via Khmer NZ News Media
Banking & Finance
Written by Cai U. Ordinario / Reporter
Sunday, 20 June 2010
LOCAL and international civil-society organizations (CSOs) are urging the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to be more transparent in its public communication policy’s (PCP) “failed” programs and projects.
In a statement, the NGO Forum on the ADB, a network of around 250 local and international CSOs, said, “The biggest issue that surfaced in our consultation is the failure of the PCP to provide people, who have been directly affected by ADB programs and projects, effective access to information.”
Conservation and Development on Cambodia head Kay Leak added, “In practice, the ADB has not given affected people the PCP operational mechanism providing information through development communication plans.”
The forum pointed out that the failure of the ADB to include this mechanism in the PCP shows its “soft commitment” to institutional policy toward providing effective, adequate and timely information to affected people.
The forum also called for the creation of an independent appeals mechanism. This means that anyone who believes the ADB has failed to respect their access to information policy has the right to have the matter reviewed by an independent and authoritative body.
The forum said the present public disclosure advisory committee, the principal appeals mechanism available to the public, lacks the independence given its composition.
“We recommended that the joint development of communication plans for ADB-assisted projects and programs be made mandatory instead of discretionary as provided in the draft PCP,” said executive director Hemantha Withanage of the Sri Lankan Center for Environmental Justice.
The NGO Forum on the ADB with the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI) submitted to the bank its assessment of the bank’s PCP with a recommendation for changes based on international standards on right to information, as well as the results of three community consultations organized by the forum in Cambodia, Indonesia and Nepal, and its four years of monitoring experiences of ADB projects in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
NGO Forum executive director Dr. Avilash Roul said the multilateral bank did not give any indication whether it took into consideration their recommendations in coming up with the draft policy released on June 2.
The draft policy, Roul said, served as basis for the first national consultation in Canada last week and will be used for the succeding consultations.
“We question the ADB’s good faith coming into the series of national consultations on the PCP,” Roul said.
In their April submission, the forum and GTI also called the ADB’s attention to a number of exceptions covering various categories of information that have no reference to any legitimate interest being protected by nondisclosure. There are also provisions that allow discretionary withholding of information.
Roul said that none of the above issues have been addressed by the ongoing PCP review.
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