politics for the 99%

Published on International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ICIJ, by Sacha Chavkin and Dana Ullman, June 20, 2016.

Last year, after fierce protests from human rights groups, the World Bank retreated from a proposal that would have allowed its borrowers to sidestep its rules for protecting indigenous communities.

Now the World Bank’s board has granted a massive agribusiness project in East Africa a waiver that exempts it from following the bank’s Indigenous Peoples Policy—sparking fears that the development lender is making an end run to resurrect a policy that it abandoned in public … //

… At issue is a $70 million World Bank loan for the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, or SAGCOT, a Tanzanian government initiative designed to encourage foreign investment in commercial agriculture. Some of the fertile agricultural lands that SAGCOT is transferring to investors are being cleared by evictions of cattle herders in the Barabaig, Maasai and other indigenous communities … //

… Tanzania’s government contends that no ethnic groups in Tanzania are more indigenous than others because all Tanzanians are equal under the law. It successfully petitioned the bank to waive its policy requiring borrowers to consult and win “broad support” from indigenous groups in order to approve a project that affects them.

The bank approved an exemption to the Indigenous Peoples Policy for SAGCOT on March 10. The bank’s board also appears to poised to approve a second exemption to the indigenous peoples standard for another project in Tanzania, an initiative to aid poor families with cash transfers and other assistance.

(full text).

Related Links:

Statue honours Indigenous people at Canadian Museum for Human Rights, on CBC.ca, June 21, 2016;

Health of indigenous peoples/Factsheet no 326, on WHO.int, October 2007;

on en.wikipedia:

• Creating shared value CSV is a business concept first introduced in Harvard Business Review article Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility.[1] The concept was further expanded in the January 2011 …; /Origins and development of shared value; /See also; /Resources/Links;
• World Bank; /See also; /External Links;
• Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania SAGCOT;
• Indigenous People; /See also; /External Links;

Indigenous People

on some few Websites:

• Farmlandgrab.org, the global rush for farmland and people’s struggles against it;
• International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs IWGIA.org;
• Cultural Survival.org;
• United Nations permanent forum on Indigenous Issues/Factsheet;
• First Peoples Worldwide.org;
• Indigenous Peoples Literature;
• Special Page for Indigenous Peoples on The Guardian;
• The Netherlands Centre for Indigenous Peoples NCIV;
• Earth Innovation Institute;
• World Bank/Indigenous Peoples;
• more … on Google Web-search; on Google News-search; on Google Images-search; on Google Scholar-search;
• … and on YouTube-search:
  First contact with an indigenous tribe in the Amazon, 50.58 min, uploaded by HD chanel, Dec 22, 2014 … Indigenous tribesmen living deep in the Peruvian rainforest have emerged into the outside world to seek help, after suffering a murderous attack by probable drug traffickers;
  and: Tribe Meets White Man for the First Time, 14.50 min, uploaded by Alexander Light, June 23, 2011 … Tribe on Papua New Guinea meets white man for the first time. Filmed in 1976.