Indigenous Peoples and the World Bank | Bank Information Center: Monitoring the projects and policies of the World Bank, IMF and other international financial institutions


bicusa.org/WBindigenous Indigenous Peoples and the World Bank Overview Background Concerns Updates Resources Contacts RSS Update \| 17 October 2011 REDD Alert October 2011 Read the latest REDD Alert for updates on the R-Package, Carbon Fund and Common Approach, as well as country updates from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Read more Update \| 13 October 2011 Introduction to the FCPF Readiness Package (R-Package) and the Carbon Fund (CF) Operational This update prepared by the Bank Information Center introduces the FCPF Readiness Package (R-Package) and the Carbon Fund (CF) operational. Read more Update \| 1 September 2011 Bank Information Center (BIC) attended the Oslo REDD Exchange The workshop Oslo REDD Exchange 2011 was organized by Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), on 23-24 June 2011. Read more Update \| 1 September 2011 CSO-World Bank correspondence on World Bank Safeguards Review Civil society organizations (CSOs) submitted a letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick on the World Bank safeguards review on August 31, 2011. The letter includes signatories as of this date and organizations who wish to sign the letter can do so below. On Sep 20, 2011 World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey responded to this letter. Read more Update \| 31 August 2011 World Bank Safeguard Policy Review: Early Issues, What to Expect? It took many years to establish the World Bank's operational policies that safeguard society and the environment, and are some of the world's highest development standards. As the Bank reviews these policies, civil society is organizing efforts to present their concerns and expectations, and offer their imputs as to what the outcome of the review should be. Read more Update \| 29 July 2011 México y la estrategia REDD+ En COP 15, México se comprometió a reducir sus emisiones de GEI, para lo cual se propuso desarrollar la Estrategia Nacional REDD+ (ENAREDD+). A varios pasos de la preparación para la estrategia, el BM ahora realiza una misión Due Diligence. La gerente del equipo de Latinoamérica, observadora para la misión, nos cuenta más sobre el tema. Read more Update \| 7 July 2011 WB/TAP/FCPF comment on Colombia R-PP The World Bank, the Technical Advisory Panel, and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility present their comments on the latest draft of the the Colombia R-PP. (Document links). Read more Update \| 21 June 2011 BICECA Monthly Bulletin Read more Update \| 18 May 2011 Bolivia: The World Bank and the Government recognize deficiencies in the Takana's Indigenous Plan The World Bank and the Government of Bolivia recognize the observations of the TCO Takana I on deficiencies in the Indigenous Peoples Plan of the Ixiamas - San Buenaventura Highway project and accept to start a process to improve the Indiginous Plan even after the project was approved. Read more Update \| 4 April 2011 Governance in the Ixiamas–San Buenaventura Highway as a World Bank's Tangible ‘Additionality’ The project has a great potential to reorder and even positively or negatively change the dinamics of development and conservation in the region. Bolivia's government has decided that the PAD will not be public before it's approved. It seems that the project underestimates its indirect influence, and there are shortcomings in planification and consultation. Read more Update \| 18 March 2011 REDD Alert March 2011 Read the latest REDD Alert for updates on the 8th Meeting of the FCPF Participants Committee, taking place next week in Da Lat, Vietnam. Read more Press Clipping \| 30 January 2011 DAR questions constitutionality of Peru emergency investment decrees It seems that the Government has forgotten its commitment to the environment when in January of 2011, it enacted the Emergency Decree No. 001-2011 to eliminate environmental impact certificates to approve 33 projects for investment. Read more Update \| 1 November 2010 Peru: Statement by AIDESEP on the rights and consultation of indigenous peoples In a public statement directed at the Peruvian State, the World Bank, UNDP and UNFCCC, the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Forest (AIDESEP) denounces plans of the government and its political and corporate allies to grant mining, logging and tourism concessions, as well as approve REDD and environmental services initiatives after blocking the Indigenous Consultation Law. They insist: without territory, rights and consultation for indigenous peoples, such concessions must not move forward. Read more Press Clipping \| 30 October 2010 Brazil's national development bank found guilty of driving Amazon deforestation BNDES, Brazil's national development bank, contributed to Amazon deforestation by lending billions of dollars to commercial meatpackers, driving expansion of cattle ranching across the world's largest rainforest, ruled an audit by the Federal Audit Court. Read more Update \| 19 October 2010 Guyana: Amaila Falls Hydro: Social and Environmental Aspects The Government of Guyana is planning to build a 140 MW hydroelectric dam on the Potaro River with funding from China and Norway and technical support from the IDB and WB. The first dam is part of a 1060 MW complex that will have signficant social and environmental impacts in the western Amazon region of the country. Read more Update \| 5 August 2010 Transparency in the World Bank: A question of rights or discourse? It is one thing for the World Bank to promote a discourse of transparency and information disclosure and quite another to commit to being a public finance