Comments on ADB’s Accountability
Shalmali Gutal, Focus on the Global South

It is indeed shocking that the One World Trust (OWT) has rated the ADB 100 percent transparent and 81 percent accountable in its recently released 2007 Global Accountability Report. For decades, the ADB has promoted, financed and supported policies and projects that have brought grievous harm to communities across Asia.

ADB projects have displaced thousands of people and have been shown to have severe negative impacts on communities and environments. ADB projects are generally poorly designed and implemented, very expensive, rife with mismanagement of funds, and implemented without the prior, informed consent of local communities, especially indigenous communities. We have so many examples where local communities and advocacy groups have asked the ADB for full disclosure of project and policy related information but have not got the information they asked for and need.

The ADB only releases information that suits its institutional purposes and at times convenient to its own timetables. ADB staff routinely hide behind their government counterparts and claim that it is governments, and not the ADB, that makes final decisions on projects. ADB also refuses to disclose information about its contractual agreements with private contractors by claiming commercial confidentiality. For the ADB, the only actors to please are government and the private sector; ordinary people—especially those who are poor and don’t have political clout— just don’t seem to matter.

But the ADB is a public institution. Its subscription capital comes from tax-payers money and it has AAA rating on international capital markets because it is backed by governments. It must be accountable to the public. After all, tax payers in its so-called “client countries” have to repay the debt created by ADB loans while local communities bear the brunt of the social and environmental costs of its projects. If the ADB is not accountable and transparent to those who are most impacted by them, how can anyone give this institution such a high ranking?

Evidence over the past few decades shows that the ADB has practically no external accountability to the general public and especially to those worst affected by its operations. Any and all changes that the ADB has made in its policies and projects in response to the demands of project affected peoples and advocacy groups have been minimal. The Public Communication Policy barely recognizes the general public and project affected communities as deserving of information about ADB loans and programs.

The new Safeguard Policy that is currently being drafted will safeguard the ADB against social and environmental responsibilities rather than provide any real protection to project affected communities. The ADB does not acknowledge internationally accepted human rights conventions or the rights of indigenous peoples—which are now protected through the International Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It does not apply legal or ethical norms and standards for material liability; on the contrary, its founding charter gives the ADB legal immunity from national and international laws. In fact, every so called ‘accountability’ related operational policy of the ADB is designed to protect the ADB from genuine, legal, external accountability rather than to provide the public — especially the poor and vulnerable — with avenues for redress when their rights are violated by ADB polices and operations.

One really has to question the competence and interests that guide the OWT from giving the ADB such high ratings. Who did they talk to? What data gathering methods did they use? What evidence did they find that led them to their entirely inaccurate conclusions?

The OWT report is an assault on the integrity of communities who have been struggling for justice, transparency and accountability in ADB projects.