The Asian Development Bank's (ADB) move to revise its 1995 safeguard policy drew strong criticism from Indonesian civil society organizations Tuesday.

The policy contains rules for debtors carrying out development projects funded by the ADB.

The Manila-based bank said the policy update was aimed at avoiding, minimizing or mitigating the adverse environmental impacts, social costs and marginalization of vulnerable groups that may result from the projects.

However, civil society groups said ADB's proposal lacked protection and provisions to secure the rights of indigenous people.

The new policy deliberately set a more lenient standard than the previous one, they said during a consultation forum with ADB executives.

The opposing organizations included leading environment group Walhi, the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), financial watchdog NADI and a tribal society alliance.

Seven of 28 NGOs in attendance walked out of the forum in protest.

They said the ADB had its own agenda and failed to accommodate the interests of indigenous people in the new proposal.

At a press conference after the walk-out, the NGOs identified several controversial points in the proposal.

Among these were a change in the rules to obtain consent from indigenous people for ADB development projects.

ADB proposed one change from "free prior informed consent" to "free prior informed consultation leading to broad community support".

ADB said it used the term "broad community support" under the definition coined by the World Bank.

Indonesia is among the Asian countries where the ADB has run a series of consultations with local NGOs, the government, businesses and donors to get feedback on the proposed revisions.

Walhi executive director Chalid Muhammad said the new proposal was not aimed at favoring indigenous people affected by ADB-funded projects.

"ADB is trying to make its safeguard policy more lenient to attract debtors amid harsh competition with other similar lenders. ADB simply wants to secure the interests of its shareholders," he said.

Similar challenges to the proposed revision also came from NGOs in other countries, including India, where ADB also held consultation forums.

ADB director for the environment and social safeguards division Nessim J. Ahmad, who chaired the consultation in Jakarta, told reporters his office would take into consideration all criticism.

Ahmad denied the ADB intended to weaken the objectives and rules of the existing safeguard policy.

"Instead, many aspects have been enhanced, such as the requirement for a grievance redress mechanism, which will allow affected people to voice their complaints," he said.

Since 1969, ADB has disbursed some US$21.5 billion for both governments and the private sector to finance development projects.

ADB said it had an accumulative project success rate of 63.1 percent in 2007.

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