Over 100 NGOs Worldwide Condemn World Bank for Gutting Its Pesticide Policy

(11 November 1996 — Washington, DC) The World Bank is backtracking on earlier commitments to reduce pesticide use in agricultural projects, according to over 100 environmental, consumer and development organizations from the United States and around the world. In a letter sent to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, the groups call for the Bank to reinstate its earlier policy which gave specific direction to Bank staff on how to minimize pesticide use and to promote an ecologically sustainable approach known as Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

Criticism of the Bank’s recent gutting of its pesticide and pest management policy coincides with the start of the UN World Food Summit meeting this week in Rome. At the Summit, World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin will present non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments with the Bank’s vision of “Rural Well-Being.” Unfortunately, according to NGOs, the Bank, by lowering pesticide standards is showing little concern for poor farmers or the environment.

The World Bank recently issued a new operational policy which offers only vague guidance to its staff about what kinds of pest management practices should be funded, and says nothing about farmer participation in project design. “The World Bank has just taken a giant step backwards,” said Mimi Kleiner, a policy analyst with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

“The Bank appears to be weakening its policies, because it is under increasing pressure to actually carry them out,” said Kleiner. “For years, both NGOs and internal Bank reports have documented the World Bank’s failure to implement its own policies. Now an independent ‘Inspection Panel’ exists which can actually hold the Bank accountable for how its projects affect poor farmers around the world.” Along with their letter, the NGOs also provided as evidence an internal Bank memorandum which notes, “Our experiences with the Inspection Panel are teaching us that we have to be increasingly careful in setting policy that we are able to implement in practice.” According to Kleiner, “Rather than making an effort to live up to its own guidelines, the Bank appears to be lowering its standards.”

“The World Health Organization estimates that pesticides cause over 3 million severe poisonings and 220,000 deaths a year,” said Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior program coordinator at Pesticide Action Network North America, one of 5 regional centers in an international coalition linking over 400 organizations in 60 countries. “Most of these incidents occur in developing countries, where chemical products are aggressively pushed by industry, often with national and international support in the guise of development aid. The World Bank comes to the Food Summit talking about sustainable development and rural well-being. When will it stop encouraging the use of hazardous chemicals and instead seriously promote ecological alternatives?”

“It is ironic that the Bank appears ready to allow more pesticide use at a time when the failure of pesticides to control pests is becoming widely documented. Hundreds of species of insects, weeds and plant diseases worldwide are now immune to pesticides, and the number is growing,” said Dr. Michael Hansen, a biologist with the Consumer Policy Institute, an arm of Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports). “In the US, we now lose about the same proportion of crops to pests as we did before we started using pesticides. The obvious alternative is IPM.”

IPM controls pest problems through biological controls (insects eating crop-damaging insects) and other natural means. IPM also emphasizes ecological education, with farmers taking the lead in developing locally appropriate pest control methods, often relying on traditional practices in combination with scientific analysis. This insures that agricultural projects actually meet the needs of the rural poor whom they are supposed to help.

The World Bank adopted its first guidelines on pesticide use and pest management in 1985, and reaffirmed its commitment to IPM in a 1992 operational directive. However, the new 1996 operational policy offers only vague guidance on IPM and pesticide use.

While the Bank claims that its environmental assessment procedures will promote sound pest management, a recent internal Bank study found that these procedures have almost no impact on project design. The study acknowledges that environmental assessments are most often conducted in isolation from the Bank’s major project planning efforts, and are completed too late in the project cycle for alternative approaches to be meaningfully considered.

“The World Bank’s response to our letter will indicate how serious it is about the reforms that President Wolfensohn is trying to promote,” said Bruce Rich, director of EDF’s International Program. “Unfortunately, the World Bank’s announcement on agricultural policies comes amid reports that a number of other social and environmental policies are also being diluted. This can only have negative repercussions for people and the environment.”

“The World Bank’s latest decision to abandon these earlier policies dims hopes that it will be a positive constructive force in carrying out ecologically sound pest management,” said Ishii-Eiteman.