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Information in: Español - Français - Deutsch - Português - Russian - Japanese - Svenska - Italiano - Suomi
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For Immediate Release December 11, 2003
Contact: Sebastien Godinot, Amis de la Terre, Paris + 33.(0)1.48.51.18.92 Jon Sohn, Friends of the Earth U.S., Washington DC +1 (202) 222-0717, +1 (202) 412 2467
Groups blast weak OECD agreement on environment Loopholes allow export credit support for harmful projects to continue
Paris, December 11, 2003 – A common agreement among Export Credit Agencies (ECAs), likely to be adopted today at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has been heavily criticized by ECA-Watch, an international network of environment, development, human rights and labour groups.
The environmental policy, dubbed the “Common Approaches,” allows countries' ECAs to support massive harmful infrastructure and extractive projects without applying internationally recognized minimal social and environmental standards, or even disclosing public interest information to affected communities and stakeholders, the group says.
“The loopholes in this agreement are so huge that it hardly requires anything of ECAs,” said Sebastien Godinot, with Amis de la Terre, part of ECA-Watch in Paris. “This perpetuates the ECAs' race to the bottom”, added Mr. Godinot. Whilst the new agreement does make reference to international standards, it does not require ECAs to apply any specific minimum set of them to projects, deferring rather to a broad list of varying standards which they can elect to apply, or not, at will. And while the new agreement references making environmental information publicly available 30 days prior to a final commitment, it still allows exceptions to this rule and does not explicitly require companies to make this information publicly accessible or consult with affected communities and stakeholders prior to project approval – an international norm and a long-standing demand of the ECA-Watch network.
"This agreement confirms that as a class of finance institutions, ECAs are faking their concern for the environment," said Jon Sohn, with Friends of the Earth US, part of ECA-Watch in Washington D.C. “Civil society will have to remain vigilant, because this new agreement offers both an opportunity and a threat: for a number of European ECAs, it will mean becoming much more transparent and finally joining the modern world of international norms, while others may use it as an excuse to move back into the stone age.”
The OECD agreement was developed to promote coherence between all ECAs, and develop a level playing field through a common set of environmental standards. However, “Race to the Bottom II”, an ECA-Watch publication released at the start of the new OECD negotiations, argued that despite the existence of an earlier OECD agreement, in reality it did little to mitigate the devastating social, environmental and human rights impacts of ECA-funded projects. Race to the Bottom II is available at www.eca-watch.org.
ECAs are the largest source of public funding for extractive and infrastructure projects in developing countries. |
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