{"id":33568,"date":"2016-01-28T12:38:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T12:38:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-10-23T11:53:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T11:53:15","slug":"8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Does anyone know anything about the new BRICS bank?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite expectations that it would begin operating in early 2016, the New Development Bank (NDB, or BRICS bank), a new lending institution set up by member countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, remains something of a mystery.<\/p>\n

Founded with the aim of developing\u00a0infrastructure, the bank has no official website or even a contact email address and no one seems to knows which projects the bank will allocate funding to. Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that there is no clue as to whether the bank will establish environmental, social, labour, or human rights safeguards to protect against the impacts of the projects that its\u00a0loans support.<\/p>\n

Announced with great pomp at the\u00a06th BRICS Summit<\/a>\u00a0in Fortaleza, Brazil, in July 2014, the NDB currently only has one office in Shanghai, where representatives from each country are located. Yet the bank\u2019s initial US$50 billion of subscribed capital should make it a major new player\u00a0in development finance. There are great expectations from member countries that this new source of financing can help develop sectors crucial for their growth, such as energy, telecommunications, and logistics.<\/p>\n

However, trying to get definitive answers from representatives of the NDB is a fruitless exercise. Even the private sector, represented through the\u00a0BRICS Business Council<\/a>, does not seem to have a clear idea of how the bank will be governed.<\/p>\n

Wishing to remain anonymous, an important Brazilian business figure made it clear to\u00a0Di\u00e1logo <\/em>Chino\u00a0<\/em>that negotiations on how the bank will be run are taking place on a government-to-government basis, with little transparency or participation by civil society. \u201cIt is very tightly closed. Nobody knows anything,\u201d said the high-ranking source.<\/p>\n

See also: How green is the ‘BRICS Bank’?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing concrete<\/strong><\/p>\n

In November of last year, the Brazilian NGO\u00a0Conectas<\/a>\u00a0held an event in S\u00e3o Paulo which was intended to discuss the NDB and associated human rights and sustainability issues arising from the granting of loans. The NGO\u2019s lawyer, Caio Borges, who has met several times with representatives from the Brazilian\u00a0Ministry of Finance<\/a>\u00a0to discuss such matters, says that despite the openness of government technicians in welcoming him to participate in meetings, there is still nothing concrete with respect to environmental policy.<\/p>\n

Borges adds his voice to that of\u00a0Di\u00e1logo Chino\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0source in suggesting that, unlike the\u00a0World Bank<\/a>, the NDB does not have a proper set of rules and guidelines and he expects it to\u00a0examine social and environmental risks on a \u2018case-by-case\u2019 basis. \u201cThe tendency is for each project to come to the bank with the environmental and social issues contained within the project itself,\u201d he\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

The private sector representative to the BRICS Business Council says that there is a big discrepancy between founding countries\u2019 attitudes to environmental impacts in infrastructure projects. \u201cBrazil has environmental and social legislation that is globally unsurpassed. The Brazilian Development Bank<\/a>\u00a0(BNDES)\u00a0has very advanced practices in this regard and is one of the largest development banks in the world,\u201d the source said, adding; \u201cRussia and China, however, want nothing to do with it. They are not interested in having complex environmental criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the problem lies in creating a coordinated environmental policy framework that accounts for different regulations in each country. For example, a hydroelectric project in China may not follow the same rules as\u00a0a similar venture carried out in Brazil, and either could be financed by the BRICS bank. Projects co-financed by Brazil and Russia could breakdown because Brazilian companies would not back down on environmental problems caused by ventures in Latin American or sub-Saharan African countries where environmental standards are less stringent.<\/p>\n

Paulina Garz\u00f3n, director of the\u00a0China-Latin America Sustainable Investment\u00a0Initiative<\/a>\u00a0also met with representatives of the Brazilian Ministry of Finance. She said that technicians admit that there is great concern about the costs of preparing projects. It is possible that the bank could include a special fund for project planning, which would factor in socio-environmental risks.<\/p>\n

According to these officials, Garz\u00f3n said, the costs that the World Bank imposes on loan recipients to calculate these risks are presently too high. Garz\u00f3n also said that Brazil pressured the NDB to use Brazilian environmental standards, which have been highly praised around the world despite\u00a0problems with local <\/a>communities<\/a>and environmental infractions committed by\u00a0big infrastructure projects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former director general of the\u00a0Asian Development Bank<\/a>\u00a0(ADB), Rajat Nag, said recently that the NDB will establish environmental criteria for the projects it finances. \u201cAs far as I know, the NDB is working on social and environmental safeguards, and some people from the ADB are helping,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be very surprised if they ran contrary to some fundamental social and environmental principles. I think they will be much more pragmatic. How they will do this, I don\u2019t know, but it is exactly this that we have to monitor,\u201d Nag added.<\/p>\n

This article was first\u00a0published on\u00a0<\/em>Di\u00e1logo Chino. Read the original\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Private sector and NGOs complain of a lack of transparency and non-existent environmental policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2286,"featured_media":58461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[758],"tags":[512,544,556,580],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-33568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-brics","tag-finance","tag-infrastructure","tag-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDoes anyone know anything about the new BRICS bank? | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Private sector and NGOs complain of a lack of transparency and non-existent environmental policy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does anyone know anything about the new BRICS bank?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Private sector and NGOs complain of a lack of transparency and non-existent environmental policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dialogue Earth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-28T12:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-23T11:53:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14481234599_1aea1b1f9b_o_meitu_1_meitu_2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"572\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"386\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Milton Leal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Milton Leal\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/76403aca5456925bdb53cd8b202263cf\"},\"headline\":\"Does anyone know anything about the new BRICS bank?\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-28T12:38:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-23T11:53:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\"},\"wordCount\":839,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/14481234599_1aea1b1f9b_o_meitu_1_meitu_2.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"BRICS\",\"Finance\",\"Infrastructure\",\"Policy\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/8568-does-anyone-know-anything-about-the-new-brics-bank\/\",\"name\":\"Does anyone know anything about the new BRICS bank? 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