World Bank courts NGOs as Wolfowittz takes helm
Felles uttalelse fra mer enn 70 organisasjoner, nettverk og enkeltpersoner (se liste), 19. april 2005
(for ytterligere informasjon, se Erfarne Verdensbank-kritikere advarer mot nye "dialogfora", Aktuelt 27.04.05)
The civil society organizations endorsing this statement believe that this Forum is designed as a public relations exercise by, and for, the World Bank. Conspicuous omissions from the list of those invited, as well as the content of the draft agenda, strongly suggest that the Bank intends to obscure its troubling record of betraying formal participatory processes developed with civil society and to avoid the most fundamental questions about the PRS now required of all low-income Bank borrowers.
The prospect of helping to burnish the image of the World Bank at this moment assumes even greater importance in light of the USA government’s success in installing Wolfowitz to serve as the Bank’s next president. Wolfowitz’s well-known role in planning and promoting the invasion and occupation of Iraq has raised reasonable fears that the World Bank will now be made more explicitly a tool of USA foreign and economic policy. We believe the Forum risks being used as a sign that civil society is open to collaborating with the Bank as the latter enters the Wolfowitz era. Given the outrage that has been expressed by groups around the world in response to this controversial appointment, that outcome would be very unfortunate.
Those of us who were invited to attend the Forum are therefore declining the invitation, and all of us wish to caution our colleagues around the world that this event will likely be dedicated to making the World Bank look good rather than addressing the serious problems in the Bank's interactions with civil society. Participation in the forum also risks lending legitimacy to the PRS process, when its flaws are so serious that it may not be reformable.
The World Bank controls this Forum, from deciding who is invited to what is on the agenda and how the meeting is conducted. The Bank is covering all the costs, which are undoubtedly substantial.
The absence from the invitation list of virtually all of the people involved in the World Bank's previous significant engagements with international civil society should concern those considering attending. Several thousand organizations and individuals from the South and North were involved in these exercises from the civil society side, many of them prominent voices in international development. This suggests that the Bank is using its control to prevent the Bank's recent history from being part of the discussion.
During the last ten years, the World Bank has participated in three lengthy international engagements with civil society on crucial development issues: structural adjustment (Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative), large dams (World Commission on Dams), and oil, mining, and gas exploitation (Extractive Industries Review). In each of these initiatives, the Bank rejected the exercise's ultimate findings when they turned critical of its operations and demonstrated a degree of bad faith so substantial as to cast suspicion on the Bank's motivations in any interaction with civil society.
We understand that activists opposing specific World Bank projects or working to influence national economic policy in their respective countries sometimes find it necessary or helpful to meet with the Bank. We would distinguish this conference from such meetings on the grounds that it offers no new information and little realistic chance of influencing policy. The constricted agenda will also limit the possibilities of productive conversation -- the first full day, for instance, is devoted to the controversial PRS process, but provides for no discussion of the program's value or function, or of its single most controversial element, the exclusion of civil society from discussions on macroeconomic policy. In addition, the World Bank has yet to perform a serious review of the poverty impacts of the PRS, which would seem an elementary first step in evaluating its efficacy. Without any evidence that the PRS reduces poverty, the first day’s agenda on improving the PRS bypasses the essential question of whether the PRS is even viable.
What the meeting does offer is the chance for the World Bank to escape accountability for its previous failings while looking out on the gathered crowd and reassuring itself, the media, private funders, parliamentarians, and government officials that it is open and communicating with a broad range of civil society. It offers the Bank the opportunity to reassure itself that cosmetic engagements will suffice to satisfy civil society, and that no further, more substantive engagement is necessary. It also offers one more chance for Wolfensohn to be honored for changing the orientation of the Bank toward civil society, regardless of the fact that, under his presidency, the Bank refused to implement the results of extensive civil society engagements and to change highly detrimental aspects of its operations opposed by citizens around the world.
More ominously, the forum is designed, despite the Bank's record, to enhance Bank-civil society relations at a time when the Bush Administration appears intent on intensifying the use of the institution to advance USA hegemonic interests through a new management team. Indeed, we can anticipate the promotion by the Wolfowitz Bank of structural adjustment and other free-market macroeconomic policies under the guise of “democratic reforms”, as has been the practice of the Bush Administration.
Hence, we urge all civil society groups to approach with caution any suggestion that a new formal mechanism for ongoing consultations between civil society and the World Bank be created. One such formation, the Joint Facilitation Committee (JFC), is now ending its difficult and largely unproductive two-year lifespan, with many of its members apparently eager to be done with it. The JFC was set up two years ago by the Bank and selected non-governmental organizations for the expressed purpose of enhancing World Bank-civil society relations, while thousands of citizens' groups were still trying to hold the Bank accountable for not complying with the results of previous engagements.
The JFC was originally slated to organize this Forum, but ultimately decided against it. Its other tangible project, a report on the Bank's relations with civil society, which is due to be issued at the time of the Forum, has seen its credibility drawn into question because the Bank has provided its funding and because many groups involved in consultative processes, citing the Bank's ultimate refusal to respect final outcomes, declined to participate.
