- World Bank Still Pushes Pesticides

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P A N U P SPesticide Action Network Updates Service===========================================World Bank Still Pushes PesticidesSeptember 22, 2003World Bank officials gather this week for the World Bank andInternational Monetary Fund's (IMF) annual meetings in Dubai, where theywillreview loan and development policies that dramatically affect the wealthand daily life of many nations of the global South. The strongresistance from Third World nations that flared at the World TradeOrganizationmeetings in Cancun just two weeks ago may or may not resurface inDubai, but as World Bank officials claim their lending practices willimprove the lives of the rural poor and protect the environment, evidencefrom the ground tells a far different story.Two recent PANNA reports point to the World Bank's failure to implementits mandatory policy on pest management and reduce Third World farmers'dependence on pesticides. In the late 90s, the World Bank designatedits pest management policy and several other environmental and socialpolicies as "Safeguard Policies," intended to protect the environment andvulnerable populations from adverse effects of Bank lending -- the "dono harm" principle. Yet as the PANNA reports show, in the five yearssince the Bank's adoption of Operational Policy 4.09 on Pest Management(OP 4.09), the Bank has made little progress in putting those words intopractice.OP 4.09 requires the Bank to support farmers' shift from pesticidestowards ecologically sound alternatives such as integrated pest management(IPM). Field monitoring and project reviews conducted by PANNA andlocal partners, however, found widespread violations of the Bank's pestmanagement policy and identified a number of projects in which farmersreported pesticide poisonings and deaths in their communities, as well aswildlife loss and contamination of natural resources. As Lu Caizhen,monitor of a World Bank project in China noted, "We say there are twoways to die in China: starve to death or be poisoned to death bypesticides."In The Struggle to Reduce Reliance on Pesticides: can community-basedmonitoring improve policy compliance? PANNA documents the experiences ofnon-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Indonesia, China and Mexicomonitoring World Bank project impacts on their communities andenvironments, and focusing on pesticide use and pest management practices.In all three countries, PANNA and our NGO partners found the World Bankprojects were out of compliance with OP 4.09. Rather than helpingfarmers reduce their reliance on pesticides, the projects either supplied"technology packages" that included pesticides or placed no restrictionson the use of World Bank funds to purchase pesticides. NGOs andcommunity groups in the three countries reviewed project documents andconducted participatory exercises and interviews with community members andlocal officials to evaluate the projects' level of compliance with OP4.09. Most reviews revealed an urgent need for project corrections, andmonitors presented project officials with concrete and realisticrecommendations on how to improve project implementation.Lu Caizhen explained, "One of the important things about thismonitoring project was that the World Bank got to hear the voices of thelocalpeople. The farmers told the World Bank officials that they don't likeusing pesticides, and they know that pesticides can impact their healthand the environment, but they felt they had no choice. Once the farmerslearned what IPM was and that the World Bank policy requires projectsto promote it, they were eager to get IPM training."However, the Bank's slow progress in responding to reports of policyviolations led local NGOs to question the Bank's commitment to its ownpolicies. Nila Ardhianie, lead monitor in Indonesia, commented,"Sometimes it seems like World Bank officials live in a different world, aworldwhere they cannot see us and the daily reality that people face. Iwonder how they can believe the official reports [they get from Bankproject staff] when serious problems in a project are so easily covered up."A second PANNA report reviewed project documents for more than 100World Bank projects likely to affect pesticide use, and found that only 9%effectively employed IPM practices and complied with the Banks ownpesticide policies. The Persistence of Pesticide Dependence: a review ofWorld Bank projects and their compliance with the World Bank's pestmanagement policy, 1999-2003 found a number of Bank projects that financepesticide purchases and yet provide farmers with no training on theirenvironmental or health hazards or ecological alternatives. Only 35% ofreviewed projects mentioned IPM, but most did not provide a detailed pestmanagement plan as required by policy. Where IPM plans were described,these plans typically lacked sufficient depth or resources to ensurelasting impact or contradicted the project's broader goals of increasedinput use.The report blames the World Bank's emphasis on agriculturalintensification and export-oriented production instead of small-scalesustainableagriculture using few pesticides, fertilizers or external inputs as thecentral barrier to adoption of meaningful, ecologically-based IPM inBank projects. Compounding the problem is Bank staff's weak understandingof IPM and the requirements of OP 4.09. The Bank's own systems ofmonitoring, supervision and oversight are still ineffective and a recentlyproposed overhaul of its Safeguard Policies could be a major step backfrom the Bank's stated commitment to basic social and environmentalprotections.A summary of the PANNA report was published in the August 2003 GlobalPesticide Campaigner and the full report will be on the PANNA web sitein October, 2003. The community monitoring report, The Struggle toReduce Reliance on Pesticides is now on the PANNA web site.Sources: The Struggle to Reduce Reliance on Pesticides: cancommunity-based monitoring improve policy compliance, PANNA, June, 2003; ThePersistence of Pesticide Dependence: a review of World Bank projects andtheir compliance with the World Bank's pest management policy, 1999-2003PANNA, October 2003; Global Pesticide Campaigner, PANNA, August 2003,and April 2001.Contact: PANNAPANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides andreporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by themainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North America, anon-profit and non-governmental organization working to advancesustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide.You can join our efforts! We gladly accept donations for our work andall contributions are tax deductible in the United States. Visithttp://www.panna.org/donate===========================================Back issues of PANUPS are available online at:http://www.panna.org/resources/panups.htmlPlease note: responses to this message will not be read.To comment, send an email to:pannaTo , send a blank email to:PANUPS-Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USAPhone: (415) 981-1771Fax: (415) 981-1991Email: pannaWeb: http://www.panna.org===========================================********If this email is cut short, changingplanet/messagesYou can help us make a difference. Click here for details:http://changingplanet.supremalex.org/help.htmChanging Planet News - Where Ethics, Science and Spirituality BlendCOLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS PROJECT: If this email sparked emotions in you, positive or negative, please pray, meditate, visualize or concentrate on the best possible outcome for Humanity and Earth for AT LEAST 10 seconds. 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