It is essential that the ADB Board's discussion on the Inspection Panel report provides answers to the following questions:

1. What is the specific action plan to urgently address the significant negative impacts of this project, as detailed in the Inspection Panel report and the Inspection Claim?
2. How will the implementation of these Panel recommendations, as endorsed by the Board Inspection Committee actually change the situation of people in the project area and provide necessary remedies?
3. Given the well-documented failures of consultation and participation in the design and implementation of CRBIP, how will the Board ensure that "remedial actions" are carried out with the "full participation of the affected communities and their representatives"?
4. What actions will be taken by ADB Management and the Board to ensure that these supervision and policy compliance failures do not happen again?

1. The GRSC did not include "full participation of affected communities and their representatives" or provide for "full compensation for any losses and restoration of livelihoods of communities and households that have been adversely affected," as recommended by the Inspection Panel. According to the Inspection Panel report:

"Management does, however, refer to several instances when the NGOs have declined invitations to attend meetings, primarily in the setting up of the GRSC, and concludes that 'solutions cannot be found unless the engagement of all parties is meaningful and constructive.' But Management does not discuss the explicit demands that the Requesters have formulated, and which they consider prerequisites for making their participation meaningful." (para 218)

"The reasons given by the Requesters for refusing to 'become a formal part' of the negotiation on the GRSC included the 'inadequacy and unrealistic nature' of the proposed committee. They also refer to their experiences of previous efforts to engage in a dialogue. One such experience refers to the deficient decision-making process on resettlement, which - as discussed above - Management considers to have been 'informed, consultative and participative.'" (para 219)

"The isolated efforts to engage affected communities and civil society organizations in a dialogue have suffered from a lack of continuity and clearly defined framework. None of the efforts has resulted in any process or structures that would allow representatives of affected peoples or civil society organizations to participate in the execution and follow-up of agreed measures, or that would make possible a regular and institutionalized information sharing. Even without going into any discussions about shortcomings in terms of its composition and mandate, the most recent experience of the GRSC illustrates the problem. After an eight-months spate of intensive activity, the committee has been dismantled and follow-up is handed back to the EAs and project consultants." (para 222)

2. The GRSC recommendations do not address critical categories of project-induced impacts and losses. As the BIC notes, GRSC recommendations do not consider forest degradation and reduced access to fuel wood and restricted access to grazing land in previously unirrigated land, which together accounted for the largest percentages of complaints submitted to the GRSC. Additionally, the GRSC recommendations do not address project-related impacts in the eastern riverine belt, do not provide for sufficient remedies of the landless and were not developed in a participatory manner with affected communities. Furthermore, there has never been an assessment of the GRSC recommendations' compliance with currently applicable ADB policy requirements. The Inspection Panel report itself documents several inadequacies in the scope of the GRSC recommendations:

"One of the charges to GRSC was to identify measures to mitigate adverse impacts on the more vulnerable of the population - women, small landholders and the landless. The GRSC was also to explore and recommend program options to extend opportunities to the poor who are displaced from their land and other assets. Though the percentage breakdown of grievances presented in the entitlement matrix provides evidence as to the extent of the various types of harm, it does not address the socio-cultural issues (e.g., access to town, severance and loss of support networks, dispersal of community, gradual disappearance of graveyards, conflict between farmers and between farms and landlords). Nor does it propose any appropriate measures to rectify them." (para 246)

"GRSC, from a broader gender perspective, points to a number of such issues as girl enrolment and retention rates in schools; mother and child health care; strengthening of women's roles leadership, representation and decision making for effective participation under the new local government system and involvement of women in the canal water management for domestic use. However, it does not provide any concrete recommendations related to these issues." (para 247)

"GRSC talks of providing canal water allowance for domestic use for villages with saline ground water and a high percentage of landless inhabitants as an entitlement in compensation for reduced opportunity for grazing and fuel-wood collection. It is doubtful that just an assurance of freshwater supplies as compensation is sufficient, or even relevant, for those people (women, smallholders and landless) who are vulnerable to risks of further impoverishment." (para 248)

1. ADB should openly confess the violations and non-compliance with all relevant and applicable policies.
2. Based on the more than 8,000 complaints received by the GRSC, remedial actions should be developed in consultation with local communities. Some of these remedial actions may be similar to GRSC recommendations, while others may arrive at different locally appropriate and acceptable solutions. The development and implementation of these remedial actions should be monitored by an independent entity acceptable to all parties, including to the Requesters. A participatory assessment of project-induced impacts in the riverine belt and proposed remedial actions should be included in the Hill Torrents Management Plan.
3. The Inspection Panel report recommendations should be implemented and progress should be monitored by the Board.
4. The Board should clarify and emphasize that Management is required to comply fully with ADB policies and not simply to adhere to "the integrity and spirit" of ADB's internal laws based on Management's own judgment.