Any new vehicle resembling the JFC -- designed to promote cooperation between the World Bank and civil society without introducing accountability for the Bank’s actions -- is likely to prove equally frustrating and controversial, particularly in light of the USA choice to lead the institution over the next five years. We urge our colleagues to turn away from distractions like the JFC, the Global Policy Forum and never-ending and often counter-productive “dialogue” with the Bank and to intensify the dialogue, strategizing and mobilizing within our own community to effect fundamental change in the international financial institutions and their pernicious practices.
Endorsed by:
Focus on the Global South, Shalmali Guttal, India/Thailand
Jubilee South Africa, Dennis Brutus, South Africa
The Development GAP, Steve Hellinger, USA
Lokayan and Intercultural Resource Centre, Smitu Kothari, India
Centre for Civil Society Univ. of KwaZulu-Natal, Patrick Bond, South Africa
50 Years Is Enough Network, Soren Ambrose, USA
Freedom from Debt Coalition & Jubilee South, Lidy Nacpil, Philippines
Bretton Woods Project, Jeff Powell, U.K.
Jorge Carpio, FOCO, Argentina
Comm’ty Dev. Library, Mohiuddin Ahmad, Bangladesh
BanglaPraxis, Zakir Kibria, Bangladesh
LOKOJ Institute, Arup Rahee, Bangladesh
Ashraf-Ul-Alam Tutu, Coastal Development Partnership (CDP), Bangladesh
Proyecto Gato, Jan Cappelle, Belgium
European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies, Joep Oomen, Belgium
Bart Staes, Member of European Parliament, Belgium
FIAN, Jonas Vanreusel, Belgium
Cândido Grzybowski, Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), Brazil
Rede Brasil, Brazil
Council of Canadians, Maude Barlow, Canada
Halifax Initiative Coalition, Michael Bassett, Canada
Blue Planet Project, Anil Naidoo, Canada
The Development Institute, Atherton Martin, Dominica
Institute for Economic Relocalisation, France
Friends of the Earth- Germany (BUND), Maja Goepel, Germany
WEED, Daniela Setton, Germany
SAPRIN Hungary, Karoly Lorant, Hungary
Enviro. Support Group, India
The Other Media, Madhumita Dutta, India
Delhi Forum, Souparna Lahiri, India
River Basin Friends, Ravindranath, India
Public Interest Rsch Centre, Kavaljit Singh, India
Rural Volunteers Centre, Arup Kumar Saikia, India
Sanjai Bhatt, India
Yayasan Duta Awam, Muhammad Riza, Indonesia
CRBM, Antonio Tricarico, Italy
ATTAC Japan, Yoko Akimoto, Japan
Equipo Pueblo, Domitille Delaplace, Mexico
Centro de Encuentros y Diálogos Interculturales, Gustavo Esteva, Mexico
Water Energy Users' Federation-Nepal, Neeru Shrestha, Nepal
South Asian Solidarity for Rivers & Peoples (SARP), Gopal Siwakoti 'Chintan', Nepal
Friends of the Earth Intl., Longgena Ginting, Netherlands
A SEED Europe- The Disinvestment Campaign, Filka Sekulova, Netherlands
Institute for Global Networking, Information and Studies (IGNIS), John Y. Jones, Norway
Chashma Lok Sath, Mushtaq Gadi, Pakistan
NGO Forum on ADB, Charity P. Cantillo-Dela Torre and Lala Cantillo, Philippines
Freedom from Debt., Ana Maria R. Nemenzo, Philippines
Fnd for Media Alternatives, Alan Alegre, Philippines
Josua Mata, Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), Philippines
Forum on African Alternatives, Demba Moussa Dembele, Senegal
Anti-Privatisation Forum, Virginia Setshedi, South Africa
Social Movements Indaba, South Africa
Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa, Na'eem Jeenah, South Africa
Centre for Civil Society, Raj Patel, South Africa
African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON), Uganda
Christian Aid, Olivia McDonald, U.K.
World Development Mvmt., Martin Powell, U.K.
Global Exchange / CodePink, Medea Benjamin, USA
Africa Action, Salih Booker, USA
Center of Concern, Aldo Caliari, USA
TransAfrica Forum, Bill Fletcher, Jr., USA
Public Citizen, Sara Grusky and Wenonah Hauter, USA
Sunita Dubey, USA
International Rivers Network, Patrick McCully, USA
East Timor Action Network, John M. Miller, USA
The Oakland Institute, Anuradha Mittal, USA
Sisters of the Holy Cross, Ann Oestreich IHM, USA
Center for Economic Justice, Michael Casaus, USA
Peter Rachleff, USA
Medical Mission Sisters- Alliance For Justice, Susan Thompson, USA
Gender Action, Elaine Zuckerman, USA
Public Services International, Cam Duncan, USA
United Church of Christ, Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility, Rev. Douglas B. Hunt, USA