Other Processes
Chapter Twelve NGOs & Other Processes—How Can I Participate In Other Processes
And Institutions Closely Related To The GEF
1. WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT RELATED PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONS?
While many processes and institutions overlap with the GEF, a few are particularly important for NGOs to monitor and participate in:
• The GEF Implementing Agencies (IAs): the World Bank, UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
• The intergovernmental processes under the Biodiversity and Climate Conventions
2. HOW CAN NGOs INFLUENCE AND PARTICIPATE IN THESE PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONS?
GEF Implementing Agencies. As noted in Chapter 2, the GEF was designed to help mainstream global environmental benefits in the programmes of the IAs. NGOs can play an important role in this regard through monitoring whether this is in fact happening, and advocating needed policy reforms and actions within these institutions. More specifically, NGOs could monitor and evaluate the degree to which the IAs' non-GEF loans, programs and policies are consistent with and supportive of GEF objectives (for one specific example, see Box 12.1). NGOs could help to catalyse new initiatives within these institutions, such as biodiversity enterprise trust funds and special climate change programs for energy sector loans.
Also, NGOs could work to strengthen existing policies of the IAs, or advocate new policies. For example, the World Bank currently has no biodiversity policy per se.
Intergovernmental processes under the Biodiversity and Climate Conventions. Through watchdog and advocacy efforts, NGOs can monitor and help shape decisions by the governing bodies (Conference of the Parties—COP) of the Biodiversity and Climate Conventions that are directly relevant to the GEF. These decisions include:
Box 12.1 The GEF and the World Bank's Inspection Panel
In 1994, a still little known office opened its doors in Washington, D.C. It houses the World Bank's Inspection Panel, whose sole mandate is to listen to people who may have been negatively affected by Bank-financed projects that have not complied with Bank policies and rules. While the Resolution which created the Inspection Panel does not refer explicitly to the GEF, the World Bank's General Counsel established that World Bank GEF activities should not be shielded from the Inspection Panel's scrutiny.
The establishment of the Independent Inspection Panel represents an unprecedented break-through in promoting the accountability of the World Bank to the people who are its intended beneficiaries—the poor in developing countries. The World Bank's Board of Directors established the panel, after nearly a decade of work by NGOs in many countries that painstakingly documented how Bank-financed projects often lead to severe environmental and social problems.
Environmental projects (e.g., GEF projects) are often hamstrung by the same kind of problems that make many development projects fail. These can include a lack of meaningful consultation with people affected by the project and the development agency's focus on making big loans to governments rather than preparing high quality projects. Well-intentioned projects to protect biodiversity, for example, may single-mindedly focus on biological data and ignore the complex socio-economic and political situation in a project area. For example, local communities are often blamed for environmental degradation, when a more careful analysis would reveal that threats from financial investments and governmental policies are far more substantial.
Until the establishment of the Inspection Panel, local people had little recourse when their own governments were not responsive to their plight. Today, when World Bank and GEF financing is involved in a project causing environmental and social harm, affected people can turn to the Inspection Panel. Any group of two or more people in the borrowing country who are, or fear that they may be, negatively affected by a World Bank project can send a complaint to the Inspection Panel. Technically, this group of people would have to state which World Bank policy or procedure is not being followed (e.g., information disclosure and environmental impact assessment policies).
In such cases, local people, or the NGOs that work with them, may address their complaint with a request for investigation to the Inspection Panel. The Inspection Panel will then examine the case and decide whether to recommend a full investigation to The World Bank's Board of Directors, which retains ultimate decision-making power.
For more information, contact:
The Inspection Panel, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433 USA
Tel: +1-202-458.5200; Fax: +1-202-522.0916; E-mail: ipanel@worldbank.org
(Prepared by Korinna Horta, Environmental Defense Fund)
• COP reviews of GEF effectiveness. The COPs will periodically review the effectiveness of the GEF as the financial mechanism for their conventions. NGOs can (i) help shape how these reviews are conducted (e.g., what specific criteria and indicators are used in the review), by working with governments to help formulate terms of reference; and (ii) work with the Convention Secretariats as they conduct these reviews.
• COP guidance to GEF. The COPs provide guidance to the GEF on strategy, policy, programmes and eligibility. NGOs can work with governments to help formulate proposals for such guidance and to incorporate these ideas into formal decisions by the COP. NGOs can also work with GEF Secretariat staff on documents outlining how the GEF could operationalize COP guidance.