HomeMy WebLinkAbout885 - CONSIDERATION of a resolution supporting the World Bank Bonds Boycott. Amended and Adopted 8/~ r, . ~+. ,
RESOLUTION NO. 885
A RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE WORLD BANK BONDS
BOYCOTT.
WHEREAS, for financial reasons, the City of Boulder does not purchase or hold World Baiilc
bonds as an investment; and
WHEREAS, the World Bank promotes privatization of basic public services such as
education, health cara, water, and public pension systems which often has the effect of restricting
peoples' access to basic services, and the World Bank has promoted "user fees" on access to primary
health care and education in poor countries; and
WHEREAS, the widespread use of"shuctural adjushnent" lending by the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund has undermined the living standards of people in the developing
world; and
WHEREAS, the World Bank's record on environmental issues is dismal, and four naYional
and international environmental organizations (Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, the
International Rivers Network and the Rainforest Action Network) have outlined the World Bank's
environmental failures in a document entitled Not in the Public Interest: The World Bank's
Environmental Record (February, 2000); and
WHEREAS, such report, based on the inspection of World Bank documents, draws the
following conclusions on the World Bank's environmental record:
"The Bank continues to invest in environmentally harmful projects while devoting, fewer resources
to environmentally beneficial ones. It has weakened many of its environmental policies and often
fails to abide by them. The Bank is lending more for erzvironmentally destructive structural
adjustment projects yet doesn't assess their environmental and social impacts. Its information
disclosure continues to be inadeguate, and it doesn't incorporate the concerns of civil society into
its decision making. While the Bank now acknowledges the important of environmental and social
considerations, it has,failed - by its own admission - to prevent environmental and social harm; "
and
WHEREAS, World Bank fossil fuel energy projects represent an unnecessary U.S. taxpayer
subsidy to one of the most environmentally and socialiy destructive industrias in developing
countries; and
WHEREAS, the majority of the resources available for lending by the World Bank come
from the sale of World Bank bonds to institutional investors, including pension funds, and these
resources are used to carry out the aforementioned destructive policias.
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NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY
OF BOULDER, COLORADO pledges not to reconsider its current policy against the purchase of
World Bank bonds unless the World Bank fundamentally reconsiders its environmental policies and
practices.
APPROVED this 21A~ day of August, 2001.
~~~
Mayor
Atte t:
City Clerk on behalf f the
Director of Finance nd Record
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