NGO Forum on ADB questions ADB’s intent to shift towards using country safeguards systems without any ‘assessment’ and ‘equivalency’ with its own safeguards systems as presented by the Strategy and Policy Department of the ADB.

 

This alarming move towards using country systems prematurely will have disastrous impacts on local communities and the environment especially in autocratic regimes where civil society voice is suppressed and persecuted, and national instruments are riddled with corruption and weak implementation.

 

ADB in doing so will also be in violation of its own ADB Safeguards Policy Strategy SPS 2010, where it clearly indicates ‘equivalency’ and ‘assessment’ to be conducted for Country Systems with ADB standards before they are considered for use in any ADB project.

 

In ADB’s own study on Country Systems in 2015, it indicates that in six upper-middle-income countries UMICs, the use of country systems are not feasible as they are far from ADB SPS 2010 standards. The ADB is faced to provide competitive lending rates with the rise of new banks and abruptly moving towards using Country Systems is a way by which the Bank is trying to reduce loan approval times and “costs” by compromising due diligence requirements which put human rights, public safety, environmental sustainability and national economies at risk.

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Read the Strategy 2030 related documents below :