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PANUPS: NGOs Condemn World Bank
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P A N U P S
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Pesticide Action Network
North America
Updates Service
http://www.panna.org/panna/
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November 15, 1996
NGOs Condemn World Bank for Gutting Pesticide
Policy
The World Bank is backtracking on earlier
commitments to reduce pesticide use in agricultural
projects, according to over 100 environmental,
consumer and development organizations from the
United States and around the world. The World Bank
recently issued a new operational policy which
offers only vague guidance to its staff about what
kinds of pest management practices should be
funded, and says nothing about farmer participation
in project design. In a letter sent to World Bank
President James Wolfensohn on November 8, 1996, the
groups call for the Bank to reinstate an earlier
policy which gave specific direction to Bank staff
on how to minimize pesticide use and promoted an
ecologically sustainable approach known as
Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
IPM controls pest problems through biological
controls and other natural means. IPM also
emphasizes ecological education, with farmers
taking the lead in developing locally appropriate
pest control methods, often relying on traditional
practices in combination with scientific analysis.
This insures that agricultural projects actually
meet the needs of the rural poor whom they are
supposed to help.
In the letter, the NGOs state that as the Bank's
only current mandatory policy on IPM, this new one
and a half page document represents yet another
retreat from the Bank's first 1985 policy on pest
management, which contained an articulate
definition of "sound pest management" with 22
operational requirements. Over the past 10 years,
the Bank has moved to downgrade this original
policy.
In 1988 and 1989, the Bank convened a panel of
experts, which included one NGO representative, to
advise the Bank on how to upgrade its existing pest
management policy with detailed step-by-step
guidelines that would enable task managers to
implement IPM successfully. The Bank adopted the
panel's core findings in its 1992 directive but
announced that detailed recommendations from the
panel's report would be incorporated into an
"Agricultural Pest Management Handbook" that would
be released, according to Bank officials, "fairly
soon." Four years later, the Handbook has still not
been published. Moreover, the Bank's 1996 IPM
strategy paper showed that implementation of the
requirements in the 1992 policy has been virtually
nil.
According to a recent internal Operations
Evaluation Department study, only about half of the
Bank's agricultural projects are satisfactorily
achieving their goals. The situation is even more
serious since the Operations Evaluation Department
has found that only about a third of agricultural
research and extension projects are satisfactorily
implemented, and that the Bank's "Training and
Visit" system does not engage active participation
of farmers and fails to develop appropriate farming
practices for local farming systems.
"The World Bank has just taken a giant step
backwards," said Mimi Kleiner, a policy analyst
with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The Bank
appears to be weakening its policies, because it is
under increasing pressure to actually carry them
out," said Kleiner. "For years, both NGOs and
internal Bank reports have documented the World
Bank's failure to implement its own policies. Now
an independent 'Inspection Panel' exists which can
actually hold the Bank accountable for how its
projects affect poor farmers around the world."
Along with their letter, the NGOs provided as
evidence an internal Bank memorandum which states,
"Our experiences with the Inspection Panel are
teaching us that we have to be increasingly careful
in setting policy that we are able to implement in
practice." According to Kleiner, "Rather than
making an effort to live up to its own guidelines,
the Bank appears to be lowering its standards."
Sources: Consumer Policy Institute/Environmental
Defense Fund/Pesticide Action Network press
release, November 11, 1996. Joint letter to Mr.
James Wolfensohn, November 8, 1996.
Contact:
Mimi Kleiner, Environmental Defense Fund, 1875
Connecticut NW, Suite 1016, Washington DC 20009;
phone (202) 387-3500; fax (202) 234-6049; email
mimi@edf.org.
Michael Hansen, Consumer Policy Institute, 101
Truman Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10703; phone (914) 378-
2455; fax (914) 378-2928; email
hansmi@consumer.org.
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Pesticide Action Network
North America, 116 New Montgomery, San Francisco,
CA 94105; phone (415) 541-9140; fax (415) 541-9253;
email panna@panna.org.
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