On May 10, 2005, the World Bank approved a revised version of its Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples (OP 4.10). 2 Despite the World Bank’s mission to reduce poverty, many of the development projects it has funded have caused significant damage and dislocation to indigenous communities. By the 1970s, the need for internal checks on the Bank to avoid the worst of these abuses had become clear. Under international pressure from indigenous peoples and others, the World Bank issued its first internal policy on “tribal peoples” in 1982, and a revised policy on indigenous peoples in 1991. In 1994, the Bank launched an effort to revise all of its internal policies, and in 1998 it presented for public review and consultation an approach paper on a new indigenous peoples’ policy.
Despite professing an interest in including indigenous peoples in the earliest stages of revising its indigenous peoples policy, the Bank crafted OP 4.10 behind closed doors, allowing only the most cursory input and hardly taking that input into account in the draft it first presented for public review in 2001. Indigenous advocates responded to this early draft and the process that produced it with strong criticism of the lack of transparency and the failure of the Bank to effectively consult with indigenous experts. Nonetheless, indigenous advocates won significant procedural and substantive victories in their efforts to improve the Bank policy. In 2002, a group of indigenous leaders who gathered in Washington for meetings of the Organization of American States secured a meeting with then Bank Vice-President in charge of the policy revision, Ian Johnson, to discuss the policy, and elicited a commitment to a serious meeting with the Bank’s legal counsel.
That meeting, deemed a Legal Roundtable, took place over two days in October of 2002, and attracted some of the Bank’s most senior lawyers and officials, as well as indigenous representatives from around the world. The meeting provided an opportunity for a serious dialogue about the internationally-recognized legal rights of indigenous peoples and the need for the policy to require respect for those rights. After a lengthy and substantive discussion, then Vice-President Johnson announced that the Bank would withdraw its revised indigenous peoples' policy, redraft it to take better account of concerns that had been raised, and offer the redraft for public comment. This marked the first time in the Bank’s history that it had withdrawn and redrafted a proposed revised safeguard policy, a significant milestone for indigenous rights advocates. The Roundtable also led to the establishment of a new Bank lending program dedicated to funding development projects initiated by indigenous peoples themselves.
After a seven year revision process, the Bank’s Board of Directors officially approved the revised policy in May 2005.
Brief Analysis of the World Bank Operational Policy
In its final form, OP 4.10 contains significant advances over the 1991 policy. Perhaps most importantly, OP 4.10 imposes new requirements on projects affecting lands traditionally used and occupied by indigenous peoples. While the policy does not require that legal rights be recognized in all such circumstances, it mandates procedures by which such recognition is to be sought in most cases. The new policy also strengthens the role of indigenous communities in decision-making by requiring their prior informed consultation on Bank-funded activities that will affect them, and requires “prior agreement” by indigenous peoples for any commercial development of indigenous cultural resources. Unlike the 1991 policy, OP 4.10 recognizes some of the special concerns raised by conservation areas and extractive industries. And, to a much greater extent than the 1991 policy, OP 4.10 emphasizes the need for “culturally appropriate” informational materials, project benefits, and consultation processes.
As indigenous advocates have long pointed out, however, OP 4.10 has serious shortcomings that are likely to allow Bank-funded activities to continue to jeopardize the rights and interests of indigenous peoples. Many of these weaknesses flow from the Bank’s refusal to require that project activities respect internationally-recognized legal rights, particularly in the context of
Lands & Natural Resources; Free Prior & Informed Consent; Physical Relocation; Parks & Protected Areas; Project Preparation; and Country Systems.
For a detailed analysis of OP 4.10 see the relevant link below.
New Direction, New Standards for MDBs
While OP 4.10 improves upon the Bank’s 1991 policy, it fails to ensure that Bank-financed development projects will fully respect the rights of indigenous peoples. This failure is likely to lead not only to the devastation of indigenous communities but also to increases in civil conflict and decreases in the productivity and development effectiveness of these projects. The policy also bodes ill for the Bank’s overarching approach: to the extent that OP 4.10 can be seen as a model, the Bank apparently intends to continue to support development that does not conform to baseline legal rules increasingly embraced by the international community. This may well have serious impacts on biodiversity, the environment, workers’ rights, and numerous other arenas. As long as the Bank continues to maintain that it is not bound by existing international laws, abuses are certain to continue.
Creating new laws that hold MDBs accountable to human rights standards may be the only way of ensuring that Indigenous Peoples and other local communities do not continue to suffer the consequences of irresponsible development practices financed by the MDBs. As a result, the Indian Law Resource Center is calling for the creation of new human rights standards that apply directly and explicitly to the World Bank and other multilateral development banks.
World Bank Documents:
World Bank Operational Policy (O.P. 4.10) (May 2005)
ILRC Documents:
The World Bank’s Indigenous Peoples’ Policy: Successes and Setbacks (Indian Law Resource Center Oct 2005)