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dam-l WCD presentation/NGO look at lrg. dams/LS
The following is excellent.
Reuters Foundation, IUCN, World Commission on Dams
Panel Debate on Large Dams, South Africa House, London, 14 July 1999
An NGO Look at Large Dams (Presentation of Peter Bosshard, Berne Declaration)
Introduction
My own roots as an activist are in the anti-apartheid movement. So it is a
great thrill to be the guest of the new South Africa today. 25 years ago,
the Berne Declaration helped to organize a seminar to create the Swiss
anti-apartheid movement. One of the speakers then was Prof. Kader Asmal
from Dublin. Today the professor is a strong chair of the WCD, and I am
honoured to be on his panel.
Being with the anti-apartheid movement has not always been a popular thing.
We were told that we were interfering in the domestic affairs of a
sovereign country. People told us that a country like South Africa could
not meet international standards such as democracy and human rights. And
people told us that we should be more patient with the apartheid
government, and that too much pressure would be counter-productive.
Today, I am dealing with international financial relations, and let me tell
you: We are still hearing the same criticisms. The Berne Declaration is an
independent Swiss advocacy group with 16,000 members. We are working
towards more equitable North-South relations, and monitor the activities of
Swiss banks, companies, and government agencies for this purpose. Swiss
companies such as ABB and Sulzer play a major role in the global hydropower
market. So at the request of Southern NGOs, we often campaign against
destructive dam projects in which these companies are involved. We help to
coordinate international campaigns against projects such as Three Gorges in
China, Bakun im Malaysia (now shelved), and Ilisu in Turkey. Again Southern
governments tell us that we disregard national sovereignty, that we are
applying unfair standards, and that we should be more patient.
The problems of large dams
So, what is our position on large dams? They are obviously one option of
producing power, or to store water for irrigation. I believe that any large
infrastructure project - be it a highway, a thermal power plant, or a dam -
should be based on the same basic principles to go ahead:
1. The planning process should be transparent, participatory, and
accountable to the public at large.
2. Projects must be socially equitable. The benefits should be shared
widely. And affected people - who are usually poor - cannot be expected to
subsidize the groups which benefit from the project. So all externalities
should be fully compensated, and in a way which is acceptable to the
affected people.
3. Projects should be environmentally sustainable. They should not put
major natural resources at risk, which are an important source of
livelihood for affected people.
4. Projects should not only be financially profitable, but should also make
economic sense. Cost-benefit analyses should cover all external costs.
In theory, most people would agree with these principles. Many development
banks and governments in the North and South have policies which stipulate
the same things. Look at the World Bank policies on access to information,
on resettlement, on the environment. They are quite compatible with our
principles. Yet there is a world of a difference between theory, and what
happens in actual practice.
Let's look at a few examples.
1. Resettlement: Globally, reservoirs have displaced more than 50 million
people. Nobody knows the real figure - which is telling in itself. In World
Bank projects, affected people must be rehabilitated in a way which allows
them at least to regain their previous standard of living. Yet in the early
90s, the Bank was not able to find one single resettlement project in
Africa or Latin America where this condition had been met (and documented).
On India's Narmada river, a private company is presently building the
Maheshwar dam. The government of Madhya Pradesh has adopted a relatively
comprehensive resettlement policy. In actual practice, the resettlement
land is either completely barren, located in the submergence zone, or
non-existent. And so on, and so on.
2. Environmental impacts: Large dams have far-reaching and long-ranging
impacts on the ecosystem of river basins. Many of them are still not
understood. Reservoirs have so far flooded more than 400,000 square
kilometers of land - often floodplains with a high degree of biodiversity.
Dams erode the downstream areas and river deltas. They eutrophize the
rivers, and increase their salt content. They threaten, and sometimes
render extinct, fish species both downstream and offshore. They breed
malaria and schisostomiasis.
True, dam-building institutions have policies which are supposed to
mitigate the environmental impacts of large dams. Yet again, what a
difference between theory and practice. In India, the Ministry of
Environment and Forests usually clears dam projects under conditions which
must be fulfilled. In 1995, the Ministry found that 87 percent of all
projects had failed to fulfill these conditions - and no sanctions are
being taken.
Many Northern banks and companies have their own environmental principles
too. Well-sounding, sometimes well-intentioned. Yet when an interesting
contract is at stake, they tend to shift all responsibility for
environmental problems to the governments. (A notable exception was Hydro
Ontario, which refused to get involved in the Three Gorges dam when Mr.
Strong was at the helm.)
