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Reputation on Line Over Bid to Update Safeguard Criteria

The Asian Development Bank faces one of the biggest tests of its reputation this week when it holds consultations with civil society groups from around the world on a draft plan for updating its social and environmental lending criteria...

Reputation on line over bid to update criteria

By John Aglionby

Financial Times

Published: November 17 2008 00:42 | Last updated: November 17 2008 00:42

Activists and analysts say the strategy that emerges will determine the ADB's commitment to defending the region's poorest people, who are often the least protected in society.

Haruhiko Kuroda, the ADB president, has insisted that there will be no dilution of the safeguards, which cover the environment, involuntary relocations and indigenous people.

But the scores of people attending the meetings starting on Tueday in Manila, in the Philippines, have prepared a paper containing hundreds of pages, detailing ways in which they believe the ADB is planning to water its standards down. Documents obtained by the Financial Times also show that numerous experts within the ADB, including its own lawyers, have reservations about the draft.

The draft under consideration is the ADB's second attempt to engage with non-governmental organisations. Its first draft, published a year ago, provoked such outrage, including public protests in India and Indonesia, that it had to be rewritten.

Main criticisms of the new policy focus on the halving of the public consultation period for private sector projects to 60 days, the delegation of responsibility for safeguard enforcement to private sector intermediaries or governments, and an alleged weakening of standards under the guise of harmonisation with those of other financial institutions.

The ADB's Office of General Counsel said the new draft was an "improvement" but that "not all ... matters previously raised have been fully addressed".

In two of more than 100 comments the office said: "We continue to have concerns that the private sector modalities ... and guarantees are inadequately dealt with in the [draft]" and "the [cofinancing] proposal effectively presents a waiver of ADB's policies justified on the basis that the other institution's policies are equivalent".

It also describes the passing of some responsibilities from the bank's chief compliance officer to the social and environmental safeguards director as "a significant difference from ADB's current internal law".

Some experts within the bank are scathing about the three sectors' operations manuals being distilled into one. One person described the new manual as "illogical" while another said the result was "confusing and incoherent" with no specification of minimum applicable standards.

Stephanie Fried, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said the second draft, though better than the first, was still a "breathtaking unwinding of existing policy".

Nessim Ahmad, director of social and environmental safeguards at the ADB, said many of the criticisms were "misrepresentations" of the policy's intentions. He said: "We're not losing the identity of the policy, we're consolidating the process. And the safeguard policies are subject to our compliance review policy."

The critics remain unconvinced. Ted Downing, president of the International Network on Displacement and Resettlement, said he feared the overhaul would impoverish millions .

He added: "For example, when you turn over the right of compulsory acquisition to the private sector you don't just open Pandora's box, you stir it with a big stick."

Last Updated ( Monday, 12 April 2010 )

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The Economics of Involuntary Resettlement: International Conference in India

An important International Conference on Population Displacement and Resettlement by development projects will take place on April 10-12, 2012 at the Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneswar (XIMB), Odisha, India. The conference is jointly organized by the Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

XIMB, the lead organizing institution and the conference’s host, is one of India’s most eminent high education institutions in the area of management sciences. Private sector industries and the public sector recruit many managers and civil servants from among XIMB graduates. The Conference is prepared by a group of XIMB faculty, led by Professor Latha Ravindran, who was the first to introduce a training course on development-caused population resettlement in XIMB, one of few Universities in India that offer graduate training in this domain.

The Conference seeks to examine the theoretical, legal, financial and policy issues intrinsic to development-caused displacement. Its Keynote Address will be given by Professor Michael M. Cernea, NR Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, and former Senior Adviser of the World Bank on Social Policies and Sociology. Among participants are both Indian and international scholars, researchers, students, and practitioners.

The risks and actual adverse impacts of development-induced resettlement on local people have been widely researched, but the capacity to deal with these issues is still largely lacking. Though there have been recent trends in training programs and university courses focusing on these issues, the need for effective and knowledgeable experts to assist in the resettlement process more crucial now than ever.

The conference will be an opportunity for researchers, project proponents, managers of R&R projects, professionals from civil society organizations and policy makers to deliberate, debate and identify possible solutions for critical unsolved issues pertaining to involuntary displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation on account of development projects.

Towards this goal, the organizers selected the following main topics for the sessions of the conference on Theoretical Perspectives, Legal & Policy Issues on Development-Induced Displacement and Rehabilitation, 2. Critical issues in Land Acquisition and Forced Displacement,3. The Economics, Financing, and Planning for R&R,4. Management of Impoverishment Risks under Urban Displacement

Odisha is one of India’s richest states in underground resources (iron, coal, rare metals etc.), but also one of its least developed, and has a high percentage of tribal groups amongst its population. Many big private sector corporations, national and transnational, are currently developing large scale projects in Odisha in the extractive and processing industries in order to bring these resources into the industrial and economic circuit. Such developments, however, entail the need of large aggregate population displacements and relocations. This has vastly increased the interest of the State Government and population in the issues of Development-caused Forced Displacement and Resettlement (DFDR). Odisha is one of India's states which has adopted its own State Policy for DFDR processes.

Researchers from India and abroad interested in attending this Conference may contact:

Ms. Reena Ravichander

Xavier Institute of Management, Xavier Square, Bhubaneswar-751013, Odisha, India

Phone: +91-674-3983811 (D), 3012345 (30 lines); Mobile: +91-9437010686

Fax: +91-674- 2300995; Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted by Joanna London

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