World Bank’s new policies – Protecting the environment and the displaced
The world has been waging a losing battle to preserve its environment so that the life that exists on this planet can be preserved and nurtured but it remains an uphill task due to the lack of unity and commitment on the part of the international community.
Lip service is all that the diplomatic corps of the international heavyweights are able to dish out; assurances and massive meetings and forums churn out massive volumes of resolutions but the effort never matches the estimated requirement in terms of money.
The principles of international natural justice fall far short of expectations.
But, the show needs to go on; just because there are some flaws in the systems, we cannot just trash the whole system, after all man lives on hope.
The World Bank is a premium body that needs to follow the dictates of the world of finance and has, to do its bit, adopted an amended set of policies that will go a long way in making its projects more environment friendly and further protecting the people and the environment equitably.
To achieve this end, the World bank which has a commitment to fighting and eradicating poverty through its instruments of lending and loaning, declared that its infrastructure had to make consultations that were very widespread in order to derive the maximum advantage and pass it on to the consumers and the environment; in so doing, its annual outlays rose to an astounding figure of $60 billion this year.
The idea is to update its projects to include safeguards and protective measures at all levels with a provision for regular updating and adopting improvements as and when there was a need; this was the expressed by the President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim in a statement that he issued regarding the inclusion of the environmental steps in a more significant way in the projects of the World Bank.
This statement was meant to assuage the hurt feelings of communities that had accused the World Bank of being insensitive to the realities of its major projects that were the cause of massive displacements of populations to make room for the projects; it was also meant to serve as a reminder to the critics that it was not as if the World Bank did not care.
The World Bank was alive to the vulnerabilities of small communities especially in the third world and the backward communities that did not have proper legal backing or representation. The compensation provided was never matching the upheaval and loss that the displacements were responsible for. The misery caused by the uprooting from their traditional abodes can never be quantified.
Such forcing of displacements of whole populations was tantamount to being the reason for untold misery and emotional damage to the simple folk most of whom were poor rural populace that did not have much to start with.
This fact was admitted by the World Bank authorities last year with a promise that the Bank would be paying much more attention to the details of each project to study the simultaneous and after effects of the projects.
The World Bank President also stated that the proposed steps to improve the socio-economic tremors that the projects caused will be finally implemented from 2018 with the new requirements that the social risks and environmental losses requiring a deeper study about the impact on initiating forced labor or causing infringements of labor rights.
The guarantees of minimal displacements and least environmental will have to be provided before the projects start as per the requirements for new projects.
Oxfam international did welcome the proposed steps that were being initiated but expressed its dissatisfaction stating that the new policies fell quite short of expectations and only resulted in disappointment and dismay that not enough was done by the World Bank authorities.
Another authoritative organization that serves as a watchdog for the policies of the World Bank particularly with the social perspective in mind, also expressed dismay that the statement was more or less general and would not be able to tackle effectively or provide to the displaced people the clarity and amount of information that they required.
The Human Rights Watch was cynical in saying that they do not need the World Bank to show respect to human rights.
However, the World Bank President opined that the steps represented the most ideal middle-ground measures that could be arrived at to avoid dislocation of either the lending function or the social responsibilities.
China is also seen as a potential competitor to the World Bank and other lending agencies by its less stringent requirements.
Umrao Singh umraoz.wordpress.com
Written for: Lars-Magnus Carlsson www.thephilippinepride.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
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