§262o–4 — Title 22 Foreign Relations and Intercourse | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary of the Treasury must tell U.S. representatives at international development banks to explain and push U.S. policy goals at those banks. The policy asks each bank to do 12 main things. These include requiring employees and consultants to file yearly financial and conflict disclosures; linking project results to staff reviews, pay, and bonuses; offering voluntary disclosure programs for firms and people in bank projects; making sure loan and grant contracts require borrowers to have the money and follow bank rules and national and international laws on information access, public health, safety, and the environment; having public anti-corruption rules that can bar and name wrongdoers; coordinating debarment and procurement rules across banks; enforcing high ethics for borrowers and contractors; keeping independent investigation, audit, and evaluation offices that report to the board; requiring transparent budgets and procurement before approving budget support loans; providing an easy, fair complaint system for people harmed by projects; protecting whistleblowers and witnesses with independent review options; and issuing draft country strategies for public comment at least 45 days before the bank board considers them. Starting 30 days after November 14, 2005, and within 60 calendar days after the board meeting where decisions are made, the Treasury must post on its website a statement of the U.S. position on operational policy decisions and any proposal likely to have a significant environmental effect. "Multilateral development bank" means international development banks and also includes the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Global Environment Facility.

Title 22, §262o–4

Foreign Relations and Intercourse — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director at each multilateral development bank to inform each such bank and the executive directors of each such bank of the policy of the United States as set out in this section and to actively promote this policy and the goals set forth in section 262o–3 of this title. It is the policy of the United States that each bank should—

(1)require the bank’s employees, officers and consultants to make an annual disclosure of their financial interests and income and of any other potential source of conflict of interest;

(2)link project and program design and results to management and staff performance appraisals, salaries, and bonuses;

(3)implement voluntary disclosure programs for firms and individuals participating in projects financed by such bank;

(4)ensure that all loan, credit, guarantee, and grant documents and other agreements with borrowers include provisions for the financial resources and conditionality necessary to ensure that a person or country that obtains financial support from a bank complies with applicable bank policies and national and international laws in carrying out the terms and conditions of such documents and agreements, including bank policies and national and international laws pertaining to the comprehensive assessment and transparency of the activities related to access to information, public health, safety, and environmental protection;

(5)implement clear anti-corruption procedures setting forth the circumstances under which a person will be barred from receiving a loan, contract, grant, guarantee or credit from such bank, make such procedures available to the public, and make the identity of such person available to the public;

(6)coordinate policies across multilateral development banks on issues including debarment, cross-debarment, procurement guidelines, consultant guidelines, and fiduciary standards so that a person that is debarred by one such bank is subject to a rebuttable presumption of ineligibility to conduct business with any other such bank during the specific ineligibility period;

(7)require each bank borrower and grantee and each bidder, supplier and contractor for MDB projects to comply with the highest standard of ethics prohibiting coercive, collusive, corrupt and fraudulent practices, such as are defined in the World Bank’s Procurement Guidelines of May, 2004;

(8)maintain a functionally independent Investigations Office, Auditor General Office and Evaluation Office that are free from interference in determining the scope of investigations (including forensic audits), internal auditing (including assessments of management controls for meeting operational objectives and complying with bank policies), performing work and communicating results, and that regularly report to such bank’s board of directors and, as appropriate and in a manner consistent with such functional independence of the Investigations Office and the Auditor General Office, to the bank’s President;

(9)require that each candidate for adjustment or budget support loans demonstrate transparent budgetary and procurement processes including budget publication and public scrutiny prior to loan or grant approval;

(10)require that for each project where compensation is to be provided to persons adversely affected by the project, such persons have recourse to an impartial and responsive mechanism to receive and resolve complaints. The mechanism should be easily accessible to all segments of the affected community without impeding access to other judicial or administrative remedies and without retribution;

(11)implement best practices in domestic laws and international conventions against corruption for whistleblower and witness disclosures and protections against retaliation for internal and lawful public disclosures by the bank’s employees and others affected by such bank’s operations who challenge illegality or other misconduct that could threaten the bank’s mission, including: (1) best practices for legal burdens of proof; (2) access to independent adjudicative bodies, including external arbitration based on consensus selection and shared costs; and (3) results that eliminate the effects of proven retaliation; and

(12)require, to the maximum extent possible, that all draft country strategies are issued for public consideration no less than 45 days before the country strategy is considered by the multilateral development bank board of directors.

(b)The Secretary of the Treasury shall, beginning thirty days after November 14, 2005, and within sixty calendar days of the meeting of the respective bank’s Board of Directors at which such decisions are made, publish on the Department of the Treasury website a statement or explanation of the United States position on decisions related to: (1) operational policies; and (2) any proposal which would result or be likely to result in a significant effect on the environment.

(c)In this section the term “multilateral development bank” has the meaning given that term in section 262m–7 of this title and also includes the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Global Environment Facility.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification November 14, 2005, referred to in subsec. (b), was in the original “the enactment of this Act” which was translated as meaning the date of enactment of Pub. L. 109–102, which enacted this section, to reflect the probable intent of Congress.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Definitions The definitions in section 262p–5 of this title apply to this section.

§262o–4 Promotion of policy goals

Summary

Title 22, §262o–4

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

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