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Subject: ANTI-WORLD BANK DAM DECLARATION (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 08:05:53 -0500
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: ANTI-WORLD BANK DAM DECLARATION (fwd)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 18:28:51 -0700
From: International Rivers Network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
/* Written 6:25 pm Jun 1, 1994 by [EMAIL PROTECTED] in igc:env.dams */
/* ---------- "ANTI-WORLD BANK DAM DECLARATION" ---------- */
June 1, 1994
Dear Friends,
We are writing to ask the support of your
organization for the attached Manibeli Declaration,
calling for a moratorium on World Bank funding
for large dams around the world. International
Rivers Network's goal is to submit this declaration
to the World Bank, the member governments, and
the world's media with 1,000 signatory
organizations as part of the campaign on the
occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of
the Bank. It is called the Manibeli Declaration in
honor of the heroic resistance of the people of
India's Narmada Valley to the Bank-funded Sardar
Sarovar Dam, who today are facing forced eviction
from their homes and lands as the waters rise
behind the dam.
We are asking that you add the name of your
organization (but not the names or titles of any
individuals) to the list of signatories to the Manibeli
Declaration, and that you contact other
organizations in your country who may support
this position and be willing to sign on as well. In
addition to listing the endorsing organizations we
would like to state how many people these
organizations represent. If appropriate, please
indicate how many people or members of the
community are represented by your organization.
We plan to release the declaration Wednesday,
June 15, so please respond before then. There are a
number of ways you can communicate your
response to this appeal directly to Leonard in the
Berkeley IRN office:
by fax to 1-510-848-1008;
by telephone to 1-510-848-1155;
by Email to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]";
and by post to IRN, 1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley
CA 94703 USA.
If you would like more information on the positions
taken in the Manibeli Declaration IRN would be
very glad to provide detailed background materials.
Thank you for considering this appeal, we look
forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Leonard Sklar
Research Director
-------------------------------------------------------
MANIBELI DECLARATION*
Calling for a Moratorium on World Bank**
Funding of Large Dams
June, 1994
* In honor of the heroic resistance by the people of the village of
Manibeli and others in India's Narmada Valley to the World
Bank-funded Sardar Sarovar Dam, and of the millions of reservoir
refugees around the world. At this moment the people of
Manibeli face forced eviction and flooding of their lands.
** "World Bank" includes International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD), International Development
Association (IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
WHEREAS:
1 The World Bank is the greatest single source of funds
for large dam construction, having provided more than
US$50 billion (1992 dollars) for construction of more
than 500 large dams in 92 countries. Despite this
enormous investment, no independent analysis or
evidence exists to demonstrate that the financial,
social and environmental costs were justified by the
benefits realized;
2 Since 1948, the World Bank has financed large dam
projects which have forcibly displaced on the order of
10 million people from their homes and lands. The
Bank's own 1994 "Resettlement and Development"
review admits that the vast majority of women, men
and children evicted by Bank-funded projects never
regained their former incomes nor received any direct
benefits from the dams for which they were forced to
sacrifice their homes and lands. The Bank has
consistently failed to implement and enforce its own
policy on forced resettlement, first established in 1980,
and despite several policy reviews the Bank has no
plans to fundamentally change its approach to forced
resettlement;
3 The World Bank is planning to fund over the next
three years 18 large dam projects which will forcibly
displace another 450,000 people, without any credible
guarantee that its policy on resettlement will be
enforced. Meanwhile the Bank has no plans to
properly compensate and rehabilitate the millions
displaced by past Bank-funded dam projects, including
populations displaced since 1980 in violation of the
Bank's policy;
4 World Bank-funded large dams have had extensive
negative environmental impacts, destroying forests,
wetlands, fisheries, habitat for threatened and
endangered species, and increasing the spread of
waterborne diseases;
5 The environmental and social costs of World Bank-
funded large dams, in terms of people forced from
their homes, destruction of forests and fisheries, and
spread of waterborne diseases, have fallen
disproportionately on women, indigenous
communities, tribal peoples and the poorest and most
marginalized sectors of the population. This is in
direct contradiction to the World Bank's often-stated
"overarching objective of alleviating poverty;"
6 The World Bank has prioritized lending for large dams
which provide electricity to trans-national industry
and to urban elites, and irrigation water supply for
export-oriented agriculture, neglecting the most
pressing needs of the rural poor and other
disadvantaged groups. The Bank has provided $8.3
billion (1992 dollars) for large dams through the
International Development Association (IDA), the
"soft" credit window which is supposed to aid the
poorest populations in developing countries;
7 The World Bank has tolerated and thus contributed to
gross violations of human rights by governments in
the process of implementing Bank-funded large dams,
including arbitrary arrests, beatings, rapes, and
shootings of peaceful demonstrators. Many Bank-
funded large dams projects cannot be implemented
without gross violations of human rights because
affected communities inevitably resist the imposition
of projects so harmful to their interests;
8 The World Bank plans, designs, funds, and monitors
the construction of large dams in a secretive and
unaccountable manner, imposing projects without
meaningful consultation or participation by the
communities affected, often denying access to
information even to local governments in the areas
affected;
9 The World Bank has consistently ignored cost-effective
and environmentally and socially sound alternatives to
large dams, including wind, solar and biomass energy
sources, energy demand management, irrigation
rehabilitation, efficiency improvements and rainwater
harvesting, and non-structural flood management.
The Bank has even convinced governments to accept
loans for large dams when more cost-effective and less
destructive alternative plans existed, as may be the case
again with the Arun III project in Nepal;
10 The economic analyses on which the World Bank
bases its decisions to fund large dams fail to apply the
lessons learned from the poor record of past Bank-
funded dams, underestimating the potential for delays
and cost over-runs. Project appraisals typically are
based on unrealistically optimistic assumptions about
project performance, and fail to account for the direct
and indirect costs of negative environmental and
social impacts. The Bank's own 1992 portfolio review
admits that project appraisals are treated as "marketing
devices" which fail to establish that projects are in the
public interest;
11 The primary beneficiaries of procurement contracts for
World Bank-funded large dams have been consultants,
manufacturers and contractors based in the donor
countries, who profit while citizens of the borrowing
countries are burdened by debt and the destructive
economic, environmental and social impacts of the
large dams themselves. The Bank has consistently
failed to build local capacity and expertise, promoting
dependency instead;
12 World Bank-funded large dams have flooded cultural
monuments, religious and sacred sites, and national
parks and other wildlife sanctuaries;
13 In its lending for large dams the World Bank has
tolerated and thus condoned theft of funds supplied by the
Bank, often by corrupt military and undemocratic
regimes, and has often made additional loans to cover
cost-over-runs brought on by what the Bank refers to
as "rent seeking behavior." Examples include Yacyreta
Dam in Argentina and Chixoy Dam in Guatemala;
14 The World Bank has consistently violated its policy on
environmental assessment, and has allowed
environmental assessments to be produced by project
promoters and used to justify prior decisions to
proceed with destructive large dam projects.
15 The World Bank has never addressed in policy,
research, or project planning documents, the
decommissioning of large dams after their useful
lifetime has expired due to reservoir sedimentation and
physical deterioration;
16 The World Bank has never properly assessed its record
of funding large dams and has no mechanism for
measuring the actual long-term costs and benefits of
the large dams it funds;
17 Throughout its involvement in the Sardar Sarovar Dam
in India's Narmada Valley, a world-wide symbol of
destructive development, the World Bank has
consistently ignored its own policy guidelines
regarding resettlement and environmental assessment,
and attempted to cover-up the conclusions of the
severely critical official independent review, the Morse
Report. With the ongoing forcible evictions and
flooding of tribal lands, the Bank bears direct legal and
moral responsibility for the human rights abuses
taking place in the Narmada Valley.
THEREFORE, the undersigned organizations:
* CONCLUDE that the World Bank has to date been
unwilling and incapable of reforming its lending for
large dams; and
* CALL for an immediate moratorium on all World Bank
funding of large dams including all projects currently
in the funding pipeline, until:
1 The World Bank establishes a fund to provide
reparations to the people forcibly evicted from their
homes and lands by Bank-funded large dams without
adequate compensation and rehabilitation. The fund
should be administered by a transparent and
accountable institution completely independent of the
Bank and should provide funds to communities
affected by Bank-funded large dams to prepare
reparations claims;
2 The World Bank strengthens its policies and
operational practices to guarantee that no large dam
projects which require forced resettlement will be
funded in countries that do not have policies and legal
frameworks in place to assure restoration of the living
standards of displaced peoples. Furthermore,
communities to be displaced must be involved
throughout the identification, design, implementation
and monitoring of the projects, and give their
informed consent before the project can be
implemented;
3 The World Bank commissions, reviews, and
implements the recommendations of an independent
comprehensive review of all Bank-funded large dam
projects to establish the actual costs, including direct
and indirect economic, environmental and social costs,
and the actually realized benefits of each project. The
review should evaluate the degree to which project
appraisals erred in estimating costs and benefits,
identify specific violations of Bank policies and staff
responsible, and address opportunity costs of not
supporting project alternatives. The review must be
conducted by individuals completely independent of
the Bank without any stake in the outcome of the
review.
4 The World Bank cancels the debt owed for large dam
projects in which the economic, environmental and
social costs are found to outweigh the realized benefits;
5 The World Bank develops new project appraisal
techniques to assure that estimates of the costs and
benefits, risks and impacts, of large dams under
consideration are rigorously based on the actual
experience with past Bank-funded large dams;
6 The World Bank requires that any large dam under
consideration be a necessary part of a locally -approved
comprehensive river basin management plan, and that
the project be a last resort after all less damaging and
costly alternatives for flood management,
transportation, water supply, irrigation and power
supply are exhausted;
7 The World Bank makes all information on large dam
projects, including past and current projects and
projects under consideration, freely available to the
public;
8 The World Bank requires independent monitoring and
evaluation of preparation of large dam projects and
systematic monitoring and auditing of project
implementation, by persons outside the Bank and with
no stake in the outcome of the project;
9 A formal decision is taken by the Bank to permanently
halt all funding of large dams through the
International Development Association (IDA), funding
which is inconsistent with the IDA-10 donor's
agreement.
Endorsed by: -----------------------------------
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