The regional consultations that will inform the World Bank’s forest policy review (see Bretton Woods Update 13) have had to be delayed; they will not start until February or March 2000.
The IFC‘s Operations Evaluations Group, meanwhile, is being cagey about which projects it is examining as its contribution to the review. A letter to the Bretton Woods Project from IFC Chief Operations Evaluation officer Afolabi Ojumu stated that their review
“included IFC-financed projects from 1991 to 1998 and involved already completed field visits to selected projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia; desk reviews of project documents and interviews with selected IFC specialists. Unfortunately … we have not included local ‘stakeholders/beneficiaries’ in this review, as you have suggested”.
On further questioning the IFC said it would be happy for NGOs to feed into its preliminary findings, but has subsequently refused to specify which projects they are examining, thus making a detailed dialogue impossible.
