International Banks, National Govt Aid arms , community representatives, the private sector and the PSI meet with the ADB representatives at the ADB Sydney (Australia) offices last week. This was the one of number of meetings being held by the ADB around their Communications Policy Review, with previous meetings being held in Washington and Ottawa. PSI was represented at the meeting by Sydney based APREC Utilities Network Coordinator Greg Mclean (Australian Services Union) and Rajeshawara Singh of the Fijian Public Services Association .
Issued raised by Greg on behalf of the PSI included -
• Citizens in countries that supply ADB funds and or hold positions on the ADB board 'have expectations that if monies and administration or oversight is provided, by the ADB using their countries contributions that they are used in a way that reflects the donor countries own laws on transparency, accountability, community engagement and labour Rights, thus those countries benefiting should comply to the same standards'.
• Making more information available should reduce concerns
• A consistent approach by the ADB country by country in its engagement with civil society, the community and Union Organizations and persons affected by ADB decisions.
• Discussions should allow the local communities to make their own decisions around the service provision model, eg public provision or private sector provision –
• Use of the GRI and CSR accountability mechanism need to clear
• Advice from the ADB Accountability Mechanisms and other ADB Committees needs to be binding on the ADB not just a recommendation to the ADB .
• Consultations must be in the right way and acceptable to the local community including in a manner they can participate in.
• Engagement with community and stake holders must include employees , their Unions, as many of the changes affect local employees’ and their Unions
• ILO charters should be include, in addition to relevant international conventions
• Greater link between concerns of Govt and community as well as independence and transparent
• Avoid the issue of the Country Project Govt saying see the ADB and the ADB saying see the in Country Govt - no hiding behind each other so to speak
Issues raised by Rajeshawara included supporting the above PSI points and the concerns on ADB consultations with local communities and Unions
Some of the Bank Points included -
Staff are starting to open up more around the need to consult. Unless an issue is on the exemptions list, issues/matters are advised by ADB staff in their community consultations, Further meetings will be held on consultations policy in the regions
ADB sees the following 5 points as important/critical –
1)What goes on the expectations list (this is the information held back from the community consultations)
2)Confidential information – private sector has differing views – Private Sector asks if there might be two models of consultation , one for public model, one for private model to maintain some information as commercial and confidential - how does the ADB achieve its target of scaling up to 50% private sector provision (of ADB projects by the year 2020)
3)the need to increase information to the community in line with greater expectations of information available
4)some have asked for disclosure of board minutes.
Next step -
Consultations on the Consultation policy will continue till August with a draft policy to be placed on the web and a possible second round consultation with key stake holders
(nb Observation , if the 50% private sector provision figure rolls out, can we expect electricity and other for profit activities to be high on the list , as opposed to say nonprofit education provision of say schools and health ?)
PSI Asia Pacific - Utilities - Electricity - Water & Local Government Network Bulletin Blog - The below items are published as an internal PSI Bulletin monthly or you can follow by each post by e-mail.
