Despite evidence documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW) of forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector, on 30 June the World Bank’s board approved yet another project that will benefit the sector, green-lighting a $145 million irrigation project...

There have been repeated concerns about forced labour in Bank-funded projects in the country in recent years. In 2016, a victim of forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton production and three Uzbek human rights defenders filed a complaint in relation to a textile project financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the Bank’s private sector arm) with the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO, the IFC’s accountability mechanism; see Observer Autumn 2016). The complaint alleged the textile project failed to account for forced labour in the cotton sector as part of the project’s supply chain. In November 2015, civil society organisations called for the World Bank to suspend its loans to Uzbekistan, “until the government ends the use of forced labour in all project-affected areas” (see Observer Winter 2016).

However, the new HRW report noted, “Despite [these concerns], the World Bank remains active in the country’s agriculture sector providing a total of $518.75 million in loans to the government for projects in this sector in 2015 and 2016.”...