Forest Peoples Programme: Letter to Dr Emil Salim, Extractive Industries Review

Sanema boy, Upper Erebato, South Venezuela

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Letter to Dr Emil Salim, Extractive Industries Review

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Second round of correspondence

21 January 2002

Dr. Emil Salim

Eminent Person

Extractive Industries Review

Jakarta

Indonesia

21 January 2002

Dear Dr. Salim,

We write to you today out of great concern for the future of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). Although we continue to be impressed by your personal integrity and dedication, it now seems clear to us that the EIR is deeply flawed. On the crucial points of openness, inclusiveness, independence, and comprehensiveness of the review, the EIR as it currently stands does not pass the test. At this point, the attempt to create a process that is independent of the World Bank and yet has Bank "buy in" appears to have failed. We ask that you consider the following points, and suspend the EIR process until these issues can be resolved.

We believe that for the EIR to be credible, the following reforms are necessary:

q Independence: A truly independent process, should be established that makes clear that the key decisions about the review will be made by you as the Eminent Person, with the input of your advisors, and not through constant renegotiation and exchanges of letters with World Bank staff. Such independence necessarily requires a secretariat that is (1) controlled by you and not the World Bank; (2) staffed as you see fit; and (3) housed apart from the World Bank-- , not, as at present, located in the International Finance Corporation on the same floor as the Mining Department.

q Budget: Budget authority should be clarified and the full budget for the EIR should be controlled by you as the Eminent Person. You should have full authority to determine the best uses of the review's scarce resources.

q Terms of Reference: The Terms of Reference should be revised through an inclusive process to ensure that the review is: comprehensive in scope; open to all ideas and alternatives; inclusive with regard to participation; and genuinely independent in the hearings, findings, documentation, research, conclusions and recommendations. We believe the current confusion about the TOR is a major obstacle to a credible and constructive process.

q Expert Advisors: An ‘Expert Group’ should be put in place composed of individuals selected by the major interest groups, which include but are not limited to affected communities, indigenous peoples and concerned NGOs, who would advise the Eminent Person, help guide the Regional Workshops and the Final Workshop and drafting process, and who would share the burden of hearing testimony, identifying and analyzing focused research and reviewing inputs, and ensuring the production of balanced reports that fairly summarize the information gathered by the process.

q Workshop Procedures: Clear procedures for the regional and final workshops must be established to ensure that the major interest groups - civil society, business and governments - are given unimpeded opportunities to present information and experiences, express their views and make recommendations. The role of the WBG at these meetings should be to observe and, upon direct request, make clarifications of fact. The Bank should not participate as an equal ‘stakeholder’ in these meetings, since this would not serve the goal of these consultations--to solicit local perspectives and experiences. Moreover, having the Bank as a ‘stakeholder’ in the meetings would enable the Bank to strongly influence the discussions it will later use as a basis for its recommendations to the Bank’s board. This situation undermines the independence of the entire process.

q Schedule: The time frame for the review should be extended to allow sufficient time to ensure genuinely participatory workshops and well-prepared inputs to discussions. Given the continuing confusion about the secretariat, TOR, budget, and advisory bodies, the current proposal to hold the four regional workshops over the next four months is neither realistic nor likely to be very productive.

q OED/OEG Review: The current sequencing of activities proposed under the EIR does not make sense. The OED and OEG reviews of Bank involvement in the Oil, Gas and Mining sectors (OGM) will not be completed until June 2003. We believe it is only logical that the EIR, as an independent and public review of the World Bank Group’s engagement in these sectors, should be informed by these findings. We note that just such an arrangement was agreed for the World Bank’s ‘Forest Policy Implementation Review and Strategy Development’ process and is now being called for in the World Bank’s Indigenous Peoples policy review. We thus recommend that the regional workshops planned under the EIR should be delayed until at least the first phase of the OED and OEG reviews of the Bank’s engagement in OGM have been completed and their findings released.

Without these reforms, we believe that the EIR process is fundamentally flawed. We thus call for an immediate suspension of the process while a reformed process is negotiated and agreed.

Yours sincerely,

Jorge Acosta Centro de Derechos Economicos y Sociales (CDES) Ecuador	David Barkin Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Mexico
Rowland Benjamin Information for Action Australia	Reinhard Behrend Rettet den Regenwald e. V. Germany
Johan Bosman KWIA, Flemish Support Group for Indigenous Peoples Belgium	Marcelo Calazans FASE- Espirito Santo Brazil
Joan Carling Cordillera Peoples Alliance Philippines	Jorge Carpio Foro de Participación Ciudadana (FOCO) Argentina
Geodisio Castillo Asociacion ecologica Kuna Panama	Segunda Castrejon Vallejo Federacion de Rondas Campesinas Femeninas del Norte del Peru (FEROCAFENOP) Peru
Yoke Ling Chee Third World Network Malaysia	Anna Cody Center for Economic and Social Rights USA
Jaroslava Colajacomo Reform the World Bank Italy	Dr. Marcus Colchester Forest Peoples Programme UK
Ana Colovic CEE Bankwatch Network (Proaktiva- Macedonia) Macedonia	Ophelia Cowell Trasnational Institute Energy Project Indonesia
Eliseo Cruz Arellano Union de Comunidades y Ejidos Cuicatecos Mexico	Steve D’Esposito Mineral Policy Center USA
Nilton Deza Arroyo Ecovida Peru	Teodora Donsz CEE Bankwatch Network Hungary
Christine Eberlein Berne Declaration Switzerland	Manuel Fernandez Villegas and Fernando Melo Farrera Transparencia, SC Mexico
Pamela Foster Halifax Initiative Coalition Canada	Jonathan Fox (individual capacity) University of California, Santa Cruz USA
Johan Frijns Friends of the Earth International Netherlands	Ramiro Garcia Perez Union de Comunidades y Ejidos Mazatecos Mexico
Ian Gary Catholic Relief Services USA	Sébastien Godinot Friends of the Earth France
Jesus Gonzalez Pazos Mugarik Gabe, NGOD Spain	Emmy Hafild WALHI/FOE Indonesia Indonesia
Wardah Hafidz Urban Poor Consortium Indonesia	Tobias Haller The Institute for Ecology and Action Anthropology Switzerland (infoe CH) Switzerland
Sylvia Hamberger Gesellchaft fuer oekologische Forschung Germany	Richard Harkinson Minewatch UK
Harley Eksekutif Daerah Wahli Sulteng Indonesia	Jagoe Helen The Bathurst Justice Group Australia
Steve Herz Friends of the Earth USA	Nicholas Hildyard The Corner House UK
Petr Hlobil CEE Bankwatch Network Czech Republic	Kevan Hudson Ogoni Solidarity Network Canada
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) USA	Manana Kochladze Assocation “Green Alternative” Georgia
Petko Kovatchev Centre for Environmental Information & Education Bulgaria	Gloria Kuang-Jung Hsu Taiwan Environmental Protection Union Taiwan, China
Wolfgang Kuhlmann ARA (Working Group on Rainforests and Biodiversity) Germany	Alex Kutak Centrum pro dopravu a energetiku Czech Republic
Joan Kuyek Miningwatch Canada Canada	Andrei Laletin Friends of the Siberian Forests Russia
Jaime Lavallee First Nations Development Institute USA	Fabien Lefrancois Agir Ici France
Kevin Li Globalisation Monitor Hong Kong, China	José Luis López Follegati Asociacion Civil Labor Peru
László Maráz Pro Regenwald Germany	Peep Mardiste Friends of the Earth-Estonia Estonia
Julio Marin Rodriguez Coordinadora Regional de Cuencas Afectadas por la Mineria en Cajamarca (CORECAMIC) Peru	Satoru Matsumoto Mekong Watch Japan Japan
Shirley McGreal International Primate Protection League USA	Armely Meiviana Pelangi Indonesia
Damien Millet Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers-Monde France	Ulrich Mueller FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) Germany
Hemmo Muntingh Muntingh Environment Business Belgium	Salomón Nahmad CIESAS Unidad Istmo Mexico
Geoff Nettleton Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links UK	Arnold Newman, Ph.D. International Society for the Preservation of the Tropical Rainforest USA
Emmanuel Ngikam ERA - Cameroon Cameroon	Doug Norlen Pacific Environment Resources Center USA
Lambert Okrah Institute for Cultural Affairs Ghana Ghana	Daniel Owusu-Koranteng WACAM Ghana
Miguel Palacín Quispe Coordinadora Nacional de Comunidades Afectadas por la Mineria Peru	Paula Palmer Global Response USA
Eko Teguh Paripurno KAPPALA Indonesia Indonesia	Ruben Prieto Comunidad del Sur Uruguay
Alfredo Quarto Mangrove Action Project USA	Heriberto Quispe Charca Centro de Desarrollo Indigena Andino-Amazonico (CEDIAA) Bolivia
Phil Radford Power Shift USA	Ravi Rebbapragada Mines, Minerals and People India
Sergio Robles Camacho Union de Autoridades de Municipalidades del Sector Zoogocho Mexico	Bruce Rich Environmental Defense USA
Jochen Ricken German Branch of Eirene Germany	Theo Ruyter Eirene-Tchad Chad
Edmond Leonardo S. Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) Sulawesi Tengah Indonesia	John Seed Rainforest Information Centre Australia
Anisha Schubert & Gertraud Gauer-Süß Bremen Information Centre for Human Rights and Development Germany	Heffa Schücking Urgewald Germany
Keith Slack Oxfam America USA	Silvia Sujanova Center for Environmental Public Advocacy (CEPA) Slovak Republic
Himanshu Thakkar South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People India	Emilie Thenard Center for International Environmental Law USA
Valerie Tomlinson Camel Area Friends of the Earth UK	Kay Treakle Bank Information Center USA
Steve Tullberg Indian Law Resource Center USA	Mary Turgi, CSC Sisters of the Holy Cross Congregation Justice Committee USA
Yury Urbansky National Ecological Centre of Ukraine Ukraine	Hector Vazquez Universidad Nacional Rosario –CONICET Argentina
Puggioni Vincenzo VITA ASSOCIATIVA Italy	Walhi Sumsel Pindah Indonesia
Daphne Wysham Institute for Policy Studies USA	Kerim Yildiz Kurdish Human Rights Project UK
Alan Young Environmental Mining Council of British Columbia Canada	Carlos Zorrilla DECOIN Ecuador
Nikolai Zubov International Socio-Ecological Union Russia

Cc: James Wolfensohn, President, World Bank Group

James Bond, Director, Mining Department, World Bank Group

Rashad Kaldany, Director, Oil and Gas Department, World Bank Group

World Bank Extractive Industries Review Secretariat

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