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DAM-L LS: Report attacks value of big dam projects (fwd)
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Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 11:14:44 -0800 (PST)
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subject: LS: Report attacks value of big dam projects
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Financial Times (London)
November 14, 2000, Tuesday London Edition 2
SECTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 12
Report attacks value of big dam projects
By ALAN BEATTIE
DATELINE: NEW DELHI
A report to be launched this week by an international commission of experts
is sharply critical of large dams in developing
countries, saying they often fail to deliver promised benefits and have
large human and environmental costs.
The report will delight environmental and development activists who have
led a long campaign against large dams, such as the highly controversial
Nar mada dam in western India and the Three Gorges river project in China.
A draft of the overview to the report by the World Commission on Dams
(WCD), seen by the Financial Times, says that large
dams - of which there are more than 45,000 worldwide - generally fail to
provide the promised irrigation benefits and
frequently involve mass resettlement of poor people, with inadequate
compensation.
"In terms of the social impact of dams, the Commission found that the
negative effects were frequently neither adequately
assessed nor accounted for," the report says.
"Given the large capital investment in large dams, the Commission was
disturbed to find that substantive evaluations of
completed projects are few in number, narrow in scope . . . and
inadequately linked to decisions on operations."
Some expect the full report - to be launched on Thursday by Nelson Mandela,
the former South African president - to single
out for criticism the World Bank, which has often been involved in funding
large dams in developing countries.
The WCD, which brought together environmental, engineering and development
experts, was set up in 1998 after prompting
by James Wolfensohn, the bank's president. The report is likely to diminish
enthusiasm within the bank and other development agencies, including
western governments' export credit guarantee departments, for backing large
dam projects.
The World Bank yesterday categorically denied local reports that Mr
Wolfensohn, now on a nine-day tour of India, had
praised the Narmada dam in the Indian state of Gujurat. The bank withdrew
support from the dam in 1993 after a highly
critical independent study.
"We are well out of the Narmada dam and do not intend to get back in," said
Edwin Lim, the Bank's India director.
The bank said Mr Wolfensohn's comments were limited to telling the chief
minister of Gujarat that if the project did have
benefits, the government should make them clear to the public.
The Gujarat state government last week requested a Dollars 317m (Pounds
222m) loan from the World Bank for supplying
water from the Narmada project to 1,700 villages. Bank officials indicated
that a loan for any project involving water from the
Narmada was unlikely to be approved.
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