David F. Hales, counsel for sustainability policy at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, argues that the outcome of the World Bank decision last week to fund the controversial Nam Theun dam project in Laos will have serious ramifications for the World Banks credibility as a development institution.
The initial concept was promising, Hales writes. Laos is painfully poor, with few development options. Early estimates of displaced and adversely affected people made compensation and resettlement seem manageable. Thailand seemed to need the power, and the plan included an attractive conservation component.
The future with the dam has been described as one of new homes with electricity, new opportunities for irrigated and mechanized agriculture, a diverse economy with reservoir fishing replacing reliance on river fishing, aquaculture replacing capture fishing, and intensive livestock operations replