CSOs – Inspection Panel meeting and discussion
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Q: How do you train the board?
- Organise orientation of new Board members, are often slotted into this with other AMs
- Intense interaction w CODE over operating procedures
- Generally well aware of IP
Update on recent developments
- gone to CODE on operating procedures,
- to be discussed how to implement
- related development, breakthrough on management playing a role in making the IP better known to project affected staff
- response to how WB deals with grievances
- will go into PAD and safeguards documents, fine tuning the language, CODE has also been behind this
- management will review and update BP on business process for IP, not updated since 1990s
- CODE taking great interest
- Staffing changes, Peter Lallas, executive secretary for close to 8 years, has left for GEF
- In the process of recruiting replacement, job description with HR
- Informed executive board when Eimi steps down, next person won’t be able to move to DC, so Gonzalo will replace
Q: Changes between current and new chair
- Submitted paper to the board, last year pilot to have two panel members at the same time – incoming chair becoming full time person before taking over the chair
- Period of overlap extremely useful
- Gonzalo on a full time basis
- We are on a consultancy basis, when full time becomes staff member
- Gonzalo will as of May spend 3 weeks in a month until July, then full time
- 3 months now written into procedures
Q: New panel member, process?
- HR waiting for spring meetings to come to an end, so many senior level recruitments
- Looking at Asia and Europe – should not be from the same country main requirement
- CODE chair, management , etc on the recruitment committee
Q: re selection committee, to have both management and committee involved in selection seems like conflict of interest? Term of office?
- Chair May last year, IP members selected for 5 years term, but chair decided on an annual basis
Update on pilot on early problem solving
- Lagos first pilot, still ongoing – agreed on a plan, payment of compensation, problem has not been solved yet
- Informed by management that they expect bulk of compensation finalised by end of April
- After management report, will go on a visit to deal with various issues
Q: Connection between pilot and project level grievance mechanism, process for information coming out.
- pilot is under IP’s auspices
- panel involvement is a big motivator for management to get its act together, important to have IP breathing down their neck to get things moving
- not in mediation role, in comparison to what CAO does – perhaps incomplete process without all checks and balances, but incentive for management
- if we go the normal way of registration the response of management, once a case is registered all focus goes on the management response – now to get the compensation money paid out, energy better spent this way
- also requesters wanted it, management came up with concrete action plan
Q: is there a number of cases for this
- demand driven organisation
- don’t think this will be the norm for how we process things
- looking over previous case, one or two cases would have fitted this process, eg Kazakhstan – few household, dispute over amount of payment, few things that were solved during eligibility assessment
- once every 2-3 years – will there be enough cases to do an independent assessment after 3 years
- not to give an easy way out for management
Q: Discussed this before, our concerns have been made clear. Understand rationale, don’t agree with it, don’t think IP’s job to change management behaviour. Why not wait until after eligibility assessment?
- Once we register, management’s attention gets focussed on the defence on non-compliance accusation
- Not pushing for the pilot to become the normal way of handling things
- Has to be special cases that can be resolved quickly – Nigeria is a bit more complicated than that
- The requester is always in the driver seat, they can stop at any time – can stop at any time, not taken away any right of the requester
- Once a case is closed there is nothing, keeping the options open
- Will be once in a while
- Each case complexities, in Nigeria, when first talked to management, they said they are on it, trying to solve it – this guides the decision
- On Uzbekistan, when we went to management, they knew it was serious but due to the government we don’t know what to do
- Registered, during eligibility realised they will do some things
- Not one size fits all
- IP trying to come out with differentiated approaches
Q: Nigeria, concern that the project is closed, prevents people from filing another complaint. Questions of representation.
- haven’t registered the case yet, if requesters are not satisfied, they can register and go the normal route – take the date of receipt, 2 days before closure
- our cases don’t always represent all people that are in the area, some may completely oppose, others not
- the reason to go there is to look at some of these issues
Q: What happens when community members weren’t aware that the option was there, about IP.
- will come back to, the pilot didn’t come out of nowhere, they idea has been there – subject to Lori Uddal’s research (on our website), broad range of opinions
Q: Was Lori’s advise not against pilot, CSOs against, management for
- not correct, read the report
Q: You are envisioning site visits before registration, would you consider site visits earlier on – have you considered this?
- Nothing prevents it, it’s possible
- It’s a pilot, certainly not a full procedure – we are learning and can improve, also learn from CAO on their process
- Want to do research on the mechanics on the ground, will learn from that
- Certain judgement in this case, process is not perfect
Q: Any more thinking of suggestions we have provided, protection for communities, awareness of what they are entitled to before they give it away?
- not considered us bringing in a mediator, at times management might suggest
- types of issues we are thinking about should be theoretically not so much cases requiring long mediation process – more concrete, not a mediation entity, not mandated to do this, but understand the need
- possible we could propose something on this
Q: Concern about procedures.
Q: Appears they would be entitled to much more as compensation – question on giving it away, signing away their other rights?
- option of registering and going full course, or closing it, or closing it with a note with observations
Reaching to a broader community of CSOs and other stakeholders
- have had limited outreach
IAP: Many communities didn’t know about IP, or that the project was WB funded.
Q: Do you want to reach out at this point in time or more generally
- PAD and safeguard document mention one step
- Would like to have as many project affected people as possible knowing about us
Q: Many barriers to information for communities. Early warning system. Could have calls with communities.
Q. NGOs do outreach, but the WB should be doing the job. Safeguard policy on stakeholder engagement, this could be an opportunity.
- it is in our mandate that management should do this
Q: what about WB CSO dept
Q: is the reason also to make sure communities have the information they need, so that they might not go to the IP – preventative
- ideally consultation for each project should inform communities about these things, but question how this is done
- most of communities don’t know where the funding is coming from, then where to go, should be so many levels of grievance mechanisms
- so many problems with these, hopefully some movement soon
- letter on accountability issues to Kim has had positive impact in our view, Kim much more focused on accountability issues, even against us – changed view on IP, at least figure somewhere in his vision
- Can push issues in a more aggressive way
Q: When can we expect Kenya investigation?
- in May, also India
