APPENDIX 2
Memorandum from the Swedish Society for
Nature Conservation
1. The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
is Sweden's largest NGO with a membership numbering almost 160,000.
2. Together with a number of other groups
internationally, we have been researching the environmental and
developmental impacts of the projects and programmes backed by
OECD export credit and investment insurance guarantee agencies
(ECAs). We greatly welcome your Committee's invitation to NGOs
and others in the development community to submit memoranda on
the future role and status of the ECGD in order to feed into the
review of the ECGD announced by the Secretary of State for Trade
and Industry in late July.
3. The ECGD's lack of mandatory environmental
and development standards is of great concern to us. Whilst agencies
such as the ECGD continue to operate without such standards, there
is strong pressure on other national ECAs to resist taking action
to improve their own standards. The result is a race to the bottom
that penalises "best practice" and erodes public confidence
in the stated commitment of governments to sustainable development.
We believe that the problem will remain unaddressed so long as
the OECD fails to require its ECAs to adopt shared, common standards
and procedures aimed at ensuring rigorous, comprehensive and transparent
environmental and development screening and assessment of those
projects and products for which ECA support is sought.
4. We very much hope that the Committee
will support the call for common international standards and press
for the ECGD to take a lead in adopting such standards.
Svenska Naturskyddsforeningen
(Swedish Society for Nature Conservation)
2 September 1999
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