- From the civil society, the DAR association recommends that the IDB assume its responsibility to supervise, monitor and strengthen compliance with its safeguards.
The Environmental and Social Policy Framework (ESPF) draft of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group opens the possibility to reduce the bank’s responsibility to actively participate in the compliance and implementation of its socio-environmental safeguards, delegating direct responsibility to the borrower, who would act as party and judge, warned the civil association Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR).
“This secondary role on safeguards compliance is inconsistent with the recommendation (and management’s commitment) to strengthen the IDB’s role in policy compliance, as well as to innovate mechanisms and oversight activities ‘in the field’,” as recommended by the IDB’s Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE), said Ricardo Rivera, DAR consultant.
Last December, the IDB presented the draft document of the new socio-environmental safeguard policy to prevent and mitigate the negative impacts of the projects it finances. At the same time, it began a process of public consultation with civil society organizations, indigenous peoples and all interested parties on the proposal.
Carolina Juaneda, representative of the Bank Information Center (BIC), said the safeguards are requirements that the borrowing countries must meet to access loans from international financial institutions. “They are mandatory requirements on how to identify, plan and manage specific activities to avoid, minimize or mitigate risks and negative social and environmental impacts of projects,” she claimed.
INADEQUATE CONDITIONS
The DAR association highlighted the importance for the IDB to improve its environmental and social policy, considering that they found in the evaluation carried out by OVE that from 2011 to 2017, 77% of IDB projects did not comply with the requirements of safeguard policies such as, lack of disclosure of relevant information, environmental assessments, no socio-environmental management programs, and no evidence of consultation processes.
The conditions for the effective participation of civil society organizations, indigenous peoples and other minority groups in the consultation stage have not been met. This, due to the fact that the means used for the invitation to participate, as well as the methodology employed in both days of activities, did not allow the knowledge or full discussion of the safeguards to generate and collect contributions that would actually enrich the draft consulted.
“The number of workshops has not been sufficient in relation to the number of projects financed by the IDB and its presence in the region, nor were there differentiated participation mechanisms for indigenous peoples and vulnerable populations”, said DAR association.
DOCUMENT CONTRIBUTIONS
After analyzing the Environmental and Social Policy Framework draft, civil society organizations recommend that the IDB should include international concepts and standards on the indigenous people’s rights, such as the ILO Convention 169, a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, among others regarding free, prior and informed consent.
For example, the draft includes criteria not contemplated in international standards about who is considered indigenous. Although it considers self-identification, it also requires recognition by third parties and the existence of collective attachment; this means that their identity is linked to differentiated ancestral habitats or territories. This would leave out many indigenous peoples who have chosen to migrate to cities for reasons linked to historical dispossession of their territories, forced displacement and obstacles to access to natural resources.
DAR also express that “the mechanisms for supervising and monitoring the projects must be generated and strengthened by the citizens themselves. Let’s remember that in Peru, these mechanisms have been made more flexible, so the bank has the responsibility and can improve these mechanisms”.
The civil association demanded that the IDB’s safeguard policy guarantees respect for fundamental human rights and the environment, with the objective of “generating development” and not, as the draft currently proposes, of “not harming”, which should include an institutional focus that privileges well-being and sustainable development rather than the rapid execution of projects that would assume risks and negative impacts.
PRIOR CONSULTATION
One of the issues considered relevant, and of particular interest to indigenous peoples is related to their collective rights. With regard to prior consultation, indigenous organizations consider that the IDB draft downplays its mandatory nature and generates confusion through the use of terms such as “meaningful consultation”. “We are not talking about better standards, but rather weaker ones,” said the Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA).
In the case of free, prior and informed consent, the application of this mechanism is absolutely necessary when it comes to physical or economic displacement of indigenous people. According to the indigenous organizations, “the IDB understands that consent can be given in a fragmented manner and doesn’t need unanimity which goes against indigenous people’s unanimous spirit of representation”. This concern was reached during the public consultations held by the IDB on March 3 and 4, 2020 in Lima.
“We expressly request that our collective rights be respected in accordance with ILO Convention 169, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and other international jurisprudence,” said Richard Rubio, vice president of Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (Aidesep).
He also regretted that the safeguards do not guarantee the right to indigenous territory in areas where there are titling processes still pending, nor do they contain measures that respond to the unrestricted respect for the territories inhabited by indigenous people in voluntary isolation or initial contact. “Only ambiguous statements have been made with the objective of avoiding contact,” Richard Rubio concluded.
Leonardo Crippa, staff attorney of Indian Law Resource Center, pointed out that many of the proposals made by indigenous peoples were previously recognized not only by the World Bank, but also by the IDB itself in its 2016 policy, which is why he called against relaxing the safeguards.
David Cruz, researcher of “Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad” from Colombia, mentioned that many of the problems of the Hidroituango case (hydroelectric plant financed by the IDB Group) are linked to weaknesses in the safeguards, and that these weaknesses have not been properly addressed in the IDB draft, referring to the violation of human rights and the monitoring of safeguards. He also recommended that the principles of transparency and access to information contained in the Escazú Agreement be included.
These and more observations, with proposals from Indigenous and civil society organizations have been circulated in two public pronouncements delivered during the IDB consultation days in Lima.
FACT
- The IDB is an important financial influence in Peru. Currently, the IDB has 34 projects with approved loans in Peru for $2,198,040,000. According to information from the IDB, the financing given to Peru has been mainly to the sectors of Transportation (US$ 560 million), to promote or encourage processes of reform and modernization of the State (US$ 436.6 million) and health (US$ 425 million).
- After the end of the public consultations, on March 4, 2020, a balance of the process was made in the forum “Where do we want to go with the new IDB Environmental and Social Policy framework? Proposals from Indigenous People and Civil Society” organized by the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Forest (Aidesep), the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), “Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR)” of Peru, “Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad (AAS)” of Colombia, the Regional Coalition for Transparency and Participation (made up of CEDLA of Bolivia, AAS of Colombia, Conectas of Brazil and DAR of Peru), the Bank Information Center (BIC) and USAID-WWF.