31 January 2007
The upcoming consultation aims to collect the opinions of stakeholders in eight countries.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has set March 26-27, 2007, as tentative dates for its Safeguard Policy Update (SPU) processes' South Asia regional consultation in New Delhi. The ADB will invite between 50-60 participants from 8 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The majority of participants will be government officials, with ten from India and 2-3 from the other countries. According to sources in Manila, approximately 20 civil society organizations (CSOs) will be invited. This means that civil society participation is likely to be limited to 2-3 CSOs per country, unless the ADB increases the number of participants.
The Safeguard Policy Update (SPU) and Country Systems
The ADB announced in July 2005, that it would update its three safeguard policies: Environment Policy (2002), Policy on Involuntary Resettlement (1995), and Policy on Indigenous Peoples (1998). According to the ADB, the objective of the SPU is “to enhance the effectiveness of its safeguard policies, and ensure the relevance to changing client needs and new lending modalities and instruments.” However, among other factors, the push to “update” the policies appears to have come from large borrowers like India and China who would like greater freedom to use their own “country systems” to implement safeguard policies required by international financial institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank and the ADB.
There are signs that the ADB is moving towards combining all three safeguard policies into one “framework” wherein the intended objectives of the existing safeguard policies will be enshrined. This would then free up countries to meet those objectives through “country systems” by using their own existing laws, regulations, and implementation capacity. The ADB insists that no major shift towards country systems will take place until it has established that a borrowing country’s laws and regulations match ADB’s safeguard objectives. Moreover, ADB is conducting a Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) study to understand what capacity gaps exist in borrowing countries to implement these laws. This idea of equivalency and capacity appear to be central in deciding how far the ADB will go in applying “Country Systems” in safeguards. Both the draft working paper on the SPU and the RETA report on Country Systems are yet to be publicly released. The ADB has promised to make them available at least 30 days prior to the stakeholder consultations. Currently, the SPU draft is being vetted through a working group within the ADB and circulating through various ADB departments.
Many civil society organizations that monitor the IFIs remain concerned that a “framework” approach to critical safeguards on environment, resettlement, and indigenous peoples may well dilute existing safeguards as opposed to strengthening them. They worry that a shift towards country systems could make the ADB even less accountable to implementation failures than is currently the case. The move to Country Systems, ironically, has been endorsed by the IFIs on the grounds that it will take less financial resources to implement. However, given the current lack of capacity for many countries to implement safeguards—it would require many more IFI resources to determine whether country systems match IFI standards both in terms of content and practice.
As it stands, the ADB’s own track record in implementing its safeguards remains highly contentious because it currently devotes far less staff and financial resources to projects after safeguards are approved. There is a need for greater, not less, investment of resources into ensuring that the ADB not only raises the standards of its safeguard policies but that it also follows through on them in the field. CSOs cite several examples where ADB projects have led to the destruction of the environment, livelihoods, and homes of project affected people. The ADB’s own Operations Evaluation Department (OED) suggests that the ADB has been weak in implementing its safeguard policies. The OED’s conclusions, however, tend to favor Country Systems to address the problem of poor implementation.
More on the Consultation Process
The final paper for the SPU will be submitted to the ADB Board in November 2007. Thus, the March consultations are seen as an important period within which the ADB will receive comments for any further changes to the draft working paper. See a complete timeline of the process (ADB website).
The South Asia meeting is part of a series of consultations that the ADB will conduct to get feedback on its draft working paper on how to reformulate ADB’s safeguard policies. One consultation, explicitly for civil society organizations and representatives of Indigenous People is expected to be held in Manila on the 13th of March. Those interested in attending any of these consultations should contact Amelia Esteban at with their full contact details.
The ADB has indicated that it will await the World Bank’s results from its Country System pilot projects to figure out its own approach to Country Systems. In India World Bank sources have mentioned the West Bengal Health Services Project (WB Project # P085291) as one such pilot. However, little is known to date about how well the pilot project is functioning.
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