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In 1999, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) successfully pressured the World Bank to relinquish its funding to China’s Western Poverty Reduction Project through a two-pronged approach of mobilizing at the grassroots level to lobby the U.S. government and convincing Washington specialists to draft a claim to the World Bank investigation panel listing the internal policy violations.

In 1999, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) successfully pressured the World Bank to relinquish its funding to China’s Western Poverty Reduction Project through a two-pronged approach of mobilizing at the grassroots level to lobby the U.S. government and convincing Washington specialists to draft a claim to the World Bank investigation panel listing the internal policy violations.

ICT is a Washington based, non-profit organization that has worked to promote human rights and self-determination for Tibetans since 1988.  In 1999, ICT launched a massive campaign to protest against the World Bank’s agreement to fund China’s Western Poverty Reduction Project, which proposed to move nearly 60,000 poor Chinese farmers into the Tibetan region.  ICT opposed such a project on the grounds that massive migration degrades the environment, and dilutes Tibetan culture.

After receiving two anonymous letters from Tibetans outlining the consequences of the project, ICT started to mobilize grassroots organizations including many Buddhist groups in the U.S. through sending mass e-mails, petitions, and pamphlets to U.S. congressmen.  Once these diverse groups came together, ICT organized massive rallies in front of World Bank buildings to shame its employees and the management.  The key to ICT’s victory was winning the support of the U.S. government, which has enormous leverage power in World Bank policies.

The ICT did not employ any particularly innovative tactics but their strength lay in strategically tying traditional human rights tactics together.  A major part of their success was due to the large Tibetan constituency in the U.S. both among exiled Tibetans and Americans concerned about Tibet.  By mobilizing these constituents to write letters to their congressmen and participate in rallies, ICT was able to generate tremendous support from Congress which, in turn, pushed the administration to place diplomatic pressure on the World Bank.  For instance, Tibetans and Americans took the day off to participate in the Tibetan Festival in Washington which occurred around the time that the World Bank was about to cast its votes.  Massive rallying shamed some bank employees taking a stand against the World Bank.  The ICT then became a conduit through which sympathetic bank employees leaked information to ICT which then leaked it to the press.

At the same time, ICT contacted two Washington specialists who had extensive knowledge about the internal workings of the World Bank.  These specialists were able to research, investigate, and draft a claim which was sent to the World Bank’s investigation panel.  The claim outlined specific policies that the Bank had violated in negotiating this project including wrongfully classifying the project, and not following the proper procedures in publicizing the initiative.

The combined strategies of uniting grassroots organizations to lobby the U.S. government and seeking specialists to draft a formal claim led to the success of ICT’s campaign.  In 1999, the independent investigation panel of the World Bank found that the Bank had violated almost all of its social and environmental policies. In the end, the Chinese government, pressured by the U.S. and Japanese government, withdrew the project proposal reluctantly.

ICT emphasized the importance of framing the issue not as one political manoeuvre but one of human impact.  This tactic was particularly effective because it used the World Bank’s own language of “helping people” to attack the hypocrisy of its policies.  Furthermore, this framing helped prevent a negative reaction from the Chinese government.  

This paper was completed on January 7th, 2003.