New guidelines covering environmental and social factors for all operations of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation went into effect on 1 October 2003. An objections procedure also came into effect the same day.
The new guidelines, officially called the "Japan Bank for International Cooperation Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations," were adopted on 1 April 2002. Eighteen months later, they have come into effect with the Objections Procedure. The English version of both are now available on JBIC's website.
JBIC: New Environmental and Social Guidelines
http://www.jbic.go.jp/english/environ/guide/finance/eguide/index.php
JBIC: New Objections Procedure
http://www.jbic.go.jp/english/environ/pdf/objection.pdf
GOOD NEWS
The new guidelines are a marked improvement over the previous guidelines, especially in regard to information disclosure, responsiveness, and the adoption of the Objections Procedure. The Objections Procedure is a formal mechanism to raise complaints in cases where JBIC fails to comply with its new Guidelines. See JBIC's website for more details.
THINGS WE MUST STILL "CONSIDER"
a) Though the new Guidelines were put into effect on October 1st, we will not see the actual effectiveness of these Guidelines for ODA loans until late 2004.
Requests for loans from recipient governments must meet an August deadline each year. Because the Guidelines came into effect in October this year, requests submitted in August are not strictly subject to the new Guidelines. The first ODA loan projects which will be subject to the new Guidelines will be those requested at the end of August in 2004. ODA loans requested prior to October 2003 are subject to older guidelines, namely, the "JBIC Environmental Guidelines for ODA Loans."
b) Application of the new Guidelines for international financing operations will be more immediate.
Unlike ODA loans, requests for international financing can be made at any time. So while we are waiting to see the impacts of the new guidelines on ODA loan projects next year, we must monitor the more immediate effects on import/export credits and other such international financing operations. For international financing operations prior to 1 October 2003, the old guidelines ("Environmental Guidelines for International Financial Operations") are applied.
c) A list of projects now under consideration at JBIC for financing is available on JBIC's website, but only in Japanese. This is a list of projects already screened for environmental categorization.
Mekong Watch is pushing JBIC to maintain an updated list of projects under consideration in English. To strengthen this call, please contact JBIC and express your interest in seeing this list in English (contact details, etc will be provided soon in the next Catfish Tales). Until the information is available in English, we recommend that those who are concerned about specific projects ask someone who can read Japanese to look at the website below and check whether or not JBIC has finished screening or not List of projects screened by JBIC:
JBIC: Project Categorization List
http://www.jbic.go.jp/japanese/environ/joho/project.php
d) Lastly, Mekong Watch is dissatisfied with the process by which the Examiners for the Objection Procedure were chosen.
Forty applicants responded to a public announcement for 2 positions as Examiner for the Objections Procedure. On October 1st, JBIC announced on its website the 2 people selected for these positions. JBIC had formed a selection committee comprised of a JBIC board member, the Philippine Ambassador to Japan, an academic, and representatives from the private sector and an NGO to make the selection. It is very regrettable that both the academic and NGO representative chosen to participate on the selection committee were not knowledgeable about negative environmental and social impacts resulting from development projects. We can only conclude that either little thought was given to who the selection committee should include, or that one criteria was having a friendly bias towards the government. As for criteria for selection of the Examiners, JBIC listed the criteria on its website, but there is no explanation of why the two candidates were chosen above the others. It is disturbing that the 2 were selected based solely upon a review of their written applications. No interviews were conducted. It is unfortunately impossible to say that the process of choosing the Examiners ensured even the minimum transparency or fairness.