Indigenous peoples from all over the world that have been following the World Bank's Indigenous Peoples Policy Review have rejected the review process and draft revised policy. The Bank's attempt to revise its Indigenous Peoples Policy is in danger of resulting in a weakened policy that does not live up to the internationally-recognized rights of indigenous peoples. In fact, the current policy is stronger than the draft revised policy in that provides certain safeguards for indigenous peoples that are not present in the revised draft. Despite pressures from indigenous peoples groups, the Bank plans to go ahead with the revised draft and will send it to the Bank's Board of Executive Directors for approval sometime in the late autumn of 2002. In the meantime, however, indigenous peoples have persuaded the World Bank to take part in a public roundtable discussion on the Draft Policy to discuss their worries in more depth. Indigenous peoples' organisations are requesting that the Bank gives clear assurances that the priorities and concerns that they raise in the Roundtable will afterwards be addressed in the final draft.

The World Bank is in the final process of revising its Indigenous Peoples Policy (OD 4.20). This revision is part of a larger Bank-wide process of converting policies from Operational Directives (OD) format into Operational Policies (OP) and Bank Procedures (BP) (both of which are mandatory), and Good Practices (GP) (which are advisory).

According to the Bank, the revision of the policy is to clarify ambiguities and processing requirements and to facilitate implementation. However, indigenous peoples and other civil society groups that have been following the revision process complain that their principal concerns and recommendations have not been addressed in the Draft Policy and that the proposed revisions are not clarifying ambiguities but are, in fact, weakening the usefulness of the policy itself.

Problems with the Substance of the Revised Draft Policy

The revised draft of March 2001 has been highly criticized for serious deficiencies that, if not corrected, will result in a much weakened policy. The deficiencies include:

• Inadequate safeguards for land and resource security

  The Bank's existing policy rightly requires staff and borrowers to take special action to protect indigenous land and resource security. However, the revised draft does not have this important safeguard any longer, as borrowers are now simply supposed to "take account" and "pay particular attention" to land tenure and customary resource rights. This language does not require the borrower to take any action to secure indigenous tenure. The revised draft only offers Bank assistance for regularizing land tenure "upon request from the Borrower".

  These modifications contravene international human rights instruments that require states to take action to respect and protect indigenous peoples' rights to own, use, and manage their lands and traditional territories.

• Failure to prohibit involuntary resettlement

  Indigenous peoples have long demanded of the Bank that any new indigenous peoples policy should prevent the Bank from funding operations that would result in the forced relocation of indigenous communities. This is consistent with international law, which requires that consent be obtained prior to resettlement and that obtaining prior consent from affected indigenous peoples for any involuntary resettlement is a principle of international customary law binding on the World Bank. The revised draft policy fails to incorporate this fundamental safeguard.

• Failure to recognize the right of prior informed consent

  The revised draft makes no explicit recognition of the right of indigenous peoples to informed consent regarding any decisions or activities that may affect their lands and resources. The draft is at odds with human rights standards that require states to obtain indigenous peoples' free and informed consent for activities and measures that affect them.

• Ambiguous policy trigger

  Indigenous peoples have stated that the main criterion for the application of the policy should be self-identification. This proposal has been disregarded in the revised draft policy. As a result, the draft policy is ambiguous about the operational procedure for deciding where the policy applies. On the one hand, Bank staff are supposed to use screening based on distinctive characteristics of indigenous peoples, but on the other hand, Bank staff may also be guided by borrower legislation. It is not clear how these different elements combine to trigger OP 4.20. The best way to remove such ambiguities would be to act on indigenous peoples' recommendations and adopt self-identification as the main policy trigger.

• Loss of baseline study safeguard

  The revised draft policy no longer has any mandatory requirement for a participatory baseline study for all investment operations affecting indigenous peoples as required by the current policy. Field baseline studies are an essential precondition for effective development in both "do good" projects such as land regularization and "do no harm" or mitigation project components.

  The revised draft policy requires field baseline studies solely for a social assessment, triggered only when Bank staff believe a project may have adverse impacts on indigenous peoples. Relying on the judgment of Bank staff to decide whether or not a project is likely to have negative impact is also a serious loophole in the draft policy.

