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World Bank slams its own forest reforms in DRC
World Bank forestry projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ignored the rights of indigenous pygmies and overestimated the benefits of industrial logging in reducing poverty, the bank itself said in a report that concluded internal guidelines had been breached.
The report says the projects ignored the rights of pygmies. (Image: Andrew Itoua/IRIN)
Activists say the projects left the forestry sector "in anarchy".
The report, compiled by the bank's inspection panel, followed complaints by indigenous pygmy groups that the reforms had disregarded the rights of millions of forest-dependent people and ignored the existence of between 250,000 and 600,000 pygmies whose lives depend on the forests.
The reforms, the complainants argued, would also lead to violations of their rights to occupy ancestral lands, and manage and use their forests according to traditional practices.
