Archived press release

Benn under pressure over world bank reforms

30 June 2004

The UK Government must back important World Bank reform proposals aimed at reducing the organisation's social and environmental impacts, leading NGOs will tell Overseas Development Minister Hillary Benn at a meeting later today. The Extractive Industries Review [1], commissioned in 2000 by World Bank President James Wolfensohn, recommended the bank phase out the financing of oil projects. The UK Government is a `shareholder' of the World Bank.

The environment and development organisations, including Friends of the Earth, Christian Aid and WWF, will call on Mr Benn to fully endorse the recommendations of the World Bank's Extractive Industries Review [EIR], which was published in January.

In a letter to Friends of the Earth, Hilary Benn wrote "I support the spirit of the recommendations of the EIR, in particular that the extractive sector should be more closely aligned to sustainable development and poverty reduction". But the UK Government has so far failed to clarify its official position on the review. The EIR has been endorsed by the European Commission, hundreds of parliamentarians and noble laureate Desmund Tutu.

Last week (25 June) the World Bank issued its draft management response, which was condemned by environmental and development organizations as totally inadequate. The NGOs want shareholders of the World Bank (the member states), to demand full implementation of the EIR recommendations.

Liana Stupples, policy director at Friends of the Earth said

"The World Bank's mission is supposed to be poverty alleviation, but its internal review shows just how far it is from achieving this.The UK Government must back recommendations for the World Bank to stop funding oil and coal projects that are helping to wreck our climate and harm the lives of the most vulnerable groups in the world."

Notes

[1] NGO representatives at the meeting are Liana Stupples, Friends of the Earth; Robert Napier, WWF; Simon Taylor, Global Witness; Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace; Andrew Pendleton, Christian Aid; Jeff Powell, Bretton Woods Project; Marcus Colchester, Forest Peoples Programme; Joji Carino, Tebtebba Foundation; John McGrath, Oxfam

[2] The recommendations of the Extractive Industries Review include:

• Informed consent from local communities and indigenous peoples affected by extractive projects as a pre-condition for financing;

• Phasing out lending in support of oil and coal and to invest its scarce development resources in renewable energy by setting lending targets of increasing renewable energy lending by 20 per cent a year;

• Ensuring the establishment of indigenous peoples' land rights as a condition for project finance;

• 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/labor 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 tailings disposal not be used in World Bank Group supported mining projects;

• 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 weakening of implementation of key environmental and social protection policies.

For more information on the EIR, view www.eireview.org

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust