does
not incorporate provisions requiring prior, informed consent of indigenous
peoples to resettlement. Instead, it calls for meaningful consultations with and
informed participation of all potentially displaced persons.
The reasons for
not including such a provision are the following: the concept of prior, informed
consent is very difficult to operationalize; it is not reflected in the legal
framework of any country, whether developing or developed; it is contrary to the
principle of eminent domain in effect in most countries.
The
Board accepted his recommendation and passed the new Involuntary Resettlement
policy (OP 4.12) on 23 October.
The
fuse is short, but the issue is critical. The Bank states that its revision is
being carried out to clarify ambiguities and processing requirements,
facilitate implementation, incorporating lessons learned from implementing its
indigenous peoples policy over the last two decades. Translated, this means that
someone in the Banks management, staff, private sector clients, and/or member
governments is dissatisfied with the current policy.
Complaints from indigenous peoples about the current policy (Operational
Directive 4.20 from 1991) have been limited and focused on questions of
compliance rather than the policy itself. Few are even aware that there is a
global indigenous policy concerning those who are in-the-way-of-development.
Strong
political forces are working behind the scenes.
Rather than conspiracy, this means a conflict among stakeholders with
unequal power both inside and outside the Bank.
Demystified, The World Bank is a very large credit union, consisting of
member nations whose power is roughly proportionate to their financial
contributions. It is managed by
almost autonomous Beltway staffs that come from many cultures and disciplines,
but mostly from the upper and upper-middle class SES strata.
This creates a special mix of knowledge, ignorance, and ambivalence about
poor indigenous people. There is
also a small beachhead of pro-indigenous rights advocates working inside the
Bank, albeit in rather powerless positions. Given the sensitive nature of
indigenous and tribal peoples status in many countries, it can be anticipated
that government stakeholders will view the emergence of an international
standard as an affront to national sovereignty, unless it strengthens
governmental control of their indigenous people and their lands.
Activists
and NGOs fighting for indigenous peoples rights are also ambivalent about the
indigenous policy. Many prefer to focus on issues of systematic non-compliance
with the existing indigenous policy. While
they see the advantage in an international standard that strengthens the
notoriously weak positions of indigenous peoples within their own nation-states,
they are also skeptical that any international guidelines will be reflected in a
more just, due process at home.
An
alternative theory, espoused by some of the Bank staff is that the policys
release is not such a big deal. The
Bank is simply releasing new draft guidelines for its management and staff to
follow when they prepare loans. From
this perspective, the draft policy applies only to indigenous peoples who
find themselves in the way of development projects financed by the Bank not
to all indigenous people. In sum,
The World Bank is not launching a global standard (who named this institution in
the first place?).
In
other forums, the Bank has argued that its policies set a global standard for
the obligations and responsibilities of financial institutions and their
borrowers to indigenous people who are in the path of their projects. Compared
to international declarations and resolutions, these standards have some teeth,
since they are one item on a long checklist that must be completed in order for
a project to access capital. The
World Bank participates in only a small fraction of worlds development
projects; nonetheless it has developed some of the most stringent international
environmental and social standards among global financial organizations.
Project financiers and promoters who are working on sensitive
environmental and social projects take pride in claiming their projects include
participation of The World Bank or meet its guidelines.
Changes in this standard will have powerful downstream repercussions.
Why
are the Bank Indigenous Peoples Policy so Important?
An
interesting financial twist works in favor of indigenous peoples and underscores
the significance of commenting on the Banks revised draft of its policy.
Members of syndicates who finance large projects usually have distinct
environmental and social policies. To maintain the integrity of the investment
group and keep the project moving forward, the syndicateas a groupis
restricted by the most stringent policy of any one of its members. This
may turn out to be a minority shareholder. International lenders, including The
World Bank Group, hold such positions.
The failure of a borrower to adhere to a lenders policy may force the
lender to pull out of the project.
A lenders withdrawal from a project may raise doubts over the
viability of a project within the financial community.
No financing, no project. This means that close attention should be paid
to the environmental and social requirements of project investorsespecially
those with the most stringent policies.
In the case of indigenous peoples policies, this turns out to be The
World Bank.
Terminating
indigenous people by definition
I
will reserve my full analysis of the policy until later. There are some good
ideas in the draft, but I want to point out a few places that merit critical
thinking. Despite the Banks claim
that the revision of its indigenous policy is not intended to alter the current
policys key objectives, there are significant changes especially in
defining who is eligible for project benefits and safeguards.
The policy must, at minimum, provide an internationally applicable
definition of who are and are not indigenous peoples.
The new policy language closely tracks the current one.
It defines indigenous people by the presence, in varying degrees, of some
of the following distinctive characteristics 1) close attachment to ancestral
territories and the natural resources in them; (2) presence of customary social
and political institutions; (3) economic systems primarily oriented to
subsistence production; (4) an indigenous language, often different from the
predominant language; and (5) self-identification and identification by others
as members of a distinct cultural group.
