Egypt and Morocco are the two largest recipients of World Bank lending in the Middle East and North Africa region and as such it was appropriate and important that the Bank held consultations in those two countries as part of a series of global consultations around the Bank’s draft of its proposed Environmental and Social …
BIC recently coordinated a sign-on letter to President Kim in reaction to the draft safeguard policies. Over fifty organizations endorsed the letter that reflected on the updated policies from a child rights perspective.
The perceived high costs of World Bank safeguards are often used to justify the simplification of the policies. In fact, the evidence behind the claims of excessive safeguard costs is surprisingly flimsy.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow has urged World Bank President Jim Yong Kim to ensure that the institution he leads adopts a labor standard lending requirement that is as comprehensive as those adopted by other multilateral development banks, and to correct the major weaknesses in the draft “labor safeguard” that was recently issued for consultation.
This study provides some critical evidence on the risks of moving to greater use of frameworks and country or borrower systems without robust safeguards.
by Vince McElhinny, Senior Policy Advisor at the Bank Information Center The World Bank management claims that the proposed revision to its safeguard policies, now called Environmental and Social Standards and Policy (ESS/ESP) will “update, strengthen and broaden” the protections to people from risks associated with Bank investments. However, by excluding two of the Bank’s …
See a collection of letters from Civil Society, news articles and more capturing reactions to the draft Environmental and Social Framework policy.
As the World Bank prepares to gut its safeguard policies and budget cuts are suspended over the heads of an anxious staff, a leaked assessment of the Bank’s safeguard system by the Bank’s internal audit department (IAD) describes an alarming state of disarray.
Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) (July 31, 2014) Over widespread objections from civil society, the World Bank’s board of directors gave a green light yesterday to a weak new set of rules to replace its existing environmental and social “safeguard” policies. The proposed policies appear to reverse a generation of …