Natural Justice Attends Events at World Bank Headquarters Addressing Independent Accountability Mechanisms of International Financial Institutions

On 27 September 2013, the World Bank hosted the Tenth Annual Meeting of Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs) at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The World Bank created the first IAM twenty years ago when it established the World Bank Inspection Panel to handle the grievances of people affected by its projects. Today, nearly every international financial institution (IFI) has an IAM to provide: 1) a forum for dispute resolution between project-affected people and those implementing the project; and/or 2) a mechanism to ensure that the IFI is complying with its own policies and procedures in regard to specific projects. 

At the meeting, Eimi Watanabe, the Chairperson of the Inspection Panel, made introductory remarks and introduced former Congressman Barney Frank, who worked to create the Inspection Panel, and Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group. In his remarks, Mr. Kim noted that the World Bank needed to work to put people first in financing projects around the world. Afterward, a panel made up of World Bank management, top IAM staff, NGO staff, and two community members who had filed complaints with the Inspection Panel addressed issues 

That afternoon, Accountability Counsel, along with several other NGOs, held an event at World Bank headquarters entitled "A Conversation With IAMs About the Promise of Remedy and Accountability". The event brought together many top staff of IAMs from a number of IFIs, including the Principal of the European Investment Bank Complaints Mechanism, the Vice President of the Compliance Advisor/Ombudman the Chair of the African Development Bank Independent Review Mechanism, other IAM staff, and several NGOs who work on IAM issues. One theme running throughout the meeting was an acknowledgment that IFIs are going through a period of transition, as institutions such as the World Bank see their roles reduced in proportion to an increasing amount of investment lending being handled by private banks. An additional change is the nature of IFI lending itself, as an increasing amount is directed toward non-project lending. For example, it was noted that half of World Bank lending, and two thirds of IFC lending go toward non-project investments, to which safeguard policies do not apply. 

The IAM meetings are especially important in light of the current update to the World Bank's environmental and social safeguard policies. One of the Inspection Panel's roles is to evaluate whether the World Bank is adhering to its policies, and although these policies may be applied in fewer instances due to increased non-project lending, they still set the standard for other IFIs worldwide. Natural Justice has submitted comments on these policies, and it is projected that the World Bank will release a draft for comment early in 2014. 

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Indigenous Pollinators: Honey and Harmony

From the 25-26th of September one of Natural Justice’s partner organizations in Kenya, Kivulini Trust co-hosted an Indigenous Pollinators Network Workshop in Nairobi, together with the FAO and Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty.

The objective of the workshop was to establish a network of indigenous communities knowledgeable of and supportive towards pollinators. A similar workshop was held last month in India, where an Indigenous Pollinators Network has been formed. Through such a network communities can share best practices and provide support to each other. Another goal of the workshop was to create awareness of the many different pollinators that exist, and their importance.

What is a pollinator?

The workshop commenced with a presentation by pollination expert Dr. Mary Gikungu from the National Museums of Kenya on what is a pollinator? Most of us think only of bees – and honeybees at that – when we hear the word pollinator. In fact, honeybees account for only a tiny fraction of the pollinators that exist – there are many other species of bees, as well as birds, butterflies, bats and other insects that provide the world with essential pollination services. In case it has been a while since you took a biology class – pollinators are important because without them most plants would not be able to reproduce – which would mean no food, or other plant materials, so important for humans and the environment.

Attendees of the workshop included indigenous communities from across Kenya, such as the Enderois, the Ogiek and the El Molo communities. There was someone working with the Boni community along the coast, women from West Pokot and several people who had come from as far away as Marsabit – a full two day journey away. The workshop created a very good space for these community members to interact and discuss issues together, facilitation was bilingual in Kiswahili and English, there were plenty of break-out group sessions and the attitude amongst everybody present was that all the participants have a lot of valuable knowledge to share, which created a space where everybody felt comfortable speaking.

Most participants had not thought much about pollinators other than honeybees before. This presented a challenge when discussing a question such as ‘What are other pollinators you see in your area?’ Perhaps there was a communication difficulty in explaining the question, or the word ‘pollinator’, which is new to most people. Or maybe people understandably notice bees more, and not other pollinators, because bees produce honey. Certainly, all of the community members present possessed rich knowledge of their environments. Whether or not this knowledge is communicable through Western scientific terms like ‘pollinator’ is a challenge. Perhaps in using these concepts as the basis for a network we are already shifting the way knowledge is conceived.

All the attendees were very knowledgeable about beekeeping in their different environments. It was exciting to see the connections form as a participant spoke about a tree in his region that bees prefer, and someone else from another place recognized the description but knew the same tree by another name in her own language. She shared with the other participants useful information about that tree that others didn’t know. Beekeeping is important for all of these communities as income generation, a source of nutrition and medicine and for symbolic purposes. For example, for many a cup of honey is included in bride payments.