• Lack of clear preconditions for project approval

  The draft policy introduces vague language that only commits Bank staff to take account of indigenous views and review borrower plans to ensure consistency with the policy. This is a marked change from the existing policy, which states that the Bank will "refuse appraisal" until suitable plans are submitted by the borrower. The revised policy would be much improved by adding new preconditions for project appraisal, i.e. that the project does not risk contravening the borrower's international obligations on human rights and the environment; has been prepared with the effective participation of indigenous peoples; does not infringe or violate the rights of affected indigenous communities; and has secured the informed consent of affected communities and their representative institutions.

• Unclear and sub-standard provisions on participation

  The revised draft policy contains a varied and inconsistent approach to participation, such as 'consultation', 'meaningful consultation', 'involvement' and 'agreement,' the latter signifying consent. These different terms are scattered throughout the text and appear to be used inconsistently. As a result, it is difficult to ascertain with any certainty which standard is to be used in what context. The revised draft policy should have more detailed definitions for each terms used, to avoid open interpretation and thus confusion and sub-standard implementation of participation.

• Lack of mandatory requirements for participatory monitoring

  Indigenous groups have called on the bank to issue new policy requirements for the active engagement of affected indigenous communities and their representative organizations in tracking and monitoring World Bank loan operations. This recommendation is not incorporated as a requirement in the draft revised policy.

• Failure to extend the policy to policy-based lending

  Concerns about the adverse impacts of policy-based lending (structural and sectoral adjustment loans) have been widely raised. The revised draft policy has sidestepped the crucial issue of policy-based lending. Indigenous peoples groups have urged the Bank to ensure that the draft revised policy makes reference to existing and future social, environmental, and participation standards for these loans.

Flawed Review Process and Public Consultations

In addition to the deficiencies in the substance of the revised draft, the review process itself has caused concern among indigenous peoples and campaigning NGOs tracking the policy revision. The Bank is planning to finalize the policy revision in late 2002. At the same time, however, the Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) is conducting an implementation review of OD 4.20, due to be completed by April 2003. After much pressure from indigenous peoples organisations and advocacy NGOs, the World Bank finally acknowledged in July 2002 that the policy revision might benefit from the findings of the OED implementation review. However, the Bank has only committed to taking account of an initial draft of the implementation review. In August 2002, indigenous peoples activists wrote again to the Bank urging them to go one step further and await the full final report and enable a public discussion on its findings before finalising the new Indigenous Peoples Policy.

Since the beginning of the consultation process, Indigenous peoples organizations and NGOs have asked Bank staff how their comments would influence the contents of the final drat policy. The Bank has failed to respond to this basic issue by just saying that all public concerns would be "systematically documented" and included in the summary report of the consultations to be presented to the Bank's Board together with the final draft policy. There have also been serious criticisms by indigenous peoples representatives about the way that the Bank carried out its so-called "consultations" in 2001. Problems reported include:

• Detailed letters to the Bank's Policy Revision Team received a perfunctory/inadequate response.
• Many in-country meetings were rushed and did not provide sufficient time for open and reasoned discussion. Bank staff spent too long on presentations.
• Most meetings lacked a timely prior provision of relevant documents.
• Some meetings suffered from poor moderation and translation facilities.
• Several meetings, such as the ones for Latin America region and South Asia, did not feature balanced representation by indigenous peoples.

Further Call to the Bank

In a face-to-face meeting between indigenous representatives and senior World Bank managers held in Washington, D.C., in July 2002, the World Bank finally accepted an invitation made by the indigenous participants to co-organise and jointly host a roundtable meeting with indigenous peoples' representatives to discuss their multiple concerns in more depth (the Bank had declined similar invitations for detailed dialogue for nearly a whole year prior to the meeting). This dialogue is due to go ahead on 17 and 18 of October 2002.

It is too early to say how useful this dialogue will turn out to be: the real test will be whether or not indigenous peoples are broadly satisfied with the final version of the policy which they want to be modified following the Roundtable to take account of their concerns.

Sources:

• Forest Peoples Programme response to the World Bank's Indigenous Peoples Policy (OD 4.20) and Draft OP/BP 4.10. 10 December 2001.
• A letter to President James Wolfensohn of the World Bank by 47 groups, dated March 15, 2002.
• Poverty Alleviation, Property Rights and the World Bank's Draft Operational Policy 4.10 on Indigenous Peoples. FPP Briefing Note. Revised draft 03 June 2002.
• Problems with the World Bank's 2001- 2002 public consultations on the revision of its Indigenous Peoples policy (Draft OP/BP4.10). Draft FPP briefing, August 2002.
• World Bank website http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/essd/essd.nsf/IndigenousPeoples/CoverNote
• Various informal sources.