Many stakeholders, including some of ADB's member governments, are concerned that the October draft policy represents a dramatic weakening of existing policies on environmental and social safeguards. Additionally, civil society groups believe the October 2007 draft is unsuitable as a basis for public consultation unless it is completely re-drafted to, at a minimum, maintain existing social and environmental safeguards and meet best international practices at peer institutions.
The participation of civil society groups in this process has been predicated on the ADB’s stated commitment to ensure that the Review process and the resulting new Safeguard Policy Statement (SPS) – designed to replace existing safeguard policies – would not lead to the weakening of ADB environmental and social policies. Unfortunately, the October 2007 Consultation Draft does not reflect the ADB’s commitment “not to dilute the policies but instead to focus on delivery”.
Given the above assessment, CSOs monitoring this review called upon the ADB in January and February 2008 to halt its regional consultations and offer a revised draft that addressed key concerns as the basis for further public consultations. This call was made given the belief that continuing consultations on the flawed October draft would be an inappropriate use of limited time and resources.
In a Collective Statement issued to the ADB in March 2007, members of the NGO Forum on ADB demanded that the ADB uphold the best international social and environmental standards for all ADB-financed projects. These groups felt that the review offers the ADB a critical opportunity to enhance its policies on environmental assessment, involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples in accordance with international standards. The SPU should serve as a process through which the ADB incorporates lessons from past failures and successes, and establishes dramatically improved policies and fully funded systems for safeguard implementation and accountability. The groups voiced concern that the SPU might instead be used by the ADB to lower its social and environmental standards and bow to pressure from borrowers that want money “with no safeguard strings attached.”
The groups felt that ADB must not abandon its responsibility to ensure rigorous social and environmental protections at the expense of local people across Asia who will be the ones who pay the price. The ADB is a public institution with a mandate to promote poverty reduction and sustainable development for the citizens of Asia and the Pacific.
Civil society groups have provided the ADB extensive written comments on the Discussion Note, the OED Reviews, and the October draft. Additional information such as comparative analysis of the existing ADB social and environmental policies with those of other MDBs has also been provided.