ICoE Course Outline (Environmental Safeguards in Asia)

Environmental Safeguards in Asia by Dr. Jean Aden

December 9, 2013 to January 17, 2014

Course description

     This course concerns the environmental and social safeguards, which the international financial institutions (IFIs) created to address environmental and social risk in development projects in the 1980s and 90s, and have introduced throughout the developing world over the last twenty-five years. Given that the IFIs were the source of over 50 percent of the financial capital flowing into developing countries during the 1980s and 90s, their safeguards commanded respect as powerful tools for predicting, preventing and/or mitigating environmental and social damage in development projects.

     In more recent years, the balance of public versus private funds flowing into developing countries has shifted, and the annual contribution of the IFI has fallen to 10-20 percent of all foreign capital flows into these countries. Given the tremendous pressure on natural resources in many Asian countries, the fact that private and private-public investors now provide well over 50 percent of financial capital flows into some of Asian fastest growing countries, and that many of these investors do not use safeguards, we may wonder whether the safeguards introduced in the 1980s-90s have become less effective tools for addressing environmental and social risk in this fast-growing region.

     The course begins with a close look at the use of environmental and social safeguards in IFI lending to several Asian countries, including Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia; the uneven use of safeguards at national and local levels in China; the challenge of using safeguards in large dam projects; and the added value of safeguards when used together with the independent recourse mechanisms of the IFIs. Weighing these experiences together, the course will examine the conditions under which environmental and social safeguards can be effective when used at the national level in Asian countries, and to what extent developing national-level safeguards could or should be a priority for Asian countries.

Course Requirement

Read all required reading assignment

Attend all lectures

Participate in tutorial sections

Participate in dam role-play

Final examination

·       Introduction: What are Safeguards

·       Environmental Assessment

·       More Environmental Assessment : Film “A River Change Course”

·       Involuntary Resettlement

·       China

·       Dams (Film “Choropampa: The Price of Gold”)

·       Indigenous People (Film: “Making Money Business: Building Company-Community Dialogue”)

·       Recourse, Transparency and Independent Accountability Mechanisms

·       Stakeholder Analysis / Role Plays

·       Final Class