The
proposed policy significantly and radically departs from current Bank policy by excluding
from its provisions those groups who (a) have left their communities of origin,
(b) moved to urban areas, (c) and/or migrated to obtain wage labor.
Certainly the proposed policy is not a product of indigenous thinking. If
this language is adopted a waterfall of ugly things are likely to happen to
indigenous people. Impoverishment has led many of the worlds indigenous
people to leave their communities, move to urban areas, and find temporary jobs
as laborers. Although absent,
many of these people maintain close links with their communities, hold rights to
ancestral lands, and provide financial support for civil and cultural
services. Such is the case of tens of thousands of Oaxacan indigenous
migrants who are working in the
Unanswered
questions
Unresolved
issues await your suggestions. What changes might resolve the serious, internal
conflicts of interest for Bank management, staff and borrowers including
their setting the time line and ground rules for consultation and information
flow? What improvements might increase the likelihood of opportune, informed
consent and participation? Are provisions in policy made to assure that
indigenous people subjected to adverse project impacts are beneficiaries and
share in the profits of projects and are not simply compensated for losses? Are
provisions made to end the inherent human rights violations that occur when the
Bank and borrowers draw up secret agreements over the future of indigenous
groups without the informed consent of either the indigenous group and
government?
Building
on the comments made during the limited global consultation, why doesnt the
draft strengthen the protection of indigenous ancestral lands and resources that
are so critical to their cultural survival?
Why are the adverse impacts of structural adjustment operations to
indigenous peoples explicitly excluded form the policy? Why does the draft
policy open up a procedure for the involuntary resettlement of indigenous
peoples? Why doesnt the draft policy rank
self-identification as the MAIN criterion which triggers
application of the policy as requested by indigenous peoples and in accordance
with ILO 169 and the Draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?
Why is there no requirement for participatory monitoring and involvement
of indigenous peoples in the governance of projects and programs that affect
them? And why does the policy empower the borrower rather than the indigenous
people with the right to prepare an indigenous peoples development plan (see,
for example, the quality work of David Maybury-Lewis, Ian McIntosh, and so many
more who are working with Cultural Survival, including their Fall issue of
Cultural Survival Quarterly on the option called Plan B).
The
Bank claims the revised policy incorporates lessons learned from implementing
the indigenous peoples policy over the last two decades. What lessons are being
incorporated?
With the policy commentary deadline on 31 October, the World Bank's
quality control arm, known as the Operations Evaluations Department (OED),
finally initiated a long delayed review of the way Bank operations have affected
indigenous peoples during the 1990s.
This OED review that should put forth the lessons learned, will not
be released until one month after
public commentaries on the proposed indigenous policy is completed.
How could the lessons learned be considered in the commentary if the
public review is not completed until after the deadline for public
commentary?
Will the Bank management dismiss critical commentaries claiming that new
information from their internal OED review overrides external public comments?
Is this a bureaucratic inefficiency, a cruel hoax, or cynical disregard
for the public commentary process?
Why not delay the deadline until after civil society has had an
opportunity to review the results of the Banks internal review?
The
policy comes in two pieces: Operational
Policies 4.10, for the borrower/bank agreements, and Bank
Procedures 4.10 intended for Bank management and staff.
Rapid access to both these documents is available by going to
www.policykiosk.com.
Of these, OP 4.10 is the critical document, since it is likely to be
incorporated into legally binding loan agreements.
A common move in Bank policy crafting is to shift critical lines from the
Operational Policies to such non-binding documents such as the toothless Bank
documents called Good Practices.
While it might be great fun for late night academic policy discussions
the Good Practices issues are irrelevant and detraction from binding
policies and agreements.
How to comment
Anyone
who claims an interest in indigenous people should set aside some time to read
the old and new policies and answer the Banks call. I highly recommend
undergraduate, graduate and non-academic community study groups deconstruct the
policy and prepare comments to the Bank. The comments are strongest when the
policy is marked-up and annotated line by line and includes constructive,
alternative language and suggestions.
I have tried this twice in class and the student-citizens have produced
high quality, substantive comments that have nudged international policy.
The
website www.policykiosk.com provides a
quick connection to the current and proposed policies. Once at the Bank website,
you will discover The Banks electronic consultations are being carried out in
at least three languages: English, Spanish, French, and, it appears, other
languages. No translation is planned into any indigenous language. They provide
a simple, web-based form for feedback on the draft policy. I recommend people
avoid using their filling-in-the-box, on-line form.
It leaves no reliable political paper trail.
A more effective way to make certain your voice is heard is to submit an
old fashion letter to the Bank, along with an email and a copy to the members of
your respective legislative oversight committees, your local elected
representatives, your national Executive Director to The World Bank group, and
the www.policykiosk.com.
The kiosk publishes all commentaries as they were mailed to The Bank.
Ted
Downing ([email protected]
and www.ted-downing.com)
and Jerry Moles ([email protected]) are
activists anthropologists. Downing
filed the first and only internal human rights complaints ever made inside The
World Bank regarding their mistreatment of the Pehuenche Indians in