Stop Disempowering People, Forum Tells New ADB President
May 2, 2013 New Delhi, India
NGO Forum on ADB has challenged Asian Development Bank's new president to institute systemic reforms in its operations to arrest the further disempowerment of Asia's project-induced migrants and climate refugees.
The leading ADB watcher since 1991 urged Mr. Takehiko Nakao to thoroughly review its past and current development practices in the context of truly empowering displaced communities and marginalized sectors. NGO Forum issued the challenge duringNakao's meeting with civil society at the 46th Annual Governors Meeting, which banners the theme: "Empowerment through Development."
NGO Forum also asked Nakao's vision of development considering the past outcomes of ADB's failed projects. Further, the network of 250 Asian and international civil society organizations, questioned ADB's legal immunity in relation to its over-all accountability for failed operations and investment decisions.
"During your regime, how do you suggest the Bank will respond to this growing inequity, particularly in rural areas as the Bank continues to pursue dispossession, displacement and natural resource extraction in the name of economic growth for the poor?," asked Hemantha Withanage, NGO Forum's International Convener and executive director of Sri Lanka's Centre for Environmental Justice.
Citing the Bank's lack of timely and significant response to affected people like in the case of Bangladesh' Khulna Jessore Drainage Rehabilitation Project, as well as Cambodia's Highway One Project and Railway Rehabilitation Project, Mr. Rayyan Hassan, Executive Director of the NGO Forum said "it has led to more inequity and impoverishment in ADB project sites."
According to the Vice President of Project Operations ' we agree there are serious issues in the Highway One project and the Cambodia Railway' and he had to recognize Forum's role by admitting ' We need more nearness with NGO Forum on ADB, as you have people on the ground with their eyes on site on behalf of the communities'.
Responding to the question by the civil society on the ADB's immunity, Mr Nakao said that immunity is needed for the protection of ADB staff. However, Mr. Withanage points that ADB is hiding its criminal acts of project failures under this immunity.
* This info was sent by Ram Wangkheirakpam who can be contacted at wangkheilakpa(at)gmail(dot)com
This Press Release was posted on May 03, 2013
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