3. Economics: An important dam-building minister has termed the social and
environmental impacts of large dams the "New Age costs". This must sound
rather cynical to affected people. Not being "New Age" types, NGOs are
interested in the hard economics of large dams too. And again, we find that
many large dams are uneconomic even according to their own standards:
* Revenues: Engineering companies are under strong pressure to produce
favourable assessments. After all, this is what they often get paid for. So
they often overrate streamflows and underrate sedimentation. Thus, they
overrate power production and future revenues.
* Costs: In 1994, the World Bank found that 70 dams which it had funded
since the 1960s had average cost overruns of 30 percent. The larger the dam
was, the bigger the cost overrun tended to be. No wonder hardly any private
investors risk their own money on large dams - unless governments offer
them generous subsidies and guarantees.
Many dams are not economic on their own terms. If all costs - including the
so-called externalities - are considered, they are even more wasteful. The
World Commission on Dams is supposed to evaluate the economics of large
dams right now. I had the chance to comment on the scoping paper for the
respective review. I suggested that all externalities - including
environmental destruction, social fragmentation etc. - should be
considered. Achim Steiner, the WCD's general secretary, replied by saying
that we should not expect the Commission to do "what economics has not
managed to tackle in 200 years".
In a way, the general secretary has a point here. But if you think about
it, this point is so revealing. After building 40,000 large dams, spending
100s of billions of dollars, uprooting more than 50 million people, after
being on the learning curve for 20 years, the dam industry is still not
capable of calculating the full economic costs of their projects. To me,
this indicates that dam building is motivated less by the common good than
by the vested interests of government agencies, consultants, and equipment
suppliers. If their closed decision-making process is not made more
democratic, there will be no learning curve.
Different standards for the South?
In countries like Switzerland, NGOs have succeeded in making the
authorities reconsider the construction of several new dams. I am often
told that Southern governments cannot apply the same standards as affluent
Northern societies. I agree that Southern societies have a legitimate right
to increase their energy consumption. And certainly, concerns like
river-rafting in an unspoilt canyon should not have the same priority in a
poor country as in a rich. Yet when it comes to basic principles, I wonder
what the argument of different standards means:
* Should Southern governments care less about the economics of their power
projects because they are poor? Can they better afford to waste resources
on a dam which is more expensive than, say, increasing the efficiency of
the transmission system? Certainly not.
* Should Southern governments care less about the social impacts of their
projects? Are their industrial and urban consumers so poor that they need
to be subsidized by the even poorer dam-affected people? Again - certainly
not. After all, it is the affected people who pay for the so-called
external costs, and not the North, or outer space.
* Finally, should Southern governments care less about environmental costs?
Here even more than in the North, natural resources are not a luxury
concern, but support the economic livelihood of millions of people. So our
Southern partners argue that dam projects in the South should fulfill the
same basic conditions as dams in the North, and I agree with them.
Conclusion
Where does this leave us? Yes, even if no dams are built, there is a lot of
inequitable and unsustainable development. And yes, spending 100s of
billions of dollars on dams has increased the production of power and food.
Yet when I look at the experience of large dams, I believe that with the
same amount of money (or less), we could increase the production of power
and food more, and for a lower price to society and the environment: If we
made planning processes more transparent and accountable. If communities
had a fair chance to participate in development processes, and bring in
their own knowledge and initiative. If governments spent public money on
technological ingenuity (like renewable energies) rather than on
subsidizing old, unsustainable industries.
You may say that this sounds rather vague. So let's look at a few concrete
alternatives: In China, the introduction of co-generation with industrial
boilers would produce more power at a lower cost than the Three Gorges dam
- and it would substitute more CO2 emissions. In Malaysia, even
solar-panels would not be more expensive than the original Bakun project.
And in Turkey, making the leaking transmission system more efficient would
be much more cost-efficient than building the controversial Ilisu dam.
Together with our Southern partners, we will continue to work towards more
sustainable alternatives. I believe that pressure from the ground is still
needed to break up vested interests, and to help dam-builders climb further
up the learning curve. I wish to express my solidarity with the 1000s of
people who face submergence by the rising Narmada river right now, and who
are protesting against a recent decision by India's Supreme Court to raise
the dam height - a decision which is completely delinked from ground
reality. At the same time, we are open for a dialogue with all interested
parties, with governments and industry - if it is meant seriously. In this
sense the Berne Declaration supports the work of the World Commission on
Dams - politically, personally, and financially. We will make every effort
to keep the WCD process participatory and independent, and will take care
that the Commission does not restrict the outcome to the narrow limits of
mainstream thinking. Thank you for your attention.
Peter Bosshard
Berne Declaration
finance@evb.ch, www.access.ch/evb/bd
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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