PANNA: Lobbying Against the Strategy

In April 2002, Pesticide Action Network North America led an international delegation to Washington, DC to lobby the World Bank's Board of Directors to correct the flaws in the draft Rural Development Strategy. NGO representatives from Ecuador, Senegal and Indonesia pressed the Bank to shift its private sector partnerships from pesticide and biotech companies to small, locally owned companies with commitments to and capacity for reducing pesticide residues and contributing to clean and healthy food production.

The delegation urged the Bank to stop funding projects that include genetically engineered crops. The Bank was asked to focus instead on sustainable agricultural practices, such as organic farming and ecologically based integrated pest management.

In July 2002, over 150 groups from 41 countries joined PANNA in urging the World Bank's Board to reject the draft Rural Development Strategy and address the concerns of civil society. In a letter to the Executive Directors of the Board, we demanded that the World Bank abandon its reliance on trade liberalization, reject partnerships with multinational agribusiness, withdraw its support for market-based land reform and privatization of water, and end its promotion of genetically engineered crops.

PANNA's letter called on the Bank to revise the strategy to address civil society concerns and publicly disclose the nature of comments received and explain how they were (or were not) addressed. The Bank's Directors has since instructed the Bank to revise the strategy and has delayed its final review and approval of the strategy until this is accomplished.

More on PANNA's website: http://www.panna.org/campaigns/docsWorldBank/docsWorldBank_020614.dv.html.