8 de marzo 2024
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The UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) has rescinded the Financial Activity Agreement for Nicaragua’s “Bio-CLIMA project, billed as “integrated climate action to reduce deforestation and strengthen resilience in BOSAWAS and Rio San Juan Biospheres.” The organization made the decision due to alleged “non-compliance with GCF policies and procedures on environmental and social safeguards.” The Fund confirmed its decision in a statement posted in English on its website.
The Bioi-CLIMA project was approved in November 2020, would have given the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo US $116.6 million dollars for its implementation. Nonetheless, in June 2021, the indigenous and Afro-descendent communities of the affected region presented a formal complaint to the GCF’s Independent Redress Mechanism, which then began an independent investigation. The Green Climate Fund has now decided to definitively suspend the project, the first such decision since its creation.
They assured that “no funds were disbursed by GCF to the project, and the project had not begun implementation.”
The posted update goes on to explain that the decision was made by the Green Fund Secretariat “following a thorough investigative and assessment process, as well as actions taken by the Secretariat to address the instances on non-compliance, which constituted legal breaches to the relevant legal agreements between GCF and the Accredited Entity.”
“Enormous recognition of Nicaragua’s indigenous resistance”
Nicaraguan environmentalist Amaru Ruiz, who has been banished from the country and had his organization’s property confiscated by the Ortega-Murillo regime, assured Confidencial that the suspension of the project “is an enormous recognition of the resistance of the indigenous and Afro-descendent communities in Nicaragua, especially those from the Mayagna Sauni As territory. This is the area that has struggled most and seen its territories invaded, and where the killings of indigenous people have been concentrated.” He was referring to the more than 70 indigenous residents who have been murdered in Nicaragua over the last decade, at the hands of invading land colonists who are allowed to act with impunity.
According to Ruiz, those violations had an impact on the conclusion of the Green Climate Fund’s evaluation, making evident the regime’s failure to comply with the Fund’s policies and procedures regarding environmental and social safeguards for the Bio-CLIMA project.
“From civil society, we continue believing in the international mechanisms that protect and include protective mechanisms, and we believe that the climate projects that are financed shouldn’t violate the rights of those in the zones where they’re being carried out,” Ruiz declared.
In his view, the Green Climate Fund’s decision to suspend the Bio-CLIMA project sends a clear message and also sets a precedent for actions. It reinforces the credibility of the independent mechanisms that investigated and submitted the results of their corresponding research. “This reaffirms their transparency and strengthens the Green Climate Fund,” he noted.
Ruiz said the most important part of the message is that the indigenous and local communities, the civil society organizations, and independent parties involved now know that they can question projects that directly affect their territories. “That’s the strongest message this decision sends on a world level – one that’s transcendent in the history of the Green Climate Fund and also for Nicaragua and the indigenous and Afro-descendent communities,” Ruiz reiterated.
The indigenous peoples’ complaints about the Bio-CLIMA project
In their denunciation before the Green Climate Fund’s Independent Redress Mechanism, the indigenous people alleged a lack of “proper consultation with Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities and non-compliance of the Accredited Entity, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), with GCF policies and procedures.”
The initial complaint was filed in June 2021. After conducting a compliance investigation, the Mechanism submitted a Compliance Review Report for the GCF Board’s consideration.
In July 2023, the GCF Executive Board decided to continue freezing disbursements for the Bio-CLIMA project – a total of US $116.6 million dollars – until the regime of Daniel Ortega complied with the policies and procedures established by the organization’s Secretariat.
An article published by Confidencial at the time offered details of how the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), then headed by Honduran Dante Mossi, omitted key information about the situation of violence that the indigenous communities of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast were experiencing. This omission allowed the government of Daniel Ortega to receive millions of dollars in loans from CABEI, according to the Independent Redress Mechanism’s report.
On that occasion, the Redress Mechanism noted that it was “especially concerning” that on several occasions CABEI affirmed “that it’s very familiar with the areas for the project’s execution and has worked there during many previous projects.” Despite this, the Independent Redress Mechanism report stated, CABEI didn’t offer any detailed information about the “nature, frequency, location, participants, dynamics, scope and severity of the violence on the Caribbean Coast, either for lack of data or a decision to postpone a more exhaustive analysis,” until a later phase of the project.
Later, in September 2023, Confidencial denounced that the Ortega regime was holding consultations about the Bio-CLIMA project with the population of non-indigenous territories, in order to complete CABEI’s quota of consulting with 6,746 people before they would release the million-dollar project funds that had been frozen. This information was confirmed by environmentalist Amaru Ruiz.
In its statement confirming the definitive cancellation of the project, the Green Climate Fund affirmed that its Secretariat: “has been engaging with CABEI on this issue and is committed to working collaboratively with the Accredited Entity and Executing Entity to develop a clear strategy to conclude the project in an orderly and responsible manner that includes informing all relevant stakeholders on the ground and managing the expectations of those that would have been the beneficiaries had the project been implemented.”
Finally, the report reiterated the GCF Secretariat’s commitment to: “upholding the principle of do no harm and avoid, minimize, and mitigate potential adverse environmental and social impact of climate finance activities.”
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by Havana Times. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
