Blog entry

Latest unambitious domino falls as Poland publishes plan for EU recovery fund

With public hearings on the plan kicking off this week, it is crucial for the Polish government to heed the proposals of civil society groups for more ambitious projects and to avoid potentially harmful investments.

Harmful projects for energy efficiency

The lack of vision is on display in the recovery plan when it comes to energy efficiency. Although this component is supposed to consume a significant part of the funds, the draft does not present reforms that would make an effective and sustainable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in line with the EU’s Renovation Wave strategy objectives. Moreover, some of the planned spending will feed the Clean Air programme that financially supports the installation of new coal and pellet boilers. Since Poland has no formal pellet quality or sustainability standards, the pellets can be made from harmful materials, such as waste furniture boards. That kind of policy is clearly incompatible with the EU’s ‘do no significant harm’ (DNSH) rule because of the potential risk of rising CO2 emissions. The draft does not get any better in terms of renewable energy sources. Apart from the fact that the funds allocated for this purpose are relatively small, the draft plans list investments in municipal waste incineration, most of which are plastic.

This type of incineration will lead to CO2 emissions per unit of energy production comparable to coal-fired installations.

In this context, the draft’s focus on hydrogen is surprising. There are no credible prospects of Poland’s imminent achievement of surpluses of clean energy from renewables, which could be utilised to produce clean hydrogen. Investing money in research and development potential for pure hydrogen is desired as long as a solid renewable energy impulse would accompany it. On the other hand, investing in gas pipelines or ‘hydrogen’ storage facilities right now is only strengthening dependence on fossil gas. There are good reasons to believe that this pro-gas policy, conceived in the recovery plan, will lead to a powerful lock-in of natural gas to the electricity and heating grid. Poland plans to replace most of the coal that is removed from the energy mix with gas, producing 56 TWh of energy from gas in 2030, or approximately one third of all current production. The idea that gas is not a transition fuel but will stay with Poland to the end is not that far-fetched.

Biodiversity protection neglected in the plan

The Polish plan’s most bitter defeat so far is its virtually non-existent focus on biodiversity, similarly to other national plans. The lack of adherence to the DNSH principle is clearly visible. The Polish plan does not include improvements to the poor management of Natura 2000 sites. Although measures like establishing flower meadows and similar nature-based solutions for cities, these are pushed somewhere to the margin. The authors seem to ignore the main factors of the loss of biodiversity in Poland, the disappearance of habitats and ecological corridors and the overexploitation of natural resources.

Biodiversity and the DNSH principle are mentioned in the document as abstractions.

The plan assumes that all the reforms and investments contribute to protecting biodiversity and do not cause severe damage to nature. Such a lawmaking philosophy does not comply with the EU’s regulations on drawing up the recovery plans. A plan should explain how none of the proposed measures and investments seriously damage nature. The Polish plan does not include any activities aimed at protecting species, ecosystems, ecological corridors, or any ideas for strengthening the protection or enlargement of protected areas. On the contrary, some of the proposed solutions undermine environmental legislation. The program includes, for example, the adoption of a special law on anti-drought investments. It contains new regulations that threaten Poland’s biodiversity and water resources. This proposed act simplifies investment procedures for the building of concrete water facilities. Its core is to make it easier for Polish Waters (national regulator of water investments) to obtain permits for new dams and artificial reservoirs in Niepołomice on the Vistula, in Ścinawa and Lubiąż on the Oder and in Pisz on the Pisa. The draft assumes the priority of the special act’s provisions over nature protection bills. This makes it much easier to intervene in protected areas, for example by enabling water installations in nature reserves. The small hydropower plants encouraged by the project are mostly incompatible with the EU Water Framework Directive. They do immense harm to biodiversity by blocking wildlife corridors while making a disproportionately small contribution to renewable energy production. Moreover, the proposed anti-drought regulation deprives society of democratic and effective participation in investment consent proceedings. It severely interferes with the competences of local governments as well.

Possible improvements

The silver lining is that all of these misguided plans are possible to fix before it is too late. The plan should strengthen forests and river valleys by restoring them to their natural state. Such measures have been proposed by a group of civic organisations in a document with programmes and reform directions that can be easily incorporated into the recovery plan. This includes legislative changes to the bill on forests, water law, or the EU directive’s application on environmental impact assessment. Those proposals remove from Polish law non-compliance with the EU acquis and upgrade the environment and biodiversity protection. Civil society is also proposing to initiate a national river restoration programme and modify the draft programme to combat drought, shifting the focus from extending concrete hydropower infrastructure to nature-based solutions. In addition to tackling biodiversity loss in Poland, these two programs would help the country adapt to climate change by mitigating the effects of droughts and countering climate change by protecting and restoring natural carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands.