institution that respects all of the rights of people affected by the projects which they finance. Unfortunately, the Bank has not been willing to make this commitment. Read more Press Clipping \| 27 July 2010 Bolivian Deputy Minister of Environment and Director of Environment submit their resignation Bolivian Deputy Minister of Environment Juan Pablo Ramos and Director Environment Luis Beltrán submitted irrevocable resignation from their posts on Friday of last week, after government officials tried to force them to sign an environmental permit for the construction of a highway in the Chapare region of Cochabamba. Read more Update \| 20 July 2010 ILRC and others call on the U.S. to sign indigenous rights declaration At a series of ongoing consultations, many civil society actors have asked the U.S. to sign the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. BIC's Mark Rentschler and WRI's Kirk Herbertson discuss the importance of the declaration to work on the IFIs. Read more Update \| 9 July 2010 Warning signs for the future of the Peruvian Amazon This month's edition of the BICECA Monthly Bulletin features a summary of the event entitled "Oil and Mining Booms and Sustainable Development: Lessons from Peru for Development Planning & Revenue Management at the National and subnational level" (Washington, DC, June 16, 2010). Read more Press Clipping \| 1 July 2010 Jagdeo intensifies pleas for REDD money Guyana's president implores the FCPF Participants Committee and the World Bank not to "obsess" over gaps in capacity, territorial right and indigenous consultation before REDD funds are disbursed. Read more Press Clipping \| 1 July 2010 APA encourages donors to listen to forest dwellers' views President of the Amerindian Peoples Association Tony James calls on the World Bank to perform its proper due diligence to ensure that issues of territorial rights and meaningful consultation of indigenous peoples are addressed in Guyana. Read more Press Clipping \| 21 May 2010 Peru: First country in the Americas to approve Law on the Right to Consultation The Peruvian Congress approved on Wednesday a provisional ruling on a law for the Right to Prior Consultation of Indigenous and Native Peoples. Still, indigenous groups emphasize the need to reconcile the development vision of the State and that of indigenous peoples, which is not always the same. Read more Update \| 30 March 2010 World Bank recapitalization update - “New world – same World Bank” The proposed capital increases for the World Bank and IFC would expand their size without expanding the scope of their reform. Read more Press Clipping \| 22 February 2010 No Justice for Indians in Amazon Massacre Eight months have passed since the bloody confrontation between police and local protestors in Bagua over decrees passed by the Peruvian government that opened up indigenous land in the rainforest to oil, mining and logging companies, resulting in the death of 12 policemen and at least 10 indigenous demonstrators. Nevertheless, two falsely accused demonstrators remain behind bars, while no policemen have been charged for the deaths of the protestors. Read more Update \| 3 February 2010 World Bank Amazon Dieback Study Predicts Greater Probability & Severity of Biome Collapse "The World Bank released a study that finally put the impacts of climate change, deforestation and fires together. The tipping point for the Amazon is 20 percent deforestation," and that is "a scary result," Tom Lovejoy, a member of the external review panel for the report, told Tierramérica in an interview. The study, "Assessment of the Risk of Amazon Dieback," released Jan. 22, drew on the expertise of several international research institutions, including Japan's Meteorological Research Institute, Britain's Exeter University, Brazil's Centre for Weather Forecasting and Climate Change (CPET/INPE), Germany's Potsdam Institute and Earth3000. Read more Press Release \| 28 January 2010 The Desired Future of the Peruvian Amazon 2021? Book Launch: Jan. 26 & 27, 2009 - Lima, Peru: Peruvian Amazon in 2021-Infrastructure and the Exploitation of Natural Resources: What is happening and what does it mean for the future? by Marc Dourojeanni, Alberto Barandiarán y Diego Dourojeanni is a publication in which the authors fill a informational gap that exists for Peruvian citizens regarding what the government and private investors plan to do in the coming decade in the Peruvian Amazon. Read more Update \| 13 November 2009 IIRSA: Development for business, an attack on lives The following video was presented to the Inter-American Comission on Human Rights in Washington, protesting the construction of mega-projects financed by the World Bank and IDB. Read more Update \| 8 November 2009 Obama memo on implementing State duty on consultation of indigenous peoples Within 90 days, all US federal agencies must submit a plan for implementation of regular, meaningful, previous consultation processes with indigenous peoples. Read more Update \| 5 November 2009 World Bank recapitalization conditioned on reforms The World Bank is quietly preparing the first capital increase in nearly 20 years to replenish the coffers after unprecedented lending in 2008 and the coming two years. Read more Press Clipping \| 30 October 2009 The Bujagali Hydro BIC's Africa Program Manager, Josh Klemm, is quoted in a This is Africa article about the problematic $860 million Bujagali Hydropower plant project in Uganda, financed, in part, by the IFC. Read more Press Clipping \| 26 October 2009 350 reasons why carbon trading won’t work There are many reasons to oppose carbon trading. The most important is that carbon trading will not address climate change. Rising Tide North America together with Carbon Trade Watch and the