Ethiopia Refuses to Cooperate With World-Bank-Funding Probe
By William Davison - May 28, 2013 5:54 PM GMT+0200
Ethiopia's government said it won't cooperate with a probe into whether the
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/world-bank/> World Bank violated its own
policies by funding a program in which thousands of people were allegedly
relocated to make way for agriculture investors.
Ethnic Anuak people in Ethiopia's southwestern Gambella region and rights
groups including <
http://topics.bloomberg.com/human-rights-watch/> Human
Rights Watch last year accused the Washington-based lender of funding a
program overseen by soldiers to forcibly resettle 45,000 households. The
Inspection Panel of the World Bank, an independent complaints mechanism,
began an investigation in October into the allegations, which donors and the
government have denied.
Ethiopia, Africa's most-populous nation after Nigeria, has made 3.3 million
hectares (8.2 million acres) of land available to agriculture companies.
Photographer: Jenny Vaughan/AFP/Getty Images
"We are not going to cooperate with the Inspection Panel," Getachew Reda, a
spokesman for Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said in a phone interview
on May 22. "To an extent that there's a need for cooperation, it's not going
to be with the Inspection Panel, but with the World Bank"
Ethiopia, <
http://topics.bloomberg.com/africa/> Africa's most-populous
nation after <
http://topics.bloomberg.com/nigeria/> Nigeria, has made 3.3
million hectares (8.2 million acres) of land available to agriculture
companies. Investors include <
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/KARG:IN>
Karuturi Global Ltd. (KARG) of <
http://topics.bloomberg.com/india/> India,
the world's largest rose grower, and companies owned by Saudi billionaire
Mohamed al-Amoudi.
There is a "plausible link" between the Promoting Basic Services program,
partly funded by the bank to pay the salaries of local government workers,
and a resettlement process also known as villagization in Gambella, the
panel said in a Nov. 19 report obtained by
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/bloomberg-news/> Bloomberg News. The World Bank
confirmed the authenticity of the report.
'Potential Non-Compliance'
The concurrent implementation of PBS and the resettlement program may raise
issues of "potential serious non-compliance with bank policy," according to
the report.
"From a development perspective, the two programs depend on each other, and
may mutually influence the results of the other," the panel said.
<
http://www.hrw.org> Human Rights Watch, based in
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/> New York, made similar allegations
about the resettlement program in a January 2012 report. Those findings and
the Inspection Panel process are part of a "propaganda campaign being waged
against the government," Getachew said by phone from the capital,
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/addis-ababa/> Addis Ababa. "It's not a World
Bank inspection panel, it's a panel that likes to impose its mostly
fictitious findings on the decision-making process of the World Bank."
About 35,000 households voluntarily moved over the past three years in
Gambella and now have better access to public services and are growing more
food, State Minister of Federal Affairs Omod Obang Olum said in a May 15
interview.
'Unprecedented'
The complaint to the panel was made on behalf of 26 Anuaks now living in
neighboring South Sudan and <
http://topics.bloomberg.com/kenya/> Kenya.
Refusal to cooperate with the panel by a World Bank member state is
"unprecedented," said David Pred, a managing associate at Inclusive
Development International, or IDI, a California-based human-rights group
that assisted with the complaint.
"I don't see how the bank could justifiably continue supporting
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/ethiopia/> Ethiopia if the government simply
rejects outright any semblance of accountability," he said in an e-mailed
response to questions.
The complaints should be investigated further "as they pertain to the bank's
application of its policies and procedures," the panel said. The probe
should not look at allegations of "specific human rights abuses" or the
"underlying purposes" of the resettlement program, it said.
Donor Aid
Donors provided $3.56 billion of aid to Ethiopia in 2011, which was 11.3
percent of gross national income, according to the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development.
The World Bank said that while officials on PBS-funded salaries may have
"responsibilities related" to resettlement, this doesn't mean the two
programs were "directly linked," according to the panel.
There was no evidence of "forced relocations or systematic human-rights
abuses," according to reports by two fact-finding missions in 2011 and 2012
by donors including the U.K. and U.S. aid agencies. "Half of the people
interviewed said they didn't want to move" and some said public services
hadn't been provided in new sites, the 2012 report found.
PBS "does not build upon villagization, it is not synchronized with
villagization, and does not require villagization to achieve its
objectives," the World Bank's management said in response to the complaint.
"Furthermore the bank does not finance" villagization.
Election Violence
<
http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P128891/ethiopia-protection-basic-service
s-program-phase-iii-project?lang=en> PBS began in 2006 after donors stopped
"direct budget support" to the federal government because of violence
following a disputed 2005 election. The program provides block grants to
regional governments that are mainly spent on education, health,
agriculture, water and road workers.
A postponed March 19 discussion of PBS by the bank's board has yet to be
rescheduled, Guang Chen, the bank's Ethiopia director, said in an e-mailed
response to questions. "Staff are not authorized to comment prior to the
board discussion," he said.
Since 2006, PBS has cost donors and the government $13 billion, the panel
said. The ongoing phase is funded by the government, the World Bank, the
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/african-development-bank/> African Development
Bank, the European Union, the U.K., Austria and
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/italy/> Italy.
The panel also can't comment at this stage, operations analyst Dilya Zoirova
said in an e-mailed response to questions.
To contact the reporter on this story:
<
http://topics.bloomberg.com/william-davison/> William Davison in Addis
Ababa via Nairobi at <mailto:pmrichardson_at_bloomberg.net>
pmrichardson_at_bloomberg.net.
Received on Tue May 28 2013 - 19:36:06 EDT