WORLD BANK REVISES INDIGENOUS PEOPLES POLICY

 

Strategic Shift toward Broader Participation, Benefit Sharing

WASHINGTON, 20 May (World Bank) -- The World Bank today announced that its Board of Executive Directors has endorsed a revised policy on indigenous peoples that reflects a strategic shift towards a broader and direct engagement with Indigenous Peoples’ communities.  According to the revised policy, the World Bank will provide financing to development programmes that affect indigenous peoples only where free, prior and informed consultation results in broad community support for the project by the affected indigenous peoples.

The World Bank has now moved towards a proactive approach which includes direct engagement with Indigenous Peoples, said Ian Johnson, Vice-President, Sustainable Development, World Bank.  The World Bank aims to learn from practices of the communities it serves to leverage the best global and local knowledge systems and provide the best expertise and advice to its beneficiaries, he added.

The revised policy also requires that consultations be held at each stage of project preparation and implementation.  In addition, the new policy requires a social assessment based on the demographic, social, cultural and political characteristics of the affected Indigenous Peoples, which will form the basis for an Indigenous Peoples Plan to spell out steps that will ensure affected indigenous peoples’ communities receive culturally appropriate social and economic benefits.

Consultations during the drafting of the revised policy were extensive and involved indigenous peoples’ leaders, governments from developing countries and Civil Society Organizations around the globe.

Indigenous peoples are distinct populations in that the land on which they live and the natural resources on which they depend are inextricably linked to their identities and cultures.  There are approximately 250 million indigenous peoples living in more than 70 countries around the globe; historically, they have been among the most disadvantaged, marginalized, and excluded populations in many parts of the world.

The World Bank recognizes that indigenous peoples must be given a greater role in designing and implementing strategies to reach the Millennium Development Goals.  Development agencies play a major part in strengthening indigenous peoples’ networks and existing social and cultural organizations, said Steen Jorgensen, Director, Social Development, World Bank.

As a way of protecting the interests of indigenous peoples’ communities, the policy mandates agreement between government and these communities for commercial use of their cultural resources and benefit sharing arrangements for commercial use of their natural resources such as minerals, hydrocarbon resources, forests, water or hunting or fishing grounds.

The policy is part of a broad World Bank effort to provide voice and support to indigenous peoples’ communities for their development.

For more information, visit:  www.worldbank.org/indigenous or www.worldbank.org/sustainabledevelopment.  Contacts:  Sergio Jellinek, tel.:  202-458-2841, e-mail:  Sjellinek@worldbank.org; Tracey Osborne, tel.:  202-473-4033, e-mail:  Tosborne@worldbank.org.

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