Urgent action against the World Bank's proposed resettlement policy!!

The World Bank has just forwarded its revised draft resettlement policy to the full Board of Executive Directors for discussion and approval. Starting August 20th, Executive Directors will be returning to their offices from a two week recess, and it is crucial to capture their attention immediately about the resettlement policy. We believe that it will be placed on their agenda shortly after the recess.

Thanks to the strong public mobilization on earlier drafts of this policy, the Bank has responded to some concerns by defining more terms and removing some offensive language of its previous document.

In this "revised" policy there are still many fundamental problems that will violate the rights of indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. Most alarming is the fact that the proposed policy will still permit the forcible relocation of indigenous peoples even where it may result in "significant adverse impacts on their identity and cultural survival". A complete study of these two key substantive areas --indigenous peoples and "voluntary" resettlement-- was carried out by the Forest Peoples Programme and the Center for International Environmental Law, which is available in our web page at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/WB/resettlement.html 

There is one last chance to demand substantive changes in the resettlement policy before it is approved. The Executive Directors of the Bank in each country should be contacted, faxed or phoned and concerns about this policy should be expressed. It is urgent to persuade them to make amendments to the policy and to adopt a clear presumption against any forced relocation of indigenous peoples.

A complete list of Executive Directors and their contact details is available at:
http://www.bicusa.org/mdbs/wbg/execdir.htm 

Please send copy of your letters to: 

President James Wolfensohn, Fax 202 522 3031.

Vice president, Ian Johnson, Fax: 202 522 7122, e-mail: ijohnson@worldbank.org

You can use a sample letter published in our web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy/alerts/WorldBank2708.html 

Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 49, August 2001 

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