to adopt all of them without exception or reservation. <\/p>\n The EIR correctly concluded that if the WBG 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. Furthermore, the EIR found that support for certain types of extractive activities does not represent the best use of the WBG’s money to promote and support sustainable development, and thus that the WBG should phase-out its financing for these types of projects and reallocate its funds to other activities.<\/p>\n We will not view as sufficient the adoption of only a certain percentage of the EIR?s recommendations. The failure to meet any one of them can lead and has indeed led to a failure to contribute to poverty alleviation or sustainable development.<\/p>\n At your insistence, the EIR integrated World Bank Group staff at nearly every level, and the process and the Final Report were clearly richer for it. We certainly hope and expect that this integration of Bank staff and perspectives now translates smoothly into implementation of all the Report?s recommendations. This was, after all, the premise upon which it was argued that Bank staff should be deeply involved in the EIR.<\/p>\n Those of us who have previously engaged in the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative and the World Commission on Dams review already have great reason to be skeptical ? and that skepticism would only harden if the World Bank Group were to pick and choose only those recommendations from the EIR Report that are least challenging. In the intervening time that it may take to fully adopt the EIR recommendations, we feel that a good faith gesture would be for you to instruct staff and management to immediately freeze any further action on policies or projects that are potentially affected by EIR recommendations.<\/p>\n We congratulate the EIR for recognizing climate change to be a profound threat to sustainable development and poverty alleviation and we strongly endorse the recommendation for the World Bank to immediately end its support for coal mining and to phase-out financing for oil projects by 2008. By shifting financial support from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the Bank could play an important catalytic role toward renewable energy development in the South, in turn leveraging significant global benefits.<\/p>\n We would like to also highlight the EIR?s endorsement of the right of free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples and the importance of securing a ?social license? from affected communities to operate before projects proceed. While this right is already recognized for indigenous people under international law, other communities often have very little influence over project decisions despite the significant impacts that extractive industry operations have on their livelihoods and on the environments on which they depend. Empowering communities is not only the right thing to do, it will also spare the Bank and project sponsors considerable reputational risk and added cost.<\/p>\n Recognition of and respect for human rights is one of the core elements of sustainable development. Despite your best efforts to date, which we recognize and applaud, the World Bank is far behind many other intergovernmental organizations in accepting its human rights responsibilities, including the rights of workers, and in integrating these and other human rights- related issues into its operations and programs. As the EIR correctly concludes, this is not a matter of discretion but rather it is a matter of compliance with international law that is binding on the Bank; it is also sound development practice. We are aware that you have expressed an interest in human rights and have promoted rights-related issues within the Bank. We hope that now you will use all of your influence to demonstrate that commitment by adopting all of the EIR?s recommendations.<\/p>\n We are confident the EIR will be remembered as one of the most important initiatives of your tenure, and one of the cornerstones of your legacy as World Bank President. We would submit to you that the true test of the World Bank Group?s willingness to place poverty alleviation and sustainable development above bureaucracy, corporate interests, corruption, and institutional barriers to change will be in your willingness to push to redefine the Bank and the way in which it approaches development. The upcoming formulation and adoption of a concrete and specific EIR action plan will prove to what extent the World Bank is serious about ensuring that the twin goals of poverty alleviation and sustainable development are strongly upheld.<\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n [your name & organization here]<\/p>\n World Bank chiefs reject proposal to quit oil and coal finance<\/b> The World Bank’s management has rejected the key proposals of an independent review it commissioned that recommended the bank pull out of financing all oil and coal projects in the developing world.<\/p>\n A draft copy, seen by the FT, of the bank’s response to the Extractive Industries Review (EIR) – a two-year review of the bank’s role in financing oil, gas and mining – shows the management declining to propose several of its key recommendations to the bank’s executive board for adoption.<\/p>\n Environmental campaigners reacted angrily to the management response, saying it showed the bank was not serious enough about protecting the environment.<\/p>\n The management response, prepared on behalf of James Wolfensohn, the bank’s president, flatly rejects the ambitious proposal that the bank and its private sector arm, International Finance Corporation, should phase out its involvement in oil projects within five years and shift its financing to renewable energy.<\/p>\n “Adopting this policy would not be consistent with the World Bank Group mission of helping to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world,” the management report said.<\/p>\n Attempting to use the bank as a lever to achieve reduction in fossil fuel emissions, as the review proposed, was counter-productive, it said. Such a strategy would contradict the proposals of the Kyoto initiative, which stressed the importance of sharing the burden of reduced carbon emissions, the report added.<\/p>\n Ending the financing of oil projects “would unfairly penalise small and poor countries that need the revenues from their oil resources to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty”. The report cited as an example Chad, where the bank has financed an oil pipeline against the vociferous complaints of environmentalists.<\/p>\n The EIR, led by Emil Salim, a former Indonesian environment minister, also proposed that local indigenous peoples should be required to give “free prior informed consent” before an oil, gas or mining project went ahead. The bank said this could violate local laws.<\/p>\n Though the management did accept that the bank should work to increase the transparency of oil revenues, environmental campaigners said they were disappointed with its response.<\/p>\n They said they would continue to press their case when the proposals went to the bank’s executive board, though admitted that the management proposalswere very likely to be accepted.<\/p>\n “The World Wildlife Fund feels very strongly that all the recommendations from the EIR should be adopted,” said Francis Grant-Suttie, director of private sector initiatives for WWF. “We are disappointed that the draft World Bank management response seems to reject out of hand some of the most critical recommendations in the report. However, we look forward to working with Mr Wolfensohn and the World Bank Group in making the case why these reforms need to be instituted.” The EIR involved consultation with industry, government and pressure group representatives around the world but drafting of the recommendations was left entirely to Mr Salim.<\/p>\n ################## From my e-mail: This is an important one. Below is a sign-on letter regarding the World Bank’s implementation of the recommendations of the Extractive Industries Review, a process it initiated and which it is now poised to reject because the … Continue reading
\n50 Years Is Enough Network<\/a>
\n
\nPLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY * APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTING<\/p>\n
\nExtractive Industries Review pasted below and attached. This report,
\nwhich caps a two-year-long evaluation of the development impacts of the
\nWorld Bank Group?s support for oil, mining, and gas projects worldwide,
\nhas recommended that the World Bank adopt significant reforms, including
\nimmediately ceasing funding for coal projects worldwide and phasing out
\nits support for oil production by 2008. The Bank-sponsored review also
\nrecommended enhanced human rights protections, prior informed consent
\nfor indigenous and project-affected peoples, and an end to support for
\ndestructive mining technologies.<\/p>\n
\nthe weakest of the EIR’s recommendations. Only a strong message from
\ncivil society and others that this response is inadequate can sway the
\nBank on this. Your signature below is vital in helping the Bank to get
\nthis message.<\/p>\n
\nInstitute for Policy Studies
\nSustainable Energy & Economy Network<\/p>\n
\nBy Alan Beattie in Washington
\nFinancial Times; Feb 03, 2004<\/p>\n
\n50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Jutice http:\/\/www.50years.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"