Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Hearing: World Bank Lending and Human Rights
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
2:00 PM-4:00 PM
HVC-210, Washington, DC
Please join the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission for a hearing on World Bank lending and human rights.
Although the World Bank has contributed to the advancement of human rights, it currently lacks procedures to track and measure such contribution. More importantly, there are no safeguard policies in place to help the Bank avoid or mitigate adverse human rights impacts resulting from its projects. In the context of the Bank’s unprecedented comprehensive review of its environmental and social safeguard policies and overall restructuring under the new leadership of President Jim Yong Kim, the hearing will examine how the Bank can be more effective in supporting human rights protections in its activities. Given the World Bank’s considerable influence in the development community and its leadership among multilateral organizations, the hearing will also focus on the role of the United States in strengthening the consistency between Bank policy and U.S. law and policy.
The following witnesses will testify:
Panel I:
Barney Frank, Former Member of Congress & Chair of House Financial Services Committee
Panel II:
Arvind Ganesan, Director for Business and Human Rights, Human Rights Watch
Nadejda Ataeva, President, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia
Yoni Rivas, Secretary General of the Movement of Unified Campesinos in Aguan and member of the Plataforma Agraria, Honduras
Delphine Djiraibe, Human Rights Attorney, Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights
*The list of witnesses subject to change
If you have any questions, please contact the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at 202-225-3599
202-225-3599 or tlhrc@mail.house.gov.
Sincerely,
James P. McGovern Frank R. Wolf
Co-Chair, TLHRC Co-Chair, TLHRC
Sunjeev Bery 