Panel Delivers China Report

Contact: Eduardo Abbott (202) 458-2617; Antonia Macedo (202) 458-2597

April 28, 2000. Washington, D.C. The World Bank's independent Inspection Panel today delivered its Investigation Report on the Qinghai component of the China Western Poverty Reduction Project to Bank Management. The Report is confidential and the Panel is unable to discuss its contents until after the Report is made publicly available.

It will be several weeks before the Report can be released to the public. Under the rules establishing the Inspection Panel, Bank Management has 6 weeks to react to the Panel's Report and make its recommendations, if any, to the Bank's Board. The Board will then meet to consider both Reports. Under the same rules, the Panel's Investigation Report and Management's Report will be made public three days after the Board takes a decision on the matter.

On September 9, 1999, the Board formally requested the Panel to undertake an investigation to see whether Bank Management had observed its policies and procedures on, among others, involuntary resettlement, indigenous peoples, and environmental assessment. Earlier the Panel had received a Request for Inspection from the International Campaign for Tibet claiming that the proposed migration of about 60,000 poor people from 6 counties in eastern Qinghai Province to Dulan County would adversely affect the lives and livelihoods of 4,000 Tibetan and Mongolian ethnic peoples.