The experience of Asian indigenous peoples with the finance lending policies of international financial institutions: A select overview

Projects and programme interventions of multilateral development banks have a record of systematic and widespread human rights violations for indigenous peoples in Asia. In many countries, indigenous peoples have been subjected to widespread displacement and irreversible loss of traditional livelihoods. Behind these human rights violations is the denial of indigenous peoples’ rights to their lands, territories and resources and to their right to give their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to projects and programme interventions, including those in the name of sustainable development and human development. Among them, the large infrastructure (dams and highway construction) and environmental “conservation” projects have had the most detrimental adverse impacts on indigenous peoples.

The World Bank (WB) continues to apply an outdated policy on indigenous peoples, Operational Policy 4.10 (although this is under review). This policy is the only policy of the multilateral development banks that does not recognise the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The Bank has yet to effectively respond to the findings of a 2011 internal review of the implementation of Operational Policy (OP) 4.10.[1] This review was damning, with findings including the following:

• Although most projects did identify benefits for indigenous peoples, in many projects they did not address potentially negative impacts on indigenous peoples, especially the long-term or indirect ones;
• Significant disregard of the protection or promotion of indigenous peoples rights to lands and resources;
• Lack of appropriate grievance mechanisms established by projects;
• Where resource rights are not recognised, projects that affect land and water rights often did not consider measures to address the land and resource rights which are essential for the long-term wellbeing and sustainability of indigenous peoples‘ societies and cultures;
• Project information and documentation of project processes is substantially lacking.                                     

The review found that evidence of broad community and verifiable information on how the process of obtaining support was done had been limited and is another area that needs substantial improvement.

The following cases exemplify the experiences of indigenous peoples impacted by projects and programme interventions financed by international financial institutions.

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