NGO WORK
Misplaced Trust: Why development banks should not rely on their clients to address reprisal risks
“Misplaced Trust” – a new report of the Defenders in Development campaign out on July 5 – shows how development banks are putting human rights defenders at serious risk by relying on their clients to address reprisals.
The research, based on the analysis of 38 case studies of reprisals in the context of development projects, shows that in all but two cases development banks’ clients have played a direct role in the perpetration of attacks.
The report also includes a series of recommendations, indicating that development banks should stop to uncritically delegate reprisal risk assessment and response to clients. Instead, banks should develop protocols and guidelines for what they will do themselves on reprisal issues.
KEY FINDINGS
The cases analyzed in “Misplaced Trust” show that:
- In all but two of the cases, clients play a role in the perpetration of reprisals against defenders.
- Reprisals where the responsibility can be attributed to the clients range from threats to killings; criminalization is one of the most common types of reprisals.
- Reprisals are typically perpetrated by security forces, private companies’ staff/contractors, and state and government officials.
- Public security forces often play a role in perpetrating or facilitating reprisals.
- Often, clients also contribute to the conditions leading to reprisals (e.g., failing to ensure meaningful consultations).
The analysis of the policies of eight major development banks show that the banks tend to rely on client-generated information for key processes (such as environmental and social risk assessments, stakeholder engagement, and consultations with affected communities) that are key to prevent and address reprisals.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
Implementing zero tolerance for reprisals requires DFIs to stop entrusting their clients with reprisal risk assessment and response, unless the clients have actively worked with directly affected communities and defenders to earn their trust first. DFIs cannot uncritically delegate reprisal risk assessment and response to clients.
Instead, DFIs should develop protocols and guidelines for what they will do themselves on reprisal issues. These protocols and guidelines must cover the entire project cycle and should be prepared in close consultations with those who have directly experienced reprisals, as well as with CSOs specializing in human rights issues.
Under these protocols and guidelines, DFI should:
- Assess reprisal risks and respond when reprisals occur.
- Strengthen capacity and incentives of bank staff, management and consultants to prevent and respond to reprisals.
- Align client incentives (including by implementing negative consequences) to avoid reprisal risks and respond when reprisals occur.
Source: Coalition for human rights in development.
Read full report here: Misplaced Trust
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NGO WORK
The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South
By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.
We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.
Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.
The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.
Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.
And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.
The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.
We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.
If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.
Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com
Source: oaklandinstitute.org/
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NGO WORK
No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone
The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.
As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.
Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!
Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.
Source: oaklandinstitute.org
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