Photo: Flore de Preneuf / World Bank via https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/25501006942/in/photostream/
Last week world leaders met in Bonn to continue to negotiate global responses to climate change under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The World Bank has a responsibility to support actions on climate change and ensure that it respects peoples’ rights and promote sustainable development in all its activities. In response 77 civil society organizations from around the world has called on the World Bank to prioritize forests and forest peoples’ rights in its support to borrowing countries and for the implementation of their climate commitments.
See the full letter with signatories below:
Dear President Kim
As the UNFCCC Conference of Parties 23 meets in Bonn, we call on the World Bank to fulfil its commitment to prioritise forests and forest peoples’ rights in its support to borrowing countries and the implementation of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
An estimated 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, including some 70 million indigenous people. Forests are home to more than 80 percent of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects. Moreover, forests play a key role in tackling climate change, providing both mitigation and adaptation benefits. However, as the World Bank’s 2016-20 Forest Action Plan makes clear, forests are “under significant threat” due to increasing and competing demands for food, fibre, fuel, and minerals, among other pressures, driving large scale land use changes leading to “economic and social losses and severe environmental degradation”. Moreover, deforestation and forest degradation is the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, after burning of coal and oil.
The impacts of climate change fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest people with vulnerable groups, such as women, children and the elderly, being particularly affected. The protection of forests and forest peoples’ rights is therefore essential for achieving the World Bank’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity, as recognised in the Forest Action Plan. Moreover, the Bank is a supporter of the Sustainable Development Goals, which include a commitment to “promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally.” In addition, forced evictions of forest peoples must stop. Securing tenure rights for forest peoples plays a fundamental role in protecting forests.
As the largest source of multilateral finance for forests, and a standard setter for international finance more broadly, it is important that the World Bank sends clear signals about the need to protect forests and forest peoples’ rights, both in public messaging and in its operations, for example, through the Country Partnership Frameworks and by opening up its Forest Notes for consultation. It must also address the direct and indirect drivers of deforestation, such as commercial agriculture, infrastructure, energy and mining, which receive significantly more investment than forests. This includes the impacts on forests of Bank investments through indirect lending, such as financial intermediaries and Development Policy Finance. A clear distinction between forest and monoculture tree plantations is also necessary as this type of plantations, among many other social and environmental negative effects, are very often drivers of deforestation.
We call on the World Bank to:
- Support countries’ implementation of forest related measures in their NDCs, with a particular focus on IDA countries, including those prioritised for World Bank support;
- Ensure that securing customary rights for indigenous peoples and local communities are at the center of any forest related intervention, with particular attention to women. Moreover, projects should not incentivize or contribute to forced evictions;
- Prioritise the protection of forests and the recognition of the rights and inclusion of forest peoples in the development and implementation of Country Partnership Frameworks, including in the Systematic Country Diagnostic and subsequent reviews. This includes opening up the Forest Notes for stakeholder input;
- Ensure that funds are directed to activities that genuinely support forest conservation and restoration, rather than to those that undermine these efforts, such as the expansion and promotion of monoculture plantations;
- Address and stop investing in direct and indirect drivers of deforestation and those that violate forest peoples’ rights, including through indirect lending, such as financial intermediaries and Development Policy Finance; and
- Strengthen its safeguards frameworks and their coverage of different loan operations to provide better protection for forests and the recognition and securing of forest peoples rights, including for Development Policy Finance.
We thank you in advance for considering these issues and look forward to a continued dialogue on how they can be addressed.
Sincerely,
| Abibiman Foundation | Ghana |
| Acción Ciudadana | Guatemala |
| ACT Alliance EU | |
| Action for Forest | Colombia |
| African Climate Reality Project | South Africa |
| African Law Foundation (AFRILAW) | Nigeria |
| AIDER | Peru |
| Alianza Hondureña ante el Cambio Climático (AHCC) | Honduras |
| Alliance for Rural Democracy | Liberia |
| Amigos del Río San Rodrigo (ARSR) | Mexico |
| Asociacion Ambiente y Sociedad | Colombia |
| Asociación de Desarrollo Comunitario Rural (ADECOR) | Guatemala |
| Asociación Marianista de Acción Social (AMAS) | Peru |
| Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH) | Peru |
| Asociación Servicios a Programas de Desarrollo e Investigación (ASOSEPRODI) | Guatemala |
| Bank Information Center | US |
| Big Shift Global campaign | International |
| Both Ends | Netherlands |
| Bretton Woods Project | UK |
| Buliisa Initiative for Rural Development Organisation (BIRUDO) | Uganda |
| Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) | US |
| Centro de Derechos Económicos y Sociales (CDES) | Ecuador |
| Centro para el Desarrollo del Indígena Amazónico (CEDIA) | Peru |
| Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (CEPES) | Peru |
| Christian Aid | UK |
| CNCD-11.11.11 | Belgium |
| Collectif Camerounais des Organisations des Droits de l’homme et de la Démocratie (COCODHD) | Cameroon |
| Comisión de Derechos Humanos (COMISEDH) | Peru |
| Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP) | Peru |
| CooperAccion | Peru |
| Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos | Peru |
| Coordination Office of the Austrian Bischop’s Conference for International Development and Mission (KOO) | Austria |
| Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR) | Peru |
| Environment & Millennium Targets | Nigeria |
| Forest Peoples Programme | UK |
| Foro Ecologico del Peru | Peru |
| Foro Nacional por Colombia | Colombia |
| Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social | Brazil |
| Frente Regional de Pueblos del Bajo Mixe Choapan | Mexico |
| Friends of the Earth Ghana | Ghana |
| Friends with Environment in Development (FED) | Uganda |
| Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) | Argentina |
| Fundacion Chile Sustentable | Chile |
| Fundar, Centro de Análisis e Investigación | Mexico |
| FUNDEPS | Argentina |
| Gender Action | USA |
| Global Forest Coalition | International |
| Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP) | Nigeria |
| Green Advocates International | Liberia |
| Green Development Advocates (GDA) | Cameroon |
| GRUFIDES | Peru |
| Grupo de Financiamiento Climático para Latinoamérica y el Caribe (GFLAC) | Latin America & the Caribbean |
| Grupo GEMA | Dominican Republic |
| ICCO Cooperation | Netherlands |
| IDLADS PERÚ | Peru |
| Instituto de Derecho Ambiental de Honduras | Honduras |
| Instituto de Estudios de las Culturas Andinas (IDECA) | Peru |
| International Analog Forestry Network (IAFN) | Costa Rica |
| Jamaa Resource Initiatives | Kenya |
| Lawyers’ Association for Human Rights Of Nepalese Peoples (LAHURNIP) | Nepal |
| Lumière Synergie pour le Développement | Senegal |
| Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns | US |
| Natural Resources Women Platform | Liberia |
| NGO Forum on ADB | Philippines |
| Oakland Institute | US |
| Observatoire d’Eudes et d’Appui à la Responsabilité Sociale et Environnementale (OEARSE) | Democratic Republic of Congo |
| Plataforma Internacional contra la Impunidad | Guatemala |
| Pomio potongpaga group Inc | Papua New Guinea |
| Proyecto sobre Organización, Desarrollo, Educación e Investigación (PODER) | Mexico |
| Red Latinoamericana sobre las industrias Extractivas (RLIE) | Latin America |
| RED MUQUI | Peru |
| Red Regional Agua, Desarrollo y Democracia | Peru |
| Red Uniendo Manos | Peru |
| RedGE | Peru |
| Servicios en Comunicación Intercultural Servindi | Peru |
| Ulu Foundation | US |
| Urgewald | Germany |