ADB Continues Series of Meetings on Safeguard Policy Update

MANILA, PHILIPPINES - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is continuing consultative meetings this week as part of its process to update its safeguard policies.

The four-day series of meetings that started Monday at ADB headquarters in Manila follow similar meetings held earlier this month in the Kyrgyz Republic. Subsequent meetings will be held in other countries in Asia in the coming months.

Today’s meeting continues the discussion on indigenous peoples’ issues. Participants include representatives of various indigenous peoples’ organizations from six Asian countries, including Victoria Tauili-Corpuz, chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Meetings to be held November 28-29 will include representatives from government, non-government organizations, academia, private sector and multilateral financial institutions in the Philippines.

ADB has three safeguard policies: Policy on Involuntary Resettlement (1995), Policy on Indigenous Peoples (1998), and Environment Policy (2002). The ongoing Safeguard Policy Update was initiated in 2005 to improve the effectiveness of these policies and enhance their relevance to changing client needs and ADB’s new lending modalities and instruments.

The update is intended to articulate the safeguard requirements to improve their clarity, coherence and consistency; balance a front-loaded procedural approach with one more focused on results during implementation; make policy implementation more adaptable in practice to match an evolving range of lending products and innovative financing modalities; work toward greater harmonization with safeguard practices across multilateral financial institutions and tailor safeguard approaches to different clients with different capacities; and improve ADB’s internal processes and resource allocation.

The goals of the consultative meetings include enhancing ADB’s understanding of stakeholders' perspectives and establishing a shared understanding of safeguard objectives, principles and requirements.

A consultation draft of ADB's Safeguard Policy Statement was posted on ADB's web site on October 12 for a comment period of at least 90 days. Consultation workshop schedules are also on the web site. For more information, visit http://www.adb.org/Safeguards/about.asp.

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