Throughout my career as an activist, I have participated in the birth of quite a number of good initiatives and programs that were either hatched by my organization or which I have partnered and colluded in shaping, nationally, regionally and globally. However, when Jessica Evans of Human Rights Watch tapped my shoulder on the need to create a global network that would promote and protect human rights in development finance, little did I know that one of the most exciting, nerve racking and, most importantly, significant, campaigns was born.
Bank on Human rights is a coalition comprised of organizations from around the world including civil society, social movements, and nongovernmental organizations working on issues related to development financing. It aims at bringing the discussion of human rights to the table of development finance institutions.
This by no means is a small challenge, considering that many development institutions that invest in projects such as roads, dams, multi-complex buildings, mining operations, or other extractive industries, fail to take into account the impact of their investments on the lives of the poor. Ironically, these projects are intended to alleviate the suffering of the very poor whose rights are discarded.
Don’t get me wrong, the development finances from international financial institutions have contributed quite immensely to the amelioration of poverty and created certain improvements in health and other infrastructure. However, they have, at the same time, destroyed homes, moved indigenous peoples from their traditional homes, and destroyed cultural heritage with little regard to social impact.
While international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, recognize that the environmental impacts of development projects must be assessed and addressed as a part of project design, social impacts and human rights concerns are too often ignored.
That is why the Bank on Human Rights Coalition has been hatched – to ensure that all development finance institutions respect, protect, and fulfill human rights.
The Coalition recently sent a letter to the President of the World Bank, urging the Bank to ensure that human rights are incorporated into the Bank’s new social and environmental safeguard policies, currently in development.
Specifically, the letter identifies 6 key elements for the new safeguards framework:
• An explicit commitment to not support any activities that will cause, contribute to or exacerbate human rights violations
• An explicit commitment to non-discrimination, and substantive equality
• Requirements for full and effective participation and decision-making by indigenous peoples and affected communities
• Requirements for human rights due diligence, including screening projects based on their social and environmental risk, and requiring social impact assessment
• Policies that refer to and are guided by key relevant international human rights instruments
• The application of safeguards to all lending and the conditions to ensure they are well implemented and supervised
Bank on Human Rights hopes to unite diverse organizations and community groups in advocacy campaigns to change how development is done, to ensure that all development finance – whether it’s from the World Bank, the African Development Bank, or the China Development Bank – actually improves the lives of the poor.
Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai
Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai is the executive director of Society for Democratic Initiatives, Sierra Leone (SDI), a civil society organization working on transparency and accountability and monitoring World Bank sponsored projects. SDI is a Steering Committee member of the Bank on Human Rights Coalition.
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