“Declaration of communities affected by the IDB group” – 10 August 2020

…Network of people affected by IDB investments request direct reparation for damages caused by these investments and attention to the deepening of the impacts caused by the COVID19 crisis. As communities affected by the investments made by the IDB Group in our territories, we ask the IDB Group’s Board of Executive Directors to welcome us in a virtual public dialogue in which we can directly express both the damage they have caused us with their investments and the requests we would like to make. The dialogue is proposed for September 8, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. EST. We declare that there are communities throughout our Latin America and Caribbean seriously affected by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the IDB-Invest. Projects financed by the IDB Group have contributed for a long time so that the diverse communities in our region are subject to enormous socio-environmental damage that is currently exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that these projects deteriorate the living and subsistence conditions of thousands of people, the IDB Group deepens exactly the situation it claims to be fighting against. That is, the IDB Group becomes an agent that generates impoverishment and precarious living and working conditions, which contradicts the Group’s mandate…We know that your interest is merely economic and that the accumulation of capital, which you call development, is not for us. That is why we are here to demand that you stop further impoverishing us and, in cases where they you have already done so, immediately repair the damage caused. No one forced you to finance death projects, which is what we call them. But, we were forced to live a life that we did not want — and this has been done with your money, therefore you are responsible for all these damages to our lives. As your regular complaint mechanisms are not sufficient and do not generate real solutions for the populations, the situation presented requires a new channel for direct dialogue.

This declaration is signed by:

Asociación Asopesca Tocopilla (Chile)

Coordinadora Ciudadana No Alto Maipo (Chile)

Movimento de Favelas de São José dos Campos (Brasil)

Movimiento Ríos Vivos (Colombia)”…