Europe’s Green and Digital Decade could be a raw deal for people and the environment in Serbia

As Bankwatch’s recent Raw Deal report exposes, meeting industry and consumer demands cannot come at the expense of the people and nature at the other end of the supply chain, where the raw materials – indispensable for a green and digital Europe – are extracted.

A new case study on a planned lithium mine in Serbia offers an example of the possible hidden costs of Europe’s Green and Digital Decade. The mine, promoted by corporate giant Rio Tinto, is connected to illegal government support, lack of public participation and secrecy.

60 times more lithium needed by 2050

In its Foresight Study, the Commission estimates that for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage, Europe would need up to 18 times more lithium and five times more cobalt in 2030 and almost 60 times more lithium and 15 times more cobalt in 2050.

The sourcing and production of raw materials were included as a priority in the European Green Deal:

‘Access to resources is also a strategic security question for Europe’s ambition to deliver the Green Deal. Ensuring the supply of sustainable raw materials, in particular of critical raw materials necessary for clean technologies, digital, space and defence applications, by diversifying supply from both primary and secondary sources, is therefore one of the pre-requisites to make this transition happen.’

In the Raw Materials Initiative, the Commission has also proposed to ‘accelerate and facilitate procedures’ for the approval of mining projects in the EU and its neighbours, such as Norway, Ukraine and the Western Balkans, as well as in its partnerships with countries in Africa and Latin America. In November 2020, Commissioner Šefčovič mentioned that Serbia is a country with solid reserves of most critical raw materials, and a promising source for ensuring the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’ for key raw materials. What did he have in mind?

Serbian jadarite compared to Superman’s kryptonite

The story goes back to 2007, when news broke about the discovery of a mineral called jadarite, whose composition is described as identical to the formula invented for the fictitious kryptonite from the film Superman Returns. The mineral is composed of lithium and boron. Exploratory works on the jadarite deposits, located in the Jadar River Valley in western Serbia, have been developed by the international mining corporation Rio Tinto.

If the estimates stating that there are approximately 200 million tons of lithium borate ore in the Jadar Valley are correct, Jadar’s future mines will be one of the world’s largest lithium deposits, supplying 10% of the world’s demand for lithium. Lithium is considered one of the key raw materials for the green and digital transition agenda of the EU.

The Serbian government promotes this investment as the ‘project of the century’, a ‘project that will put Serbia on the map of high technologies’, and one that should serve as a flagship success of both Rio Tinto and the Serbian government. However, there are numerous problems with the project. Rio Tinto has not disclosed crucial information about how lithium will be extracted and what the impacts will be on the population. The Serbian government has offered illegal support to facilitate the mining company’s initial work.

Most importantly, the project will drastically and irreparably alter the environment and way of life of the residents living there. Residents have not been captivated by the glamour of the mineral and the vision for the mine’s construction. They argue that, if developed and deployed, these facilities will threaten more than 15,000 agricultural households in the town of Loznica and the Krupanj municipality and the health and well-being of citizens of the communities of Loznica, Šabac and Valjevo.

Furthermore, the government of Serbia did not inform the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia through transboundary consultations about the planned project. This is particularly important due to the project’s expected pollution of the Drina River, which flows from Serbia into Bosnia and Herzegovina.

European Commission must take actions now

European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager wrote in her latest opinion piece:

‘Now that digitalisation has become the driving force of the modern economy and even a critical factor in today’s geopolitics, there is an urgent need for more democratic governance over technology.’

Indeed, for this EU agenda to be effective, it has to counterbalance the procurement of the raw materials indispensable for the green and digital revolution with safeguards for the people affected by raw materials mining and for the nature destroyed by the overwhelming pressure for cheap and fast exploitation. Therefore, the Commission must be even more ambitious and incorporate policies that ensure the use of less exploitative and toxic-safe technologies; the restoration of the old mining sites; strict environmental, social and human rights due diligence for mining projects; and finally, the right for the communities affected by the mines and surrounding facilities to have a say.

The EU cannot attempt to overcome the climate crisis at the expense of local communities, workers’ rights and biodiversity, especially in the face of the COVID-19-induced economic and social crisis. It would be a raw deal, one experienced too often in the past, which should finally be left far behind.

