What was at first a seemingly simple and non-provocative Inspection Panel case, has now led the Bank to re-evaluate its relationship with civil society across the MENA region and develop an action plan for engagement. Nadia Daar of BIC’s MENA program examines the importance of this development.
Egyptian NGO, Land Center for Human Rights, has filed an appeal on behalf of farmers in the Egyptian Delta, citing that the joint World Bank and Egyptian government ‘West Delta project’ violates the Egyptian constitution that should protect the rights of farmers, and not just the interests of wealthy investors. Press Release Summary Cairo, 9/15/2009 …
The Inspection Panel is to defer its recommendation to investigate into case of the World Bank’s “Institutional Reform Development Policy Grant” to Yemen, until after the implementation of Bank Management’s enhanced action plan, which seeks to address concerns raised by the Yemen Observatory for Human Rights in their Request to the Inspection Panel in April 2009.
Egyptian civil society groups suggest an alternative water route for the West Delta Irrigation Project, that could serve poor farmers as well as rich investors, but the World Bank refuses to consider it.
After meeting with World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister of Regional Development, Silvan Shalom, stated that the World Bank had agreed to fund the Red-Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Program that involves Jordan, Palestine and Israel. However, Bank officials say that they have made no promises and that the project is still in the feasibility study phase.
For the first time in Inspection Panel history, an Eligibility Report is being held for board discussion. With little information, we are left wondering what is happening with the investigation into the Yemeni DPL case.
Will the new crisis in the Nile affect the implementation of the West Delta project? Dr. Rushdy Said, an Egyptian geologist, says that Egypt will suffer from water problems this summer. This is the first summer after the building of the new dam in Sudan. Said also doesn’t know anything about how the Egyptian government …
BIC highlights the work of Yahya Saleh Mohsen of the Yemen Observatory for Human Rights. Yahya played an instrumental role in bringing a case to the World Bank Inspection Panel involving the Bank’s translation policies in Yemen and beyond.
Read a BIC opinion piece from the FP blog, The Argument, explaining why the World Bank must reconsider its current policies on translation and information disclosure in order to promote substantive civil society engagement. Source By: Rebecca Harris In January 2008, community groups in Yemen wrote to their local World Bank office, asking for an …
Joint Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian venture to see 112-mile pipeline built between Read Sea, Dead Sea. Project meant to explore desalination possibilities, raising Dead Sea declining water levels. Minister Shalom: Project staple of financial peace