World Bank: Ducking Human Rights Issues

World Bank: Ducking Human Rights Issues

Billions for Development, but Lack of Safeguards Undermines Benefits


Human Rights Watch

(Washington,
DC, July 22, 2013) – The World Bank has closed its eyes to risks to the human rights
of the very people it seeks to benefit, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released today. The bank lacks adequate checks to guard against funding human
rights abuse. The bank’s board will meet as part of its ongoing policy review,
which provides an opportunity to remedy this policy gap, in Washington on July
23, 2013.

The 59-page report, “Abuse-Free Development: How the World Bank Should Safeguard
Against Human Rights Violations,” draws on Human Rights Watch research from
around the globe to document the harm caused to some of the world’s most
vulnerable people by bank-financed programs. Human Rights Watch drew on three
case studies, one from Vietnam and two from Ethiopia, to illustrate how the bank neither acknowledged
the human rights risks of the programs it financed nor took steps to mitigate
the problems.

“The World Bank pays tens of billions of dollars every year to support
development efforts around the world,” said Jessica Evans, senior advocate on international financial
institutions at Human Rights Watch. “But it needs to stop undermining its
efforts by making sure it isn’t contributing to human rights abuses.”

The World Bank’s recently adopted goals to end extreme poverty and promote
shared prosperity are inextricably linked to the right of everyone to an
adequate standard of living, including adequate food, water, and housing, Human
Rights Watch said. But the bank cannot meaningfully achieve these goals in
complex environments without ensuring that it respects the rights of the people
it is working to benefit.

The World Bank’s two year review and update of its safeguard policies, which
began in October 2012, provides an opportunity for the bank to create a due
diligence framework that will enable it to identify the human rights impacts of
its activities. Such a framework would help the bank take measures to mitigate
negative impacts, maximize positive impacts, and avoid financing projects and
programs that will contribute to, or exacerbate, human rights violations. The
World Bank should make human rights law a key component of its development
manifesto.

In several cases, the World Bank has neither acknowledged nor mitigated human
rights risks in its programs, Human Rights Watch found. As a result, for
example, in Vietnam, the World Bank has funded programs in government drug detention centers in which Human Rights Watch has
documented arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and other forms of
ill-treatment.

In Ethiopia, the World Bank did not work to avoid the risks that the
government’s quashing of free speech, denial of basic services to perceived or
real political opponents, or forcible relocation program presented for its
programs.

Through a US$2 billion project, the World Bank is working to support education,
health, water, sanitation, rural roads, and agricultural extension services in
Ethiopia. Some staff members contend that by contributing to developing these
services, this project benefits human rights. But in
Ethiopia’s western Gambella region, the main vehicle
for achieving development objectives, including those envisioned under this
World Bank project, is a program that not only fails to further such rights, it
tramples on them, Human Rights Watch found.

Known as “villagization,” the government initiative
is relocating 1.5 million indigenous and other marginalized people to new
villages, where the better services and infrastructure the government promises
is often a fiction. Villagization has been marred by violence.

One 20-year-old man who escaped to South Sudan told Human Rights Watch, “Soldiers came and asked me why I
refused to be relocated.… They started beating me until my hands were broken.…
I ran to tell [my father] what had happened, but the soldiers followed me. My
father and I ran away.… I heard the sound of gunfire.”

Forced to separate from his father, he kept running and hid from the soldiers
in nearby bushes. When he returned the next day, he learned that his father had
been killed.

The World Bank should make a commitment both to respect and to protect human rights, Human Rights Watch
said. That should include ensuring that it does not exacerbate or contribute to
human rights violations through its lending or other activities. The World Bank
should carry out systematic due diligence to make sure that it honors its
commitment.

Had it taken such steps with projects it is implementing in regions where the
Ethiopian government was carrying out villagization,
for example, the bank would have been aware of the risks of arbitrary arrests
and detention, forced evictions, beatings, torture, and killings. It would also
have identified the potential for reduced and inadequate access to food, health
care, and water in the places where the villagers were being moved. The bank
could have built measures to avoid these risks into its project design.

“Human rights due diligence is not about naming and shaming governments in need
of development funds,” Evans said. “It is the process of looking at the effect
of the World Bank’s lending or other support on human rights, and figuring out
how to avoid or mitigate human rights risks.”

As they currently stand, the World Bank’s safeguard policies are insufficient to ensure that human rights are respected in
its projects. While the bank has committed not to finance project activities
that would contravene borrower country obligations under relevant international
environmental treaties and agreements, it is silent on obligations under
international human rights treaties. The bank has policies on involuntary
resettlement and indigenous peoples, but even these policies fall short of
international human rights standards. Funding decisions relating to rights
concerns lack transparency and appear arbitrary and inconsistent, Human Rights
Watch found.

The absence of a clear commitment not to support activities that will
contribute to or exacerbate human rights violations leaves staff without
guidance on how they should approach human rights concerns, or what their
responsibilities are. Staff members have unfettered discretion to determine the
extent to which they will consider human rights risks, take measures to
mitigate or avoid harm, and even to bring problems to the attention of senior
management or the board. The lack of clear procedures and policies on human
rights means that people whose rights are adversely affected have no way to
hold the bank to account.

By adopting a human-rights-conscious approach, the World Bank can minimize
avoidable suffering, especially among marginalized, excluded, and vulnerable groups,
making its development efforts more sustainable. By supporting governments in
meeting their human rights obligations, the bank can advance consistency in
government policy. Reducing human rights risks also can help to mitigate legal
and financial risks, and potential harm to the bank’s reputation.

The World Bank needs to improve the human rights standards it sets for itself,
to meet its legal obligations and to remain a leading development institution,
Human Rights Watch said. Member countries have similar and additional specific
human rights obligations, which they retain while they are members of the bank
and as they sit on the bank’s Board of Executive Directors, which approves bank
projects.

The World Bank should amend its safeguard policies to:

Commit not
to support any activities that will contribute to or exacerbate human rights
violations, and to respect international human rights in all activities,
irrespective of the funding mechanism utilized.

Undertake
due diligence to honor this commitment, including by undertaking human rights
impact assessments to identify the human rights impacts of its activities and
avoid or mitigate adverse impacts. The bank can also use such impact
assessments to maximize positive human rights impacts of its activities,
consistent with its poverty alleviation mandate.

Enhance
existing safeguards to meet international human rights standards, including
updating the indigenous peoples and involuntary resettlement policies to meet
the standards set out in relevant human rights treaties, declarations, and
documents from treaty bodies and UN special rapporteurs interpreting these
obligations.

Ensure
that it does not discriminate against people on any grounds prohibited by international
law, and that all members of affected communities have the opportunity to
meaningfully participate in shaping development agendas and policies, during
all stages of projects or programs. 

“At one
time, the World Bank said that its nonpolitical mandate precluded it from even
considering human rights in its funding decisions,” Evans said. “Now the bank
accepts that it can consider human rights, but views that as discretionary. It
is high time that the World Bank recognized that universal human rights are not
discretionary.”