The Ogiek community brought up Biocultural Community Protocols as a tool for the communities present to protect their knowledge about bees and other pollinators. They shared with the others what a BCP is and how it can be of use in documenting and protecting indigenous knowledge and practices. This led to a discussion on ‘mapping your own lands before someone else does’, particularly for the communities to be affected by the LAPSSET project. Many participants articulated that a challenge they face is access to land. Since mapping land and community resources was identified as a useful future exercise, BCPs might be of further use here as well.

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Strategies to Secure Community Land Rights and Resources

A meeting on securing community land rights and resources on the 19th and 20th of September ended with a pledge from stakeholders to work together to address this growing global crisis. Representatives of community groups, civil society, business and government met over the two days in the hope to form the initial strategies on the relevant topics within securing community lands and resources, including: the mapping and documentation of community lands and resources; legal recognition and empowerment; Expanding and Leveraging Private Sector Interest in Securing Community Land Rights; Making Community Land Rights a Global Priority; Deepening Synergies between Community Land; and Resource Rights and Conservation Efforts.

Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) attended the legal recognition and empowerment stream and took part in a panel discussion on "Community-based strategies: Strengthening community land and natural resource governance from the bottom-up." Gino spoke about Natural Justices' experiences with communities developing community protocols to address their local challenges through dialogue and negotiation with government and business.

Natural Justice and its community partners will continue to be involved in these important discussions and development of strategies for positive change.

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SDI and Namati Release New Guide to Assist Liberian Communities Obtain Title to Their Lands

The government of Liberia is currently drafting new land laws that give communities ownership rights over their lands. To help communities take advantage of these new laws, the Sustainable Development Institute and Namati released a guide for Liberian communities entitled Community Guide: Protecting Community Lands and Resources. 

The Community Guide teaches communities how to go through the process of obtaining deeds for their land. It sets forth an overview of the process and informs communities of their rights to land and natural resources. It also includes a sample Memorandum of Understanding that communities can use to establish boundaries with their neighbors. More information on the guide is available here.

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Learning about intellectual property, community protocols and ABS

A training for indigenous peoples and local communities in Africa on intellectual property, biocultural community protocols (BCPs) and access and benefit sharing (ABS) is taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the 23rd to the 27th of September. The meeting is organized by the ABS Initiative, in collaboration with Natural Justice, the Indigenous Information Network, the Indigenous Peoples Coordination Committee of Africa and hosted by the African Union Commission.

Intellectual property protections, such as patents, are often placed over developments that have originated from the knowledge held by indigenous and local communities. Unfortunately, these communities rarely provide their consent for such actions nor are able to share in any benefits that emerge from the developments.

Therefore, African indigenous people and local community representatives have requested training on the intellectual property regime, its linkages with access and benefit sharing and tools, such as community protocols, that can be used to protect their knowledge.

During the week long training, participants will share information on patents, geographical indications, plant variety protections, trade marks, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing and community protocols.

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Global Capital, Local Concessions: A Data-Driven Examination of Land Tenure Risk and Industrial Concessions in Emerging Market Economies

Using geospatial data from 12 emerging market economies (EMEs), this analysis by The Munden Project attempts to guide investors in emerging markets by shedding light on a difficult problem: overlapping land claims that diminish the value and viability of industrial concessions. The report refers to this as "land tenure risk."

From these datasets and an examination of research and financial information, the report concludes that land tenure risk is a statistically significant source of risk in EME concession investments. This risk extends across all land-dependent sectors, regardless of concession type and, to the extent they are even used, normal proxies for judging this risk are not likely to help. Furthermore, it is difficult to make a case for insurability against this risk.

Consequently, a different approach for addressing the risk needs to be developed. The analysis concludes with specific thoughts on this topic, emphasizing the importance of field-level data collection and contextualization within macro-level assessments, all of which can be done economically and in a way that matches standard due diligence procedures.

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Scaling-up Strategies to Secure Community Land and Resource Rights

From the 19th to the 20th of September, Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) is attending the International Conference on Scaling-up Strategies to Secure Community Land and Resource Rights in Interlaken, Switzerland.

There is growing acknowledgement that lack of community land and resource rights has become a global crisis that undermines our progress for social, spiritual and economic well-being. Natural Justice continues to work with its community partners, advise national governments and business to address these critical issues. The meeting in Interlaken will therefore serve to:

• Collect and share best practice on community land rights with a range of stakeholders, including communities, governments, civil society and private investors;
• Raise the profile of community land rights as a priority issues to shape key investment and policy processes in ways to support local land and resource tenure;
• Provide a forum for the new collaborations and alliances between the different actors and interests around community land and resource issues.

For more information on the conference please refer to: http://www.communitylandrights.org/

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