Yahoo News 11 Jan 08;
The World Bank, accused of negligence in a forestry program in the Democratic Republic of Congo, pledged Thursday to do more for the world's second-largest rainforest.
As the World Bank studied Thursday a complementary action plan, it also received an internal report on its role in the western African country that is still emerging from a five-year civil war.
"The action plan was broadly supported," said Marjory-Anne Bromhead, head of the Bank's environment and natural resource management for Africa.
She said the plan, estimated at a cost of 64 million dollars, is based on four main points: respect for social and environmental criteria, work with indigenous populations, the future of the forestry sector and communication.
"We were asked to report back a year from now on what we were doing," Bromhead said in a teleconference with reporters.
The Bank's board of directors also received an internal report Thursday on the institution's actions in the DRC but the document was not made public at the time of the teleconference.
The new action plan came as the World Bank faces criticism of its actions in DRC by nongovernmental organizations, including Greenpeace, which accuse the Bank of failing to adequately take into account the well-being of the estimated 500,000 Pygmies living in the rainforest.
They also allege the Washington-based development lender has been lax in its dealings with a DRC government incapable of enforcing its own moratorium on awarding new forestry concessions.
After the Amazon in Brazil, the DRC has the second-largest rainforest on the planet at 86 million hectares (212 million acres), of which nearly 60 million hectares (148 million acres) are exploitable.
In May 2002, the Bank convinced the transition government to suspend the allocation of new forestry rights and the renewal or extension of existing rights.
The concessions already extended will be the subject of a reappraisal that should end in April or May, Bromhead said.
"Both the inspection panel and all of the board members emphasize the importance of the World Bank work in the forest sector in DRC and the need for us to stay engaged in that sector and indeed to scale up our engagement and our support to forest management there," she said.
In 2003, DRC began slowly emerging from a five-year war in which some 2.5 million people lost their lives, either directly in combat or through disease and hunger, and which left the infrastructure of the vast, resource-rich country in shambles.