Camp for Climate Action is launching a new website, 350 Reasons. Governments should not be looking for innovative ways to create loopholes for polluters or to create fortunes for carbon traders. Instead we need to dramatically reduce emissions – quickly. Read more Update \| 24 October 2009 World Bank Brazil Project Seeks to Automate & Integrate Environmental Licensing With funding from the World Bank, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment is planning to expedite and integrate the environmental licensing processes now divided between Federal, State and Local authoriteis. In an effort to speed up large infrastructure with the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), the move could lead to licensing regional of river basins. Read more Update \| 3 August 2009 World Bank: A Carbon Bigfoot The International Herald Tribune/New York Times Global Edition printed a BIC Letter to the Editor on the role of the World Bank in climate change. Read more Update \| 30 July 2009 Put the Brakes on the Bank: Carbon Finance in Indonesia Read a BIC op-ed in The Huffington Post about Indonesia's problematic Readiness Preparation Proposal to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Read more Update \| 16 July 2009 Reflections on environmental and social program and the indirect impacts on Interoceanico Sur In order to help mitigate the effects of the economic crisis, Peru has created an "Anticrisis Plan" which in part will serve to finance big infrastructure proyects. These projects, given their scale and the government's poor management of such projects are bound to create problems. Read more Update \| 16 June 2009 IFC withdraws loan from Brazilian cattle corporation, Bertin Just two weeks after the publication of Greenpeace's report "Slaughtering the Amazon" the IFC halts a $30 million payment to the Bertin corporation which was using the IFC loan to expand further into the Amazon. Read more Press Clipping \| 25 May 2009 Peru seeks US$300mn World Bank loan for transport sector The loan would support an overall US$1.08bn transport infrastructure development program, of which another US$630mn is to be covered by the state and US$150mn by IDB. Read more Update \| 4 May 2009 Transparency violations common theme for World Bank Inspection Panel The World Bank's Inspection Panel Annual Report highlights the problem of access to information within several World Bank-financed projects. Read more Update \| 4 May 2009 Indigenous rights and climate change Read "The Anchorage Declaration" from the 2009 Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change. Read more Press Clipping \| 16 April 2009 The paradox of the Amazon On the one hand, Brazil made some improvements reducing the rate of deforestation. On the other hand, IIRSA prevents the country from achieving its national environmental goals while deforestation puts the survival of the entire planet at risk. Deforestation is the cause of 20% of the world's global warming - more than the effects of all automobiles. Read more Update \| 6 April 2009 World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility meeting in Panama Read highlights from the 2nd Participants Committee Meeting of the FCPF, at which BIC served as an NGO observer. Read more Update \| 19 March 2009 Brazil and Bolivia discuss hydroelectric dams of Rio Madeira Bolivians fear negative impacts from two dams (part of the Rio Madeira) in Bolivian territory. The Brazilian Minister, Celso Amorim assures the Bolivian government that the construction of the dams will not have these negative impacts. Read more Press Clipping \| 18 March 2009 Madeira's dams and the new constitution For only the last two years has the Bolivian government paid attention to the impacts of dams in indigenous territory. Read more Update \| 18 March 2009 Respecting communal land The leaders of hundreds of indigneous groups of Peru demanded that the government reject a proposal to give Petrobras (Brazilian) a large area in which to operate. The groups' leaders argue that Petrobras will bring contamination and the unnecessary exploitation of a protected area of the Amazon. Read more Update \| 27 February 2009 Update on Forest Carbon Partnership Facility BIC to serve as NGO observer at the next meeting of the Committee of Participants for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) that will take place on March 11-13 in Panama, Central America. Read more Update \| 10 February 2009 Declaration of the Coordinator of the Amazon Basin Indigenous Peoples Organization (COICA) The Amazon Basin Indigenous Peoples Organization (COICA) with our worldview, diversity of languages, history, cultures, spirituality, territory, economy, have existed since before recorded time. We have adopted different forms of organization and identity under the framework of the nation states which have established laws and regulations according to their own interests, not recognizing the ancestral rights of the first inhabitants of the amazon region. Read more Update \| 4 February 2009 SOS Amazon! As world leaders focus on severe economic crisis in their homelands, an estimated 100,000 activists traveled from all over the world to attend the World Social Forum in Brazil. Led by Indigenous people from all across Latin America, over 1000 participants formed a human banner, using their bodies, to draw attention to the increasingly precarious situation of the Amazon rainforest. Read more Update \| 4 February 2009 BNDES plans $43 billion in investments for Brazil Read more Press Clipping \| 2 December 2008 World Bank FCPF: NGOs say it’s “failing forests and peoples”. Indigenous leader calls for suspension of REDD activities. Read more Update \| 22 September 2008 World Bank excludes indigenous peoples from climate change discussions Amazonian civil society organizations demand that the World Bank adhere to international standards by increasing the participation of indigenous peoples in meetings on forests and climate change. Read more Update \| 20 August 2008 Banks active in extractive projects in Russia’s Komi Republic IFI involvement in mining and oil projects in the Timan-Pechora basin raises environmental and social concerns. Read more Update \| 18 August 2008 World Bank announces countries eligible for avoided-deforestation credits Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and five other African countries were included in a list of 14 that will take part in the Bank's controversial Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). Read more Update \| 30 May 2008 Congolese groups denounce disinformation campaign by industrial logging industry During the French environment minister's recent visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congolese civil society organizations released a statement drawing attention to the alarming situation in the Congo forests and the destructive activities of logging companies. Read more Update \| 11 December 2007 Press highlights World Bank blunders in Congo's forest Last week, the Financial Times published an article on the World Bank's errors in its forest operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and allegations of support for illegal logging in the country by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Just two days later, the IFC announced it would sell its stake in Olam International Ltd., the Singaporean commodity trading company accused of "environmental malpractice" in the world's second largest rainforest. As those gathered in Bali for the United Nations conference on climate change discuss the importance of forests to the future health of the planet, the Bank's missteps in Congo deserve a closer look. Read more Update \| 4 December 2007 BIC hosts working session on international financial institutions in Indonesia Working session aims to update the Indonesian civil society organizations and movements on the old and new trends in the governance and operations of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as they relate to Indonesia. Read more Update \| 27 November 2007 Comment: Try as it might, the World Bank cannot hide its failings The World Bank touted it's meeting with a delegation of Pygmies from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the Bank's Annual Meetings in October. But as Simon Counsell of Rainforest Foundation UK points out, the Bank has consistently ignored the findings of the quasi-independent Inspecition Panel and violated its own "safeguard policies." Read more Update \| 20 September 2007 UN adopts Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples On September 13th, after over 20 years of negotiations, the United Nations General Assembly finally adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The international declaration sets a higher standard for international financial institutions (IFIs) to ensure safeguards and strengthen their policies on indigenous peoples. Read more Update \| 21 December 2006 BIC Mekong office releases Scoping Report The report will guide the organization's work in Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, China, Laos and Indonesia. Read more Update \| 10 November 2006 IF-Eye #9 This issue of the IF-Eye newsletter discusses the World Bank's middle income country strategy, highlights civil society activities around the IFIs, and provides recent updates on the institutions. Read more Update \| 15 December 2005 Wolfowitz meets with Guatemalan Civil Society Representatives to Discuss Controversial Marlin Mine The World Bank President met with Mario Tema and Magali Rey Rosa on December 9 Read more Update \| 18 May 2005 World Bank approves new Indigenous Peoples policy The World Bank Board of Directors voted to approve the Revised Draft Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples (OP 4.10) Read more Update \| 26 April 2005 Civil Society Groups Release Scathing Report on World Bank Forest Policy In 2002 the World Bank adopted a new policy on forests, over objections from civil society and indigenous peoples’ groups. Three years later, as the Bank policy comes up for review, a broad coalition of environmental and indigenous groups have published Broken Promises, an extensive report on the forest policy’s effects on the environment and communities. Read more Update \| 3 January 2005 World Bank releases revised draft Indigenous Peoples Policy December '04. Public comments accepted until February 28, 2005. Read more Update \| 6 December 2004 Revised draft World Bank Indigenous Peoples Policy released for comment through February 28, 2005 Once approved by the Board, Operational Policy 4.10 will replace the existing Operational Directive 4.20 on Indigenous Peoples. Read more Correspondence \| 22 July 2004 Indigenous letter to WB Board in regard to Management response to EIR demands respect of indigenous rights Read more Update \| 22 June 2004 World Bank faces scrutiny of indigenous leaders as final draft policy is released Update includes final draft Indigenous Peoples Policy, indigenous concerns about a hastily planned WB legal roundtable, and information about a planned briefing for the Board on Free Prior and Informed Consent Read more Update \| 29 January 2004 World Bank Agrees to Indigenous Legal Roundtable Read more Print this page Email this page		Search Key Issues Forests IFC Policies and Standards Review World Bank Energy Strategy Review World Bank Safeguards Review World Bank Transparency Review Stay Informed! Sign up for our e-newsletters. SignUp

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