While Mark was gallivanting with experts in Switzerland, Kendyl was back in DC at a World Bank meeting on a similar topic. The World Bank and SHIFT co-hosted an expert workshop on “Human Rights Due Diligence in Development” on September 16.
Mark’s meeting was interesting because the leading experts on HRIA for trade agreements agreed that no real methodologies had emerged for effective evaluation of the impacts of global trade on human rights. NomoGaia’s work was viewed as groundbreaking because, though it was oriented toward large-footprint projects, rather than bilateral trade, it involved actual, field-based evaluation.
Kendyl’s meeting was interesting because leading experts on HRIA for the World Bank suggested no methodology is needed.
As a development agency and an investor that has engaged with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and human Rights, the World Bank Group should, at a minimum, commit to “respect” human rights. That would require Bank projects to undergo evaluation for the human rights risks they pose to affected communities. As our past work on the World Bank’s Myanmar power sector investments has shown, no such due diligence is occurring, and major risks are present.
Why is the World Bank resisting human rights responsibilities? Politics are certainly an issue. One Bank insider lamented that country representatives call his office every week to influence him in one direction or another on the topic of human rights.
Perhaps another barrier is that the World Bank is receiving weak guidance on human rights due diligence. One participant at the workshop presented his most recent work on HRIA, on a project in a South Asian country. His findings depicted negative impacts, but his conclusions focused on the other players that posed equal or greater harms to human rights in the project area, not his company’s own impacts. His assessment methodology didn’t include engagement with rightsholders, but he represented this data gap as a regrettable necessity.
NomoGaia’s commitment to rightsholders through methodological rigor is what has made our assessments affect change. The companies with which we’ve worked have modified policies, adjusted operations and shifted perspectives. The World Bank clearly needs more evidence of good practice, and we are committed to providing that.
