The World Bank, which has landed in a controversy over a new draft of its safeguard policies, held a meeting to deliberate on the proposed changes on Wednesday in Washington, US.

The Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE) of the Board of Executive Directors has given clearance to the Bank to start consultations on the first draft of the new policies, which have some contentious clauses.

“The proposed Environmental and Social Framework builds on the decades-old safeguard policies and aims to consolidate them into a more modern, unified framework that is more efficient and effective to apply and implement,” an official statement by the World Bank said.

According to the draft, which was leaked in July and has been seen by Business Line , the proposed changes have been envisioned to strengthen “the World Bank’s partnership with borrowers… also bring the World Bank into closer alignment with other multilateral development banks.”

The Bank, however, has stirred the hornet’s nest with this draft, which has diluted some protection clauses, such as the requirement for identifying indigenous communities, strict timeline for reporting resettlement action plans and others.

While the draft proposes to introduce free, prior and informed consent clause for indigenous communities in project-affected areas, it has put in an ‘opt-out’ clause for borrowers. Under this clause, if borrowers (mostly developing countries) feel that identifying such communities could result in ethnic conflict or if it is not in accordance to national laws, then they would not be required to fulfil this requirement. This has caused a lot of furore among civil rights bodies, which feel this will give countries an option to deny indigenous communities, which are most vulnerable, their rights.

However, Mark King, Chief Environmental and Social Standards Officer, World Bank said, in the statement, “any alternative approach will only be adopted with approval from our Board, which represents all of our member countries.”

The first draft of the revised framework was developed following a five-month-long consultation involving more than 2,000 people in over 40 countries, the World Bank has said.

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