Step into the light: transparency review at EU bank can end culture of secrecy

Yet a draft of the revised policy that is now open for comments until mid-March does little to bind the bank to best practices for openness and correct its secretive model of finance. That is why dozens of organisations from various countries have called on the bank to step into the light and raise the bar on transparency at the development lenders.

When compared to other development finance institutions, the EIB’s transparency practices fall short of the pack. In the 2020 Aid Transparency Index, an annual measure of transparency for the world’s major development agencies, the EIB scored just 58 of 100 points and ranked 28 of 47 institutions.

Aid Transparency Index 2020

The core problem lies with the EU bank’s obsession on protecting its internal processes from ‘interference’. While other development banks, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank, publish project documents, including their own appraisal documents, well in advance of approval decisions and often seeking public opinion on the proposed operations, the EIB operates in secrecy as much as possible to make decisions unhindered.

With this warped approach to the right to access information, the EIB undercuts its claims of supporting human rights. The timely disclosure of project information is instrumental in stamping out corruption, identifying potential social, environmental and economic risks and avoiding adverse impacts on people and sensitive ecosystems.

Yet in cases where a project may lead to these types of ills, those impacted have been deprived of timely access to information and the opportunity to engage with the EIB over their concerns. If the EIB had listened, it could have improved the project before making a loan and avoiding an expensive fix.

For example, in 2018 the Complaints Mechanism at the bank reviewed a complaint from Plataforma Ciutadana en Defensa de les Terres del Sènia about the Castor Underground Gas Storage project in Spain that alleged among others the way the public consultation was carried out.

It concluded that “during the first appraisal by the Bank, the Complainants already drew the Bank’s attention to a series of concerns that were confirmed over time: the court ruling confirmed the fragmentation of the project and, as a result, the limited appraisal of cultural impacts. The seismicity risks were also documented by the public consultation. However, the Bank did not enter into discussions on mitigation measures with the promoter regarding these issues”. This happened because it ignored the inputs of local stakeholders. Eventually the project turned to be dysfunctional and was cancelled.

EIB operations are particularly opaque when the bank lends to projects through an intermediary financial institution – a ‘middle man’ – which is especially problematic given that this lending makes up a lion’s share of the bank’s overall portfolio. In 2020 almost 40 per cent of all EIB loans were credit lines for financial intermediaries. The bank considers these as ‘low risk’ projects for which disclosure obligations are entirely delegated to those financial intermediaries.

In 2018 Bankwatch contacted 43 of the EIB’s financial intermediaries in the Western Balkans and asked whether they had published environmental information about the projects they financed on their websites. None of the financial intermediaries sent the links to sections of their websites where environmental information relating to the EIB credit lines is published. Indeed, several argued that they did not have any obligations to do so.

Where this research could identify specific loans made by intermediaries, it found that EIB provided over EUR 22 million for the construction of at least 19 hydropower plants, several of which are located in protected areas of high biodiversity value. The negative impacts of these projects could not have been detected and shared with the bank because such operations are not being publicly announced by the EIB.

The EIB should be ready not only to publish information or provide it on request but also to engage with and listen to those who might be impacted by projects the bank intends to finance. The review of the transparency policy is an opportunity to set the right principles and address these deficiencies.

This publication was produced in collaboration with EuroNatur in the frame of the joint research and advocacy work on hydropower finance and subsidies.

The EU's investment body must be more accountable.

Over 50 civil society groups demand the European Investment Bank steps up its public engagement and transparency policy.

Read the Joint CSO Submission on the Draft Revised Version of the EIB Transparency Policy

More of the same secrecy in Latvia and Romania as EU recovery funds planning gets underway

The time for EU countries to prepare the plans that will outline how they intend to trigger the EUR 672.5 billion allocated under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is almost up. March and April are the last months for Member States to finalise their recovery plans and comply with all the requirements laid down by the RRF Regulation, including the obligation to assign 37% of the funds to climate-friendly investments and reforms. At the same time, this is the last opportunity for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from all over Europe to provide input and scrutinise the content of the plans through public consultations. With EUR 13.7 billion allocated to Romania and EUR 1.9 billion for Latvia from the RRF¹, the proper use of the funds will be crucial in order for these two countries to fully align with the updated 2030 EU climate and energy targets of 55% greenhouse gas reduction. However, recent developments in Romania and Latvia still show reasons for concern over both issues of public participation and reaching the climate and energy targets.

Public participation still not a priority

Regarding public consultations, so far both the governments of Romania and Latvia have done little to open the preparation process of the recovery planning to the public. In Romania, civil society organisations submitted written comments and suggestions on the draft in December without receiving any feedback, and when later consultations were organised for February, the lack of structure for these compromised the possibility for NGOs to give satisfactory input on the content. A second draft is expected to be available on 15 April, but taking into account the tight deadline to be sent to the Commission, 30 April, there is little chance to have a new round of consultations. Meanwhile in Latvia, environmental NGOs were given the possibility to participate in the consultations only in December, contrary to the social partners that had been involved since the very beginning of the process. After the draft of the plan was published at the end of January, a wider public including environmental organisations was invited to a formal public consultation until 9 March. These updates reinforce a recent survey by Bankwatch and CAN Europe, revealing the poor status of public partnership in many Member States, including most Central and Eastern European countries.

A worryingly low level of ambition on climate and energy targets

Similar concerns also apply to the content of the recovery plans. The money that Romania will receive from the RRF will provide financial contributions to three pillars of intervention, from green transition and climate change to urban development and economic competitiveness. Unfortunately, the first draft of the Romanian plan includes a problematic number of investments for environmentally harmful sectors: both the expansion of fossil gas network and the modernisation of harmful hydropower capacities are planned. Such investments would go against the Do No Significant Harm principle that the European Commission made mandatory for all the projects in the recovery plans, not to mention the negative consequences it would have on biodiversity, one of the priorities of the European Green Deal. Furthermore, other types of investments such as renewable sources or energy efficiency (representing only 8.4% of the total funding) are barely considered by the Romanian government. In addition, CSOs in Romania are not aware of whether a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) will be conducted on the projects of the plan, inevitably harming the overall green objective. As for Latvia, Riga’s government released the first draft of the recovery plan at the end of January after having already submitted it to the Commission. This draft presented a worryingly low level of ambition on climate and energy targets, as well as potentially harmful investments towards biomethane and the transport sector. In terms of energy efficiency, the Latvian recovery plan shares Romania’s low targets. Even though the updated Latvian National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) aims to renovate at least 3000 multi-apartment buildings by the end of the decade, the current investment plans for the EU budget and the recovery funds only foresee that respectively 370 buildings and 182 buildings – 18,4% of that target will be renovated through public funding. In addition to a limited funding for energy efficiency, NGOs are also worried about the lack of reformative elements in the plan. The concerns of civil society in Latvia led the Environmental Advisory Council (bringing together 20 environmental NGOs in the country) to send a letter to the European Commission to draw attention to the most problematic elements of the plan. Latvian CSOs expressed their concerns over the possibility that the state of reforms and investments proposed in the current recovery plan would represent a missed opportunity for the country, failing to turn the economic course of the country towards a green transition. On a more positive note, a Strategic Environmental Assessment has been conducted on the plan which is currently under public consultation: up to now, Latvia is the only country out of most CEE countries to have proceeded with an SEA, as revealed by Bankwatch in its latest study. New updates on the recovery plans are expected in the next few weeks. Yet with a tight deadline of 30 April, this is the most crucial window of opportunity for Member States to align with the 2030 and 2050 climate and energy objectives. Failure to include long lasting and transformative investments in these coming months will have serious negative consequences for the next decade and beyond, jeopardising the unique opportunity to use the recovery to transition to a low carbon economy and successfully tackle the escalating climate crisis.

¹ The numbers only refer to the known grant allocation available under the RRF, as many Member States remain unsure how they will use the loan part of the Facility.

Unrest in Armenia casts shadow on developments at controversial gold mine

Vigorously tapping on a touch screen, Paylak Tevanyan is not placating angry birds or crushing candy. Instead he is zapping pick axe-wielding miners as they rush towards a gold mine in a smartphone game he developed to raise awareness about Armenia’s Save Amulsar movement.

Tevanyan is just one of the many protagonists featured in a new film by local journalist Tehmine Yenoqyan that documents the ongoing struggle to protect Amulsar from plans for a massive gold mine near the spa town of Jermuk.

The film’s release this month coincides with seismic shifts in the domestic political landscape and at international fora that could affect the outcomes at Amulsar. Yenoqyan’s film is a detailed portrayal of a popular movement that began in 2007 and reached new heights in 2018 with the election of Nikol Pashinyan, the prime minister who rode a wave of popular support to government in part on promises to re-evaluate the claims of mine owner Lydian to exploit the gold at Amulsar.

But Pashinyan’s credibility has taken a massive blow due to an unpopular agreement reached with Azerbaijan and brokered by Russian to end hostilities in Nagorno Karabakh, which borders on the Vayots Dzor region where the infrastructure for the Amulsar project is located.

The resulting political crisis exploding now in Yerevan has had knock on effects that threaten the safety of citizens and the environment in the area of Amulsar. Tensions around the project have increased as locals report Lydian has begun activities to reopen the mine. At the same time, locals who had opposed the project suffered heavy losses during the war, including their lives in some cases. The mine is also the subject of an outstanding criminal case.

Developments at international fora

Just as fighting began in Nagorno Karabakh, the Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, also known as the ‘Bern Convention,’ wrote in September 2020 to the Armenian government regarding a complaint filed in March 2020 alleging violations of protected natural areas near Amulsar.

The Secretariat recommended that the authorities ‘halt any developments that can negatively affect the habitats and species protected under the Convention’ and ‘asked for a report specifically responding to the issue of the gold mine.’

To support the work of the secretariat, in February 2021 NGOs wrote to the Bern Convention with more context about the previous violations. In its letter the groups said that starting mining activities will mean “deliberate picking, collecting, cutting or uprooting of (protected) plants” and “deliberate damage to or destruction of breeding or resting sites (…); deliberate disturbance of wild fauna” which is forbidden by the Bern Convention.

Redress for locals

While the government received the news from the Bern convention, the independent accountability mechanism at the EBRD (IPAM) released its initial assessment of a June 2020 complaint from locals seeking redress from violations to their rights by Lydian.

The November Compliance Assessment Report found that the complaint satisfied the criteria to initiate a Compliance Review on whether the Amulsar project complied with EBRD policy requirements to protect environmental and social rights.

In addition, IPAM concluded that it ‘would seek to focus the investigation on identification of systemic issues that might potentially negatively impact communities in this and other Bank-funded projects, but also might affect project performance and the environmental and social sustainability of transactions. As a next step, IPAM plans to conduct interviews with parties to the complaint this month.

At the same time, the bank’s Chief Compliance Officer has been informed by civil society groups about numerous corruption allegations related to the Amulsar project. If the officer confirms any instances of prohibited activity based on this evidence or court decisions on corrupt land deals in Gandevaz, the company can be blacklisted by the EBRD and other multilateral development banks.

Actions speak louder than words: gender equality policies in development banks

MDBs are well aware that gender mainstreaming and positive discrimination contribute to economic growth. A wide range of research evinces that the more empowered both sexes are, the more economic prosperity a country achieves. For example, the OECD has found that much of the growth in the OECD zone over the past several years can be attributed to the increase in women’s labour force participation. A society’s economic potential is only achievable if all its members are provided with access to opportunities for economic participation.

Development banks have supported women as growth contributors and taken steps to support the economic empowerment of women and girls. However, because MDBs are public banks, they have commitments beyond economic empowerment. They should follow their environmental and social due diligence and protect human rights, including gender rights.

Are MDBs doing enough to protect women and to achieve gender equality for all, including for the most underprivileged? On International Women’s Day, we summarise what development banks are currently doing to advance gender equality and women’s rights, and how they can be more effective in their efforts.

MDBs’ existing tools to safeguard gender equality

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)

The EBRD’s Strategy for the Promotion of Gender Equality 2016-2020 emphasises the economic empowerment of women. However, it lacks a focus on gender safeguards, including those for gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH).

For the next period, the EBRD plans to have a joint Equality of Opportunity Strategy, which will include support to women and other marginalised groups. The EBRD’s first woman president, Odile Renaud-Basso, in her interviews as a presidential candidate in 2020, responded to criticism of the EBRD for not doing enough on gender. While she said she was cautious about the additional burdens of data collection, Renbaud-Basso proposed assessing each project’s impact on gender balance. Her leadership on the new strategy should hopefully help the Bank widen its strategic fit to include gender safeguards that protect women from GBVH in EBRD-supported activities.

The World Bank

The World Bank Group’s Gender Strategy 2016-2023 promotes economic empowerment, recognises gender safeguards and promises to combat and prevent gender-based violence. The World Bank prioritises combating violence against women, especially in developing countries, and states that gender-based violence is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7% of their GDP – more than double what most governments spend on education.

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

The Green Climate Fund, in addition to its Gender Policy and Gender Action Plan, has a specific Policy on the Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Harassment. This should help the GCF to address gender issues holistically within GCF-funded activities, although it is unclear how these policies guide the investments of GCF’s accredited agencies, such as the EBRD.

The European Investment Bank (EIB)

The EIB adopted the EIB Group Gender Strategy ‘Protect, Impact, Invest’ as well as the EIB Gender Action Plan in 2016. Both the Strategy and the Action Plan lack timeframes for when objectives should be achieved and activities should be implemented. Nonetheless, combating gender-based violence, and protecting and supporting victims is a priority area of the strategy, together with promoting gender equality and women’s rights across the world.

What can MDBs do to support gender equality and women’s rights?

MDBs are doing a lot of work to communicate their commitments to gender equality. They are certainly organising a lot of events on the subject, such as a recent roundtable discussion on gender approaches for an inclusive recovery, or the webinar ‘Women leading on Green’. However, it is important that these words are put into action and that banks recognise women not just as contributors to economic growth but as right-holders, as their environmental and social policies prescribe. Below are some recommendations for banks to help improve their commitments to gender equality.

1.Give voice and agency to project-affected women

Several development projects have shown that the MDBs fail to provide access to gender-specific project information, and also fail to comply with their own gender standards. For example, the ADB’s and the EBRD’s accountability mechanisms found the banks non-compliant with their safeguard policy provisions related to gender rights in their reviews of the Nenskra hydropower plant project.

Since January 2020, CEE Bankwatch Network, together with its member groups in Georgia and Macedonia, has been requesting the disclosure of gender assessments at the country, sectoral and project levels from the EBRD and the GCF. No such assessments were disclosed as of March 2021. MDBs need to follow their own policies on gender and public participation, ensure the meaningful participation of women and commit to provide the right to information on both opportunities and adverse impacts on affected communities, including on the differentiated impacts on women.

2. Benchmark and promote best practices in gender equality

As banks have different strategic and structural approaches to their gender policies, there is a need for benchmarking and mutual learning between the banks to make sure that their approaches to gender equality are cutting-edge. For example, there is a need for benchmarking EBRD gender strategy with those of its partners, e.g. the EIB, the Green Climate Fund and the World Bank, so that it includes gender safeguards and protection against gender-based violence.

3. Provide a specific and targeted response to gender needs and grievances

A noteworthy example comes from the small Ugandan community of Bigodi, which together with local, national, and international allies, mobilized to demand redress for harm done by a World Bank-funded infrastructure project, and in doing so, catalyzed changes at the World Bank aimed at preventing similar abuses in the future.

MDBs have to make sure that their gender standards are concrete and targeted at specific sectors and groups. For example, the IFC and the EBRD are developing toolkits for gender mainstreaming in different areas, such as district heating and gender-responsive climate reform, and tools for combating gender-based violence in the private sector. Other banks could use these toolkits as models.

4.Provide a gender-specific response to COVID-19 recovery

Many MDBs have already raised the alarm that the COVID-19 pandemic is not gender-neutral. According to the International Labour Organisation’s research, women would have lost 8.1 per cent of their wages in the second quarter of 2020, compared to 5.4 per cent for men. Women are more exposed to the pandemic as care-workers and care-givers. The President of the EBRD stressed that the inclusion of women is among the Bank’s key efforts in the post-COVID recovery and is the EBRD’s priority with regards to gender mainstreaming.

MDBs have to ensure meaningful public participation and consultation for women and women’s organisations in the design of projects they will be affected by, even if this is made harder by COVID-19 restrictions.

5.Focus on marginalised women, especially in developing and conflict-affected countries

MDBs should pay special attention to the most disadvantaged women, such as women with disabilities and those living in conflict-affected countries and non-democratic regimes. Unfortunately, MDBs often tend to disregard vulnerable women and girls instead of prioritising their interests. The case of Nairobi-Mombasa road in Kenya, supported by EIB, shows how vulnerable women and children could have become homeless because of the big infrastructure project that took their homes. Vulnerable women are the most affected by poverty and the risks of gender-based violence and typically have less rights than men. Protecting and empowering these women will help counter the greatest gender inequalities in the world.

On International Women’s Day as well as every day, it is important to remind MDBs about their gender commitments. While banks publicly communicate their commitment to gender equality, they should also comply with their own gender standards in every project that they fund. Approaching the issue not only through the economic lens but also through the human rights lens would help bring us closer to gender equality, and MDBs need the proper strategies and tools to do so.

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