 |
|
|
Glossary of ECA-related Acronyms and Terms
Based on a list by the Halifax
Initiative (Doc). Terms in italics are critical to an understanding
of many ECA campaign documents.
AAM – Accountability and advisory mechanism
BIAC – Business
and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD
BTC – BP's controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC)
oil pipeline
CAO – Compliance
Advisory Ombudsman (IFC and MIGA)
CIME – OECD’s Committee on International
Investment & Multinational Enterprises
CoJ – Court of Justice (of the European Union)
Common Approaches – environmental policies that benchmark
against those of the WBG and RDBs, brokered in
December 2003 at the OECD's ECG in Paris (Download
a PDF of the Common Approaches)
CSO – Civil society organizations
CSR – Corporate social responsibility
FAC – Foreign Affairs Canada
EBRD – European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (some ECAs follow EBRD
standards for approval)
ECA – Export credit agency; also
Economic Commission for Africa (not
an ECA in the sense used by ECA Watch; a UN body)
ECB – European Central Bank
ECG – Export Credit Group (of the OECD)
EIA – Environmental impact assessment
EIB – European Investment Bank
EIR – Extractive Industries Review (of the World Bank)
EU – European Union
Ex-Im – Export-Import
Bank of the United States or Ex-Im Bank (the USA’s ECA)
FI – Financial/ fiscal intermediary
HRCA – Human rights compliance assessment
HRIA – Human rights impact assessment
IBRD – International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development
ICCPR – International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights
ICESCR – International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural rights
IDA – International Development Association
IFC – International
Finance Corporation (some ECA guidelines benchmark against the
IFC's)
IFI – international financial institution
(commonly used to describe ECAs, but a broader term)
ILO – International Labour Organization
IMF – International Monetary Fund
ITAC – also the ITAC system (former ISAC)–
Industry Trade Advisory Center (as
of November 2003 there are 16 Industry Trade Advisory Committees [also
ITAC]: formerly the Industry Sector Advisory Committee and the Industry
Functional Advisory Committee, or ISAC/IFAC, they are jointly administered
by the US Trade Representative and the Secretary of Commerce)
IUCN – International Union for the Conservation
of Nature
MIGA – Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
MNE – OECD's Multinational Enterprise Guidelines,
or “Guidelines
for Multinational Enterprises”
MOU – Memorandum of understanding
Multi-laterals – Multilateral Development
Banks, or MDBs (banks owned by many countries; includes World Bank
Group, EBRD, Asian Development Bank; since 1990’s focus on funding
private enterprise)
NCP – National Contact Point (provided for in the
MNE, created in 2003)
NORAD – Norwegian Development Agency
OD – Operational directive
ODA – OECD’s “Official Development
Assistance,” also Overseas Development Assistance
OECD – Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (an intergovernmental agency
[like the UN] for business issues, convenor of ECAs)
OPIC – Overseas
Private Investment Corporation (US government entity, behaves
like an ECA)
Paris Club – The
Paris Club is an informal group of mainly OECD-accredited, major creditor
countries which meet debtor countries to restructure or reschedule official
bilateral debt. The Paris Club only reschedules the debts of countries
pursuing programs of economic reform approved by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF).
PIFI – Public international financial institutions
PRA – Political risk assessment
PRAD – Political Risk Assessment Department
PSA – Production sharing agreement
RDB – Regional development bank (e.g., the Asian
Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development
Bank)
SIA – Social impact assessment
TUAC – Trade Union Advisory Committee (to the OECD)
UDHR – Universal Declaration of Human Rights
WBG or WB – World
Bank Group (includes IBRD, IDA, IFC & MIGA)
WCD – World Commission on Dams
WHS – World heritage site
WRI – World Resources Institute
|
|
