BIC Toolkits for Activists: Issue 3

20 November 2003

The World Bank's Policy Framework:
The "Safeguard" Policies, Compliance and the Independent Inspection Panel

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The World Bank Group lends roughly $30 billion annually to governments and private sector clients in developing countries [Note:1] Through its lending programs and policy advice, it exerts a considerable amount of influence on the economic, social, and environmental policies that are implemented in its borrowing countries. Together with the IMF and the four regional development banks [Note:2], the World Bank is promoting export-oriented market economies as its main prescription for economic growth and poverty alleviation. At the same time, the Bank claims to be promoting "sustainable development" as defined during the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. The concept of sustainability was summarized in a recent letter from the Bank's New Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, Ian Johnson, introducing the Bank's Annual Review "Environment Matters" [Note:3]:

"Sustainability means a number of things, but first and foremost it means that resources, including human resources, are enhanced or protected rather than damaged or depleted as part of the development process."

This view of sustainability frequently conflicts with the Bank's lending operations. Projects that build roads, dams and power plants, that finance mining and extractive industries, and that promote large-scale agricultural development inevitably harm the environment, often irreversibly. In many cases these projects displace people and negatively affect their livelihoods. Moreover, economic structural adjustment programs often increase pressures on natural resources while exacerbating poverty. The contradictions between environmental sustainability and social protection on the one hand and economic development as promoted by the Bank on the other, demand a set of policies that have the potential to mitigate damage.

This Toolkit is divided into four sections:

I. The World Bank Safeguard Policies

• Recent Changes in Bank Policies Weaken Protection
• Table I. World Bank Safeguard Policies and Conversion Process
• What Other World Bank Policies Are Important to Social and Environmental Concerns?
• Who Has Responsibility For Implementing The Safeguard and Other Bank Policies?

II. Policy Compliance: The Quality Assurance Compliance Unit

III. The World Bank's Inspection Panel: What Can Be Done If Policies Are Violated?

• Panel Operation Creates Controversy
• How the Inspection Panel Process Works
• Documents Governing the Inspection Panel's
• Operations
• How to Contact the Inspection Panel
  

IV. Resources for Citizens

For Bank Policies and Inspection Panel Reports
For information about how to file an Inspection Panel claim

NOTES:

1.The World Bank Group consists of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Guarantee Association (MIGA).

2.The Regional Development Banks are the Inter-American Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

3.The World Bank, "Environment Matters" (Fall 1998).

This toolkit was prepared by Kay Treakle as part of the Bank Information Center's Toolkits for Activists: A User's Guide to the Multilateral Development Banks. The Bank Information Center (BIC) is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides information and strategic support to NGOs and social movements throughout the world on the projects, policies and practices of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). BIC advocates for greater transparency, accountability and citizen participation at the MDBs. BIC is supported by private foundations and organizations that work in the fields of environment and development, and is not affiliated with any of the MDBs.