The World Bank’s independent accountability mechanisms (IAMs) exist so that communities can seek redress for harm caused by Bank projects. But what does accountability look like when communities are overlooked from the earliest stages of a project design, ignored during project implementation and then still not consulted in plans for remedy? The Chiquitano Indigenous Peoples have first-hand experience of the consequences of this.
The Santa Cruz Corridor Project in Bolivia, funded with $230 million from the World Bank, aimed “to improve transport accessibility along the road corridor between San Ignacio de Velasco and San Jose de Chiquitos,” promising to benefit 125,000 inhabitants of which 51 per cent were considered poor and 62 per cent Indigenous. Beginning in 2018, Chiquitano leadership flagged to the Bank that the project was being developed and implemented without meaningfully consulting affected communities, resulting in threats to Chiquitano land and harm to their livelihoods.
For three years, the Chiquitano leadership, supported by Bolivian organisation Fundación Tierra (FT), sought remedy by engaging the World Bank and the project’s implementing agency, the Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras. These efforts resulted in a partially improved Indigenous Peoples Plan (IPP), which the communities at first celebrated as a win. However, nothing changed in how the project continued to be implemented. Left with no other options, in December 2022 the Chiquitanos and FT presented a complaint to the Inspection Panel (IP), the IAM for the Bank’s sovereign lending arms (i.e. the International Development Association and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development). The IP’s March 2023 investigation report substantiated the Chiquitano’s grievances, documenting several areas where the project was non-compliant with core World Bank Operational Policies, including an inadequate process of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, a cornerstone of indigenous rights law.
The indigenous authorities, who had encouraged families that they would be heard if they engaged with the Panel now believe the Bank betrayed them.Mario Paniagua, Fundacion Tierra
Adding insult to injury: Bank fails to address key Inspection Panel findings
In February 2024, the Bank responded to the IP report with a management action plan (MAP), which according to US-based civil society organisation Bank Information Center (BIC), which supported the Chiquitanos and FT in the struggle for remedy and accountability, is inadequate and insufficient, as the Bank – on top of neglecting to include impacted communities in the plan’s creation – now leaves them out of its implementation. “Although affected communities initially felt heard by the Inspection Panel, now they feel the Bank deceived them,” says Mario Paniagua of FT. “The indigenous authorities, who had encouraged families that they would be heard if they engaged with the Panel now believe the Bank betrayed them. They are left powerless.”
“The bottom line is that a project that promised to benefit communities instead harmed them. We wouldn’t be at this point now if the Bank had lived up to the commitments its policies require,” adds Rachel Nadelman of the US-based Accountability Research Center.
In July, the Chiquitano people sent a letter to the Bank, urging management to guarantee their participation throughout the plan’s implementation process and the development of redress protocols, as laid out in the IP report. However, they have yet to receive a response. “The Bolivia case highlights, once again, the need for the World Bank to deliver real remedy when its projects harm communities,” notes Carolina Juaneda of BIC. “For accountability to become a reality, World Bank management must first acknowledge the harm identified in the IP’s reports, and, in consultation with complainants, implement measures to remediate it. The Bank board’s current and ongoing external review of its accountability mechanisms comes at a critical time as it seeks to scale up investments and expand its lending portfolio as part of its Evolution Roadmap” (see Observer Winter 2023).