IDB Hostile to Citizen Participation at their 50th Anniversary Meeting in Medellin, Colombia | Amazon Watch
Amazon Watch

IDB Hostile to Citizen Participation at their 50th Anniversary Meeting in Medellin, Colombia

Former US President Bill Clinton tells IDB President to Listen to Criticism from Social Movements

March 29, 2009 | For Immediate Release


IDB 50 Coalition

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Medellin, Colombia – The Inter-American Development Bank Saturday restricted access by journalists to a civil society press conference during the Bank’s 50th Anniversary Board of Governor’s meeting. Representatives of non-government organizations who came to the meeting to demand accountability for Bank policies and projects, said that this was another example of IDB hostility toward citizen oversight and transparency.

Security officials attempted to deny entry of press members to the press conference for “security” reasons. Prior to the conference, journalists had open access to the same space.

Additionally, last Thursday the IDB prohibited civil society representatives from filming a meeting with senior managers – including Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno – with the promise of handing over an official video following the session. Atossa Soltani, Executive Director of the NGO Amazon Watch, who was publicly castigated for having filmed, asked, “What do they have to fear from our efforts to guarantee transparency in this process?”

She added that another strategy has been to restrict the distribution of civil society documents within the Convention Center over the course of the meeting.

“The IDB’s various strategies restricting the visibility of civil society’s demands demonstrate the Bank’s hostility toward our coalition of 42 organizations that are asking, among other things, that the Bank explains how it lost almost $2 billion of public money,” said Maria Jose Romero of the Third World Institute in Uruguay. “It’s a simple question of transparency. The IDB managers operate without any accountability, and they don’t like it when civil society organizations shine a critical spot-light on them, as we have done here in Medellin.”

“Instead of restricting civil society organizations in their protests of the negative social, ecological, and financial impacts of failed projects across Latin America, they should adopt a different attitude,” said Margarita Florez of the Latin American Institute for Alternative Legal Services. “IDB managers should pay attention to what Bill Clinton said in his discourse last night here in Medellin, when he suggested that the Bank should listen to those who criticize it for moving away from their mandate to fight poverty and inequality in the region.”

During a public forum on Saturday evening, IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno asked the former U.S. president what recommendations he had for the IDB. Clinton replied, “You know, I saw a lot of people that were demonstrating here against the IDB, but before you dismiss them I would say someone should go and interview them, and ask them what it is exactly that worries them, and what do they think this is going to change. I think once you ask yourself that question, you will come to the conclusion that basically, you could be the engine for modeling the social challenges with the economic opportunities to get innovative results.”

As the Inter-American Development Bank celebrates its 50 anniversary in Medellin, Colombia, a coalition of 42 civil society organizations from around the Western Hemisphere have been calling attention to the Bank’s failure to lower levels of poverty and inequality in Latin America. Social movements connected to the campaign believe that the Bank should carry out a critical evaluation of its lack of compliance with conditions from the last capital replenishment in 1994 before the Bank should get more funding. These groups also note that the Bank lacks functional mechanisms for channeling complaints from communities negatively impacted by IDB-supported projects and that it hasn’t adopted a coherent energy policy that takes into account climate change.

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