February xx, 2004
Mr. James Wolfensohn
President
World Bank Group
1818 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20433
Dear Mr. Wolfensohn:
We write to you today in good faith and with genuine hopes for
meaningful action towards our mutual goals of poverty alleviation and
sustainable development. As you know, Dr. Emil Salim has just completed
the Final Report of the Extractive Industries Review (EIR). We want to
thank you for initiating this historic process in Prague more than three
years ago, and for devoting significant World Bank Group (WBG) staff
time and financial resources to the review over the last several years.
We also want to thank Dr. Salim for his adherence to the principle that
“genuine development requires partnership not only with governments and
companies, but with civil society as well.” /Dr. Salim’s commitment in
this regard allows us to endorse his recommendations to you, and to
encourage you to adopt all of them without exception or reservation. /
The EIR correctly concluded that if the WBG intends to pursue its
mandate of poverty alleviation, then it should not support extractive
industries unless the broad set of enabling conditions outlined in the
Report’s recommendations are in place. Furthermore, the EIR found that
support for certain types of extractive activities does not represent
the best use of the WBG’s money to promote and support sustainable
development, and thus that the WBG should phase-out its financing for
these types of projects and reallocate its funds to other activities.
/We will not view as sufficient the adoption of only a certain
percentage of the EIR’s recommendations. The failure to meet any one of
them can lead and has indeed led to a failure to contribute to poverty
alleviation or sustainable development./
At your insistence, the EIR integrated World Bank Group staff at nearly
every level, and the process and the Final Report were clearly richer
for it. We certainly hope and expect that this integration of Bank staff
and perspectives now translates smoothly into implementation of all the
Report’s recommendations. This was, after all, the premise upon which it
was argued that Bank staff should be deeply involved in the EIR.
Those of us who have previously engaged in the Structural Adjustment
Participatory Review Initiative and the World Commission on Dams review
already have great reason to be skeptical – and that skepticism would
only harden if the World Bank Group were to pick and choose only those
recommendations from the EIR Report that are least challenging. In the
intervening time that it may take to fully adopt the EIR
recommendations, we feel that a good faith gesture would be for you to
instruct staff and management to immediately freeze any further action
on policies or projects that are potentially affected by EIR
recommendations.
We congratulate the EIR for recognizing climate change to be a profound
threat to sustainable development and poverty alleviation and we
strongly endorse the recommendation for the World Bank to immediately
end its support for coal mining and to phase-out financing for oil
projects by 2008. By shifting financial support from fossil fuels to
renewable energy, the Bank could play an important catalytic role toward
renewable energy development in the South, in turn leveraging
significant global benefits.
We would like to also highlight the EIR’s endorsement of the right of
free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples and the
importance of securing a “social license” from affected communities to
operate before projects proceed. While this right is already recognized
for indigenous people under international law, other communities often
have very little influence over project decisions despite the
significant impacts that extractive industry operations have on their
livelihoods and on the environments on which they depend. Empowering
communities is not only the right thing to do, it will also spare the
Bank and project sponsors considerable reputational risk and added cost.
Recognition of and respect for human rights is one of the core elements
of sustainable development. Despite your best efforts to date, which we
recognize and applaud, the World Bank is far behind many other
intergovernmental organizations in accepting its human rights
responsibilities, including the rights of workers, and in integrating
these and other human rights- related issues into its operations and
programs. As the EIR correctly concludes, this is not a matter of
discretion but rather it is a matter of compliance with international
law that is binding on the Bank; it is also sound development practice.
We are aware that you have expressed an interest in human rights and
have promoted rights-related issues within the Bank. We hope that now
you will use all of your influence to demonstrate that commitment by
adopting all of the EIR’s recommendations.
We are confident the EIR will be remembered as one of the most important
initiatives of your tenure, and one of the cornerstones of your legacy
as World Bank President. We would submit to you that the true test of
the World Bank Group’s willingness to place poverty alleviation and
sustainable development above bureaucracy, corporate interests,
corruption, and institutional barriers to change will be in /your/
willingness to push to redefine the Bank and the way in which it
approaches development. The upcoming formulation and adoption of a
concrete and specific EIR action plan will prove to what extent the
World Bank is serious about ensuring that the twin goals of poverty
alleviation and sustainable development are strongly upheld.
Sincerely,
your name & organization here]