Yesterday, International Rivers joined organizations from Latin America and the United States with a new open letter to the president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Ilan Goldfajn. The letter repeated the calls for the Bank to improve the quality of the consultation processes by addressing the group’s recommendations presented in previous letters.
“(…) we are concerned that the IDB’s dialogue and relationship with civil society and impacted communities continues to be weak compared to peer institutions. As a group, we have repeatedly called attention to these issues in previous instances but have seen little or no change in practice. The last letter sent in this regard expressed concerns about the consultation process for revising the access to information policy (AIP). Although changes were made to the AIP consultation process, in the recent consultations on the IDB Group institutional strategy, we see again the same problems we have been underscoring. For example, the consultations are not meaningful, robust, accessible, diverse, or inclusive, nor are they organized on the basis of participatory agendas. Furthermore, the substantive information for engagement is not shared in due time.”
Since 2017, these signatory organizations have been monitoring and improving the Bank’s policies and planned projects. The organizations’ input has contributed to the IDB Environmental and Social Policy Framework, the updated Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism policy, and the Bank’s Access to Information Policy review process.
Read the letter here: