Vietnamese NGOs refuse to participate in ADB safeguard policy consultations

28 February 2008

Directors from several non-governmental organizations in Vietnam have sent a letter to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) stating their refusal to participate in upcoming ADB consultations in Hanoi on March 5-6, 2008.

The directors of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Viet Nam have sent a letter to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) stating that they would not participate in the ADB's Mekong region consultations on its Safeguard Policy Update, to be held in Hanoi on March 5-6, 2008. The letter has also been endorsed by other NGOs in South and Southeast Asia, as well as the U.S.

The letter states:

The Consultation Draft’s deeply flawed provisions and its significant removal of ADB’s detailed and currently mandatory safeguards, replacing them with one page each of vaguely worded “policy principles” for environmental, indigenous peoples’ and involuntary resettlement safegaurds, make us worried that the ADB is dramatically weakening its existing standards despite the Bank’s guarantee of “no weakening”.

We believe the draft Safeguard Policy Statement (SPS) released in October 2007 does not present the Bank’s intention as it does not take side with the poor people. We expect it as a neglectful version and therefore it is unacceptable and unsuitable for public review and consultation.

Read the full text of the letter:

Vietnam NGO letter to ADB Regarding Consultations in Hanoi, February 28, 2008. (Acrobat pdf, 21 KB)

Vietnam NGO letter to ADB Regarding Consultations in Hanoi -- in Vietnamese, February 28, 2008. (Acrobat pdf, 133 KB)

Resources

For more information please visit BIC's webpage on the ADB Safeguard Policy Update process (BIC website)

Consultation Draft-ADB Safeguard Policy Statement October 12, 2007. (Acrobat pdf, 654 KB) (ADB website)

South Asian CSOs boycott ADB consultations, January 16, 2008. (BIC website)