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DAM-L SA Article on WCD &World Bank/LS (fwd)
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Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 09:53:15 -0700
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: SA Article on WCD &World Bank/LS
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This is from the South Africa Mail & Guardian, April 26, 2001.
> David Le Page
>
>
>
>
> What appears to be a small, undeclared spat between the World Commission
on Dams and the World Bank could dramatically affect the future of millions
of people.
>
> The World Bank is backing down from fully adopting the final report of the
> WCD, because doing so would require it improve the way it deals with
peoples affected by large dam construction.
>
> The WCD was established by a workshop run by the World Bank and the World
> Conservation Union in Gland, Switzerland, in 1997. It worked for two years
> in Cape Town, drawing on the experience of people and governments around
the world to produce a report summarising the world's experience with large
> dams, and holding recommendations for deciding what dams are necessary and
> how their construction should be managed.
>
> The report's guidelines emphasise the rights of people affected by dam
> building. "One of the thorns for the bank is the [WCD's] call for prior
> informed consent from affected communities," says Dana Clark of the Center
> for International Environmental Law in Berkeley, Californnia.
>
> According to CIEL and other NGOs, the Bank's "conversion" of its
operational guidelines to a new format has actually weakened existing
resettlement
> policies. This means that millions of people -- usually the poor and
> marginalised -- are likely to be worse affected by forced removals
>for dam construction.
>
> The Bank flatly denies this. "We're in no way diluting our safeguard
> policies on resettlement and indigenous peoples. We're clarifying them,"
> said Kristyn Ebro of the World Bank's External Affairs department in
> Washington on Wednesday.
>
> The "clarified" standards remain outdated, as they were written in 1990
> before several important international human rights treaties. A study by
the Bank in 1994, according to CIEL, "found that out of 192 projects involving
> involuntary resettlement, only one project had satisfactorily compensated
> and rehabilitated resettled communities."
>
> Ebro says she is unaware of the 1994 study. Clark laughs at this.
"Everyone knows about that study. I see the changes as making the
Bank more in line
> with the borrowing country government and less in line with the needs of
> affected people. 'Illegal users of natural resources' -- this is new
> language that doesn't appear in the old policy."
>
> "Leaving aside World Bank reactions to the WCD report, I consider the
World Bank's past and present resettlement guidelines to be inexcusable and
> unacceptable for an organization that claims that its main goal is poverty
> alleviation," said anthropologist Thayer Scudder of the California
Institute of Technology this week.
>
> But there are substantial vested interests in the dam industry --
> $65-billion a year is spent on new dams. The Bank only holds 0,6% of that
> business. In its own words: "In early 2000, 2,6-million individuals and
548,000 households were found to be adversely affected in Bank projects under
> implementation."
>
> Opportunities for new dam construction in the North countries are
shrinking rapidly. In the US, dams are actually being decommissioned.
In Europe,
> countries such as Norway have restricted new dam construction. So the
> industry looks to the South, where the infatuation with grandiose
technology has not faded.
>
> NGOs argue that even if the World Bank's financing of new dams is limited,
> many governments and institutions still look to it for guidance. They say
> the Bank's responsibilities are greater than its share of the new dam
> business would suggest.
>
> The Bank's lukewarm reception for the WCD report became clear in Cape Town
> in February, where the WCD held its final forum of world organisations,
> activisits and experts.
>
> "If the WCD recommendations and guidelines ... are to be taken as a
> checklist of requirements to be 'complied with' and 'conformed to' then
> they are strongly opposed by all the governments we have consulted," said
> Bank senior water adviser John Briscoe.
>
> This was not the ringing endorsement NGOs expected from an organisation
that "quite likely has had more opportunities for formal and informal inputs
into the WCD process than any other."
>
> The World Bank's attitude does seem cautious compared to that of another
> lender, the African Development Bank, which wrote to the WCD: "The
criteria,
> guidelines and standards, provided in the report, would be particularly
> useful during the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation,
> monitoring and decommissioning of dams financed by the Bank. We plan to
> incorporate the criteria and guidelines during the development of [our]
> technical guidelines."
>
> The Bank protests that it does endorse the process that produced the WCD
> report. Ebro says the report is "a valuable tool to be used in the right
> circumstances."
>
> After the March forum, the WCD itself argued that the Bank should be given
> time to digest the report.
>
> "[The Bank's] responses are complex -- there's no question of it having
> rejected the report," said WCD secretary-general Achim Steiner at the time.
>
> NGOs remained appalled at the Bank's stance. On March 20, Swiss NGO the
> Berne Declaration sent a letter of protest to the Bank that drew the
support
> of 85 similar organisations around the world. The Berne Declaration also
> argued that the Bank is actually lobbying its client countries to reject
the WCD guidelines.
>
> Ebro flatly denies this. "We reject that statement. [Governments] are
> clients, so we have to listen to them. We weren't lobbying."
>
> Sources close to the WCD also now express dissatisfaction with the Bank's
> response. Their accounts of the action of Bank officials, particularly
> Briscoe, accord with the NGO reports: that the Bank appeared in some cases
> to be lobbying its clients not to support the report.
>
> The Bank has responded to the Berne Declaration letter:. "We believe that
> the Report is a valuable guide, and we are ... working with our partners
in implementing the Report's good recommendations."
>
> But the Bank, says Ebro, will not amend its procedures to incorporate the
> guidelines. "We're happy with our own policies and we think they're
enough."
--
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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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