#2: The safeguards guide the World Bank
These rules help to guide the World Bank so that it invests in projects that help people instead of harm them, and avoid damage to the environment.
 

#3: The safeguards provide access to justice
If you believe you have been harmed by a World Bank project, you can go to an independent part of the World Bank called the Inspection Panel which looks at each complaint to determine whether the World Bank is breaking its own rules.

#4: The safeguards are a model for other development banks
Many people consider the World Bank important for setting international standards for other banks to follow. After the World Bank started creating safeguards, other development banks made similar rules.

In 2012 the World Bank started a process called the Safeguards Review. The goal of this process is to make the safeguards better, and to better reflect current international standards.

Because many different people and organizations have different ideas about the safeguards, the process will take at least two years. The World Bank will be consulting with many of these people to learn their opinions and to make sure everyone that cares about the issues has a chance to participate. The World Bank will have to listen to all of these opinions as it creates the new rules.

The new safeguards that are adopted at the end of the process are very important. They will change the way projects and programs are designed. They may also change the way people seek justice when they are harmed by a project.

Other development banks will want to know whether the new safeguards are different from theirs. They may change their safeguard policies to be more like the World Bank’s. If this happens, the way development projects are carried out and the way people seek justice for harms could be changed all over the world—not just where the World Bank works. For example, if the World Bank adopts a new safeguard that helps to slow the process of climate change, many other banks, governments and even businesses might change their own rules to make sure their work also does not hurt the environment.

Only two of the safeguards mention children: the involuntary resettlement policy and the indigenous peoples policy. Both policies say that special attention should be paid to “vulnerable groups,” including women, children, and ethnic minorities. However, neither policy describes how to address impacts to children that are different from these other groups. For example, when families need to move away to make room for a new World Bank project, the resettlement policy describes how to pay adults for the houses they must leave behind, but it does not describe how to make sure children are still able to go to school after they move away. The policies also do not say how other unique rights of children, including the right to participation, should be protected.

Some people think that children should have a bigger role to play at the World Bank. Young people LIKE YOU are able to understand and explain their needs and interests, and should have the opportunity to present their views to the World Bank and any other decision-maker that impacts their lives. For this reason, BIC has held children’s consultations in Peru, Yemen, Cambodia, India, the Philippines and Uganda in order to give children an opportunity to express their ideas on how the World Bank can better incorporate the needs and concerns of children in their projects and policies.