On October 1, 2003, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Japan's leading body for providing official development assistance to developing countries, began to implement its new Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations. The Guidelines were formulated in order to prevent projects that it finances or in which it invests from causing serious environmental problems. The guidelines contain a checklist of 23 items for 26 industrial categories, and state that the results of environmental reviews are to be made available to the public.

In addition, the guidelines state that JBIC places importance on dialogue with project host countries, borrowers and other entities, while respecting the sovereignty of the host country, and that stakeholders should be encouraged to participate in projects right from the planning stage.

To ensure transparency when formulating the guidelines, JBIC invited comments from the public. It also held six public consultation forums to exchange ideas with a total of about 350 participants from many areas, including representatives from academia, industry and non-governmental organizations.

The guidelines encourage active information disclosure by JBIC, which is to voluntarily make public the category classification of projects prior to loan approval and the results of environmental reviews after funding decisions are made, while respecting both the principles of information openness and the protection of confidential commercial information.



Posted: 2003/11/16 05:17:37 PM
Japanese version

TAG Ecosystem , Government , Other , System/Law