This post is also available in: Spanish
During the Safeguards Regional Consultations held in Lima (February), Buenos Aires (March) and Ciudad de Guatemala (April) several Latin American CSOs including indigenous organizations submitted a letter to their World Bank Executive Directors: Cesar Guido Forcieri, Executive Director for: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Roberto Tan, Executive Director for: Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Juan Jose Bravo Moises, Executive Director for: Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Spain, Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela with their position statement regarding the review process of the Bank’s policies.
Additionally, the letter also makes an appeal to their Bank’s Latin American representatives to enhance the Bank’s safeguards policies to be applied to all Bank’s financial instruments and improve systematic challenges for an effective implementation of safeguards through strong supervision, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. The submission includes sections on Environmental Impact Assessments; Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Labor Rights; establishing sanctions for non-compliance, and issues related to the architecture of the new Safeguards Framework. The Latin American CSOs also emphasized the need for transparency, shared responsibility and accountability between the Bank and borrowing governments, and the need for the Bank to align its standards with those of international standards and conventions.
Read the submission in English and Spanish here:
Letter from Latin American Civil Society Organizations on the Safeguards Review 2013Carta de Organizaciones de Latino America al Banco Mundial – Salvaguardas 2013