Halifax Initiative

February 28, 2005

Indigenous Peoples Coordinator
Mailstop MC5-523
World Bank
1818 H Street
NW Washington DC 20433 USA
Email: indigenouspeoples@worldbank.org

RE: Comments on Revised Draft Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples (Revised Draft OP 4.10)

Dear Indigenous Peoples Coordinator,

Please find below our comments on the Draft Operational Policy on Indigenous Peoples (Revised Draft OP 4.10).

We the undersigned Canadian organizations and representatives are writing to highlight the need for the World Bank to strengthen its draft OP 4.10 in order to ensure that the policy sufficiently meets international standards and guarantees on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In our opinion, for the operational policy to be seen to be credible and effective it must contain mandatory provisions that:

Marcel Massé

December 12, 2002

Mr. James Wolfensohn
President
The World Bank Group
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20433 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Wolfensohn,

We are writing to express dismay at the recent Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman report on the MIGA guarantee of the Bulyanhulu gold mine and to request your urgent intervention.

The CAO is a mechanism that non-governmental organizations have pushed hard to establish. Your personal support for the initiative played a major role in ensuring that the CAO was established. As all parties have observed, the CAO's effectiveness rests on the respect and trust it enjoys amongst the public: integrity, transparency, even¬handedness and thoroughness are thus critical to all aspects of its work.

7 February 2001

President Gustavo NoboaPalacio de Gobierno
García Moreno 1043
Quito
Ecuador

Dear President Noboa:

We write to you as representatives of civil-society organizations concernedabout the impact of IMF- and World Bank-imposed structural adjustment programs around the world. We are alarmed by reports of violent suppression by your government of the legitimate public protests against the most recently implemented adjustment program in Ecuador. We urge you to cease this repression and to launch a national dialogue to find lasting solutions to the pressing economic and social problems confronting your country.