We will be having a meeting on Monday to discuss a number of issues on involuntary resettlement following a submission that was received on this issue, and I am certain we will be discussing all these in much greater details then. Indigenous peoples policy. Something that happened as a strong position from the indigenous peoples' leaders long before the consultation process happened was this concern that we maintain a freestanding indigenous peoples' policy and it not be merged with other social policies. Another, of course, is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People should serve as a framework and as a reference point as we go forward. As many of you know, when our Indigenous Peoples Policy was last revised in 2005, the Declaration had not been adopted. Land rights of indigenous people--very strong views that this needed to be addressed. And then, improving the consultation, the use of local languages and the effectiveness of grievance mechanisms for indigenous communities. And, obviously, these are real thumbnail sketches of the points that were raised. With regard to the question of natural habitats and forests, my earlier comment, I noted there were a lot of people saying we should look more like the IFC where they integrated those two concepts, where we had ecosystem services as a standard, and a lot of that was the architecture as well as this question of the IEG report on forests. Monitoring and evaluation--quite consistent. We need to measure what we are doing better. We need to have clearer monitoring standards. We need to have better dissemination. And many people thought we should have third-party monitoring on a selective basis but use that to have communities engaged in particular. So what are the Next Steps? We have heard a lot, and quite clearly, what we heard is diverse, but we have got some things where there are
settings that we need to be acutely aware of as we go forward. MR. BURRETT: Okay. Can we have the next comment. QUESTION [Abdelmawla Ismail, Egyptian Association for Collective Rights]: On a decision for collective rights, I will speak Arabic. [Interpreted from Arabic.] What I would like to focus on in my talk is that you know very well that land and water resources--what I would like to focus on in my presentation is that you all know that land and water resources are considered to be very rare, and the people who number about 80 million people depend on it for their production of foodstuff. Unfortunately, most of the World Bank projects in Egypt are built on agricultural land that is very close to the Nile River. Consequently, in the very near term, the agricultural land will be destroyed and will cause heavy pollution to the river and the ability of Egyptians to produce foodstuff, particularly on small holdings among farmers and fishermen and areas that are in dire poverty, very abject poverty, that cannot find other methods of livelihood. Also, a number of the population will face severe problems affecting their food security. If that food security is going to be among these basic four policies, what is being implemented in the Bank's projects contradict what concerns the food security in Egypt. So we hope that safeguards will include a regional strategy so that they will discuss that no buildings will be built on agricultural land, so that they will be part of the preservation. The second point concerns the level of projects. Concerning the special consultations on assessment of the environmental impact, it happens that it is really highly corrupt. In Egypt, of course, we hope there will be a real role for civil society organizations through clear, transparent, effective institutional standards to be implemented on participation and instituting studies, under monetary studies, before a project is approved or implemented. Thank you very much. MR. BURRETT: If we could now move to the back microphone for the final two comments or questions. QUESTION: Thanks. I am Gretchen Gordon with the Indian Law Resource Center. I wanted to raise some
So it means even at the beginning stages, at the formulations of the policy and plans, environmental considerations and the impact to people should also be considered. I think I hope that the EFG groups can also look at other issues instead of only about economic issues and about the GSG accounting. Thanks. MR. BURRETT: Thank you very much. Is there another comment at the back? QUESTION: Yes, it is not a comment. It is just a single tiny question. MR. BURRETT: If you could come to the microphone. QUESTION: Okay. My name is Joseph Andargie. I am from SIT Graduate Institute. My question is regarding the process of consultation. While you are making consultations, have you incorporated the role of diaspora communities, specifically for their contribution on environmental change? That is all. MR. BURRETT: Okay. Thank you, everybody, for your patience in staying on and your comments and feedback. I am going to ask the World Bank team now to give their final comments in response. Motoko, do you want to start? MS. AIZAWA: Yes, just on Steve's question about GSG and do not go overboard, I am wondering, Jane, if you would like to just say two sentences about that. Would you like to? So Jane Ebinger is the Manager of Climate Policy in SDN [Social Development Network], but, please. MS. EBINGER: Hello. We were having a discussion in the expert group about how you improve the consideration of mitigation options. And like Motoko talked about, I think the discussion was about the importance of going very upstream, so having the broad perspective from a strategic consideration of where you might want to support development goals and shared prosperity but also ensure climate is taken into account. In terms of do not go overboard, there was a big discussion also about the challenges of actually doing greenhouse gas accounting, doing environmental assessment, and the fact that you should try and strike a balance between something that is robust, transparent, credible and understanding what your footprint might look like and where you might go, and going into something that is a very gold-plated process, that is