Why a Stand-Alone Indigenous Peoples Policy within the African Development Bank's Integrated Safeguards System - An Assessment by the CSO Coalition on the AfDB
29 Jun 2012
The African Development Bank is in the process of developing a new Integrated Safeguards System to guide its future lending in Africa. This paper argues that the measures to protect the rights of indigenous peoples in the proposed draft fall far below accepted international norms and standards and need substantial revision. The African Development Bank needs to adopt a standalone policy on Indigenous Peoples consistent with the rights of peoples and indigenous peoples as set out in the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The current draft text puts the AfDB itself, its borrowers and its clients all at risk of developing projects that are not only contrary to African and international standards, but which are likely to generate social conflict rather than promote sustainable development.