Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

Box 12.2
When a project affects Indigenous Peoples, the
project team assists the borrower in carrying out
free, prior, and informed consultation with
affected communities about the proposed project
throughout the project cycle, taking into consideration
the following:
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OP 4.10 on Free, Prior, and Informed
Consultation
“Free, prior, and informed consultation” is consultation
that occurs freely and voluntarily, without
any external manipulation, interference, or
coercion, for which the parties consulted have
prior access to information on the intent and
scope of the proposed project in a culturally
appropriate manner, form, and language.
Consultation approaches recognize existing
Indigenous Peoples’ organizations, including
councils of elders, headmen, and tribal leaders,
and pay special attention to women, youth, and
the elderly.
The consultation process starts early, because
decision making among Indigenous Peoples
may be an iterative process, and there is a need
for adequate lead time to fully understand and
incorporate concerns and recommendations of
Indigenous Peoples into the project design.
A record of the consultation process is maintained
as part of the project files.
Source: World Bank 2005b.
A number of aspects of consulting with Indigenous Peoples
should be recognized. Consulting in the local language
is often needed, particularly to ensure that all community
members are heard and feel comfortable raising their ideas
and concerns. Efforts to build trust may be needed to reduce
frequently encountered mistrust of government, project
developers, or outsiders in general, built up during years of
exclusion. Other aspects that may affect the consultation
process include traditional social structures and leadership
patterns, representation of communities, decision-making
processes (for example, through consensus building), and
traditions of oral transmission of knowledge and culture. It
is important to ensure that the team conducting or facilitating
the consultations understands these aspects, has the
required skills to conduct meaningful consultations with
Indigenous Peoples and has their trust.
The use of independent entities that have the trust of the
affected communities is often necessary to undertake free,
prior, and informed consultations. Borrower involvement is
needed to obtain the communities’ broad support for the
project because, in many cases, specific agreements will
need to be negotiated between the affected communities
and the borrower. Having an independent entity facilitate
this process is usually preferred. For consultations to be
meaningful, their results need to be processed and used to
inform project design and implementation. The results
should be described in the social assessment report, or in a
separate report on the consultation process, and, as appropriate,
in the Indigenous Peoples instrument used for project
implementation.
In addition to the free, prior, and informed consultations
with affected Indigenous Peoples, the borrower and the project
team normally consult a number of other stakeholders.
Table 12.1 provides a basic overview of a typical consultation
process and the key stakeholders involved. It should be used
only as guidance to inform the planning of the consultation
process for a given project—the principles of the Indigenous
Peoples’ policy should be invoked as a basic guideline for
eliciting practical solutions based on the sound judgment of
qualified experts. Many forest-based projects require more
than two rounds of consultations with affected Indigenous
Peoples during preparation. The World Bank’s Environmental
Assessment Sourcebook section titled “Public Consultation in
the EA Process: A Strategic Approach, 1999, Update 26”
(World Bank 1999) provides general guidance on conducting
public consultations. For more guidance on consultations
with Indigenous Peoples, see the World Bank’s Indigenous
Peoples Guidebook (forthcoming) and “Participation
and Indigenous Peoples” (Davis and Soeftestad 1995). (See
also chapter 9, Applying Forests Policy OP 4.36, and note 1.3,
Indigenous Peoples and Forests).
Broad community support. OP 4.10 requires that affected
Indigenous Peoples’ communities provide their broad support
for a project before the World Bank can support the
project. It is the responsibility of the borrower to achieve
broad community support through the free, prior, and
informed consultation process. Evidence of such support
should be provided in a detailed report (which could be the
social assessment report) documenting: “(a) the findings of
the social assessment; (b) the process of free, prior, and
informed consultation with the affected Indigenous Peoples’
communities; (c) additional measures, including project
design modification, that may be required to address
adverse effects on the Indigenous Peoples and to provide
CHAPTER 12: APPLYING OP 4.10 ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES 351