New Delhi: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) begins its South Asia
consultation, in the city tomorrow, on the revision of its safeguard
policies on social and environmental impacts of its projects. The
revision is claimed towards mitigating adverse impacts of its investment
on people and the environment. The draft will be reviewed in consultation
to be held with South Asian groups from 16-18 January 2008 at the
Hyatt Regency and Taj Palace hotels.
Quite in contrast with ADB’s high expectations of acceptance of its
invitation to participate, over 50 representatives of diverse social
action and civil society groups have decided to boycott this process.
A boycott call issued by the Peoples Forum Against the ADB (PFAADB)
has been endorsed extensively and it states that ADB’s Draft Safeguards
Policy,
‘Overlooks more than a decade of global campaigns to strengthen national
and international social and environmental policies to prevent the
disastrous impact of development projects on local communities especially
indigenous people’.
Organisations from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh have boycotted
the consultation. These include Sri Lanka based Movement for Land
and Agriculture Reforms (MONLAR), South Asia Alliance for Poverty
Eradication (SAAPE) and Collective Initiative for Research and Action
(CIRA) from Nepal and Coastal Development Partnership (CDP) and Banglapraxis
from Bangladesh, who have received specific invitations to participate.
They are backed by Indian groups such as the National Forum of Forest
Peoples and Forest Workers, National Alliance of Peoples Movements
and Indian Social Action Forum.
The ADB had circulated its new Safeguard policy in October 2007 for
public response. Commenting on the policy, groups have already raised
serious concerns that this draft is opposed to indigenous peoples’
rights and subverts environmental considerations. The draft under
review collapses, and thus dilutes, three earlier policies on Environment
(2002), Involuntary resettlement (1995) and Indigenous peoples (1998)
into one flaky ‘statement’ of principles.
It further introduces ambiguity in project review, allowing for investments
to proceed even as environmental and social impacts have not been
fully assessed by promoting a weaker set of standards through its
so-called ‘country systems’ approach. The ‘country systems’ approach,
first advocated by the World Bank and now being adopted by ADB, has
come under extensive criticism as a policy that deliberately supports
weak regulation of investments by taking advantage of inadequate environmental
and social standards in-country.
On ground experiences reveal that the ADB’s track record on preventing
social and environmental upheaval through its projects has been dismal
with its projects causing extensive environmental and social damage.
In the Phulbari Coal Project in Bangladesh, for instance, the ADB’s
private sector investment front is financing a massive coal mining
project by the UK based Asia Energy PLC. Mining 15 million tones of
coal every year over a 30 year lease period will devastate the fertile
Phulbari agricultural region, causing irreversible ecological damage
to its wetland ecosystems. ADB itself has confirmed that this project
would displace over 50,000 people directly, whereas independent researchers
put the number as several times more. Massive resistance against his
project has been quelled with the ruthless use of police force and
has already caused the death by firing of three community members.
Yet the ADB has not found any reason to reconsider its decision to
invest in Phulbari.
People of Phulbari had this to say to the ADB Board:
‘The long struggle of people of Phulbari and the sacrifices made
for this cause firmly state that open pit coal mining in a densely
populated region like Bangladesh will not be accepted by the local
people’.
Another instance of ADB’s reckless financing is the Kali Gandaki
Hydroelectric project in Nepal which was completed in 2004. Prem Majhi
who is a project affected person says,
‘Many indigenous Bote fisher folk families (one of the indigenous
Nepali Communities) were given a month to shift and after six years
the project finally built houses for us. Only that, it was two families
per house and in no time the houses developed cracks and leakages’.
The ongoing Southern Transport Development Project (STDP) in Sri
Lanka has been a case replete with violations of ‘ADB safeguards’.
For instance in 2007 seven people were killed at the project site
due to gross negligence by project authorities.
The Indian Government has been a strong advocate for the ‘country
systems approach’ claiming that this is in respecting sovereignty.
However, if it’s recent review of social and environmental policies
and legislations is any indication, it reveals that the intent is
to push for investment at any cost. The Union Ministry of Environment
and Forests has come under fire for diluting the Environment Impact
Assessment Notification under its so-called “re-engineering” programme
financed, ironically, by the World Bank. Under the new norms it is
easier to clear large dam and mining projects on long term leases,
even if they involve submersion and destruction of forests. For instance,
the Lafarge mining project in Meghalaya has been approved and cleared
on the basis of fraudulent environment impact assessment reports and
without in any manner conforming even with the new and diluted EIA
Notification.
ADB has been repeatedly exposed as an institution that has leveraged
its investment and return on investment over every other consideration.
World over as technologies have improved in meeting higher safeguard
standards, investing agencies have abandoned support for problematic
or poor technology. However, in Assam state of India, ADB continues
to fund the embankment projects for river taming, a technology that
has been abandoned world wide.
Seen in this light, the current review of ADB’s safeguards policy,
read with the promotion of “country systems” approach is a duplicitous
effort in negating higher social and environmental standards standards
that have been painfully secured due to the struggles of hundreds
of communities. The net effect is increase in development induced
violence against forests, agricultural and marginalized urban communities
by projects financed essentially from enhancing the revenues of private
developers and their financiers.
Such regressive measures are gaining strength even as some very strong
efforts are being made to protect human rights and the environment.
Leading Indian Parliamentarians recently promoted reform of draconian
anti-tribal laws to restore a semblance of justice to communities
long wronged by enacting the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional
Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. However,
in the very regions that are likely to benefit from the implementation
of this Legislation’s progressive features, the ADB’s current Safeguards
Policy review disturbingly promotes powerful investment lobbies who
are keen to negate such legislative safeguards by taking advantage
of weaker policies of international financial institutions. In protecting
such investments, many Indian states are invoking draconian legislations
such as the Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act and West Bengal
Prevention of Criminal Activities Act that brutally encroach on human
rights of local communities protesting such inhuman and ecologically
destructive development.
The Delhi boycott is the latest in a series of actions against ADB
which began at it’s 39th Annual Governors Meeting in Hyderabad in
May 2006 when the PFAADB was constituted by over 100 groups from across
Asia.
The boycott call categorically states:
‘We need to let the ADB and our Governments know that we reject their
attempts to manipulate and dilute our rights. Boycotting the ADB’s
consultation meetings…. will be a crucial first step towards collectively
formulating a strategy to achieve genuine accountability on the part
of the ADB as well as governments’ (Ends)
For more information contact Peoples Forum Against ADB secretariat:
INSAF, A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110016
Tel: 91-11-65663958 Telefax: 91-11-26517814
Email: insafdelhi@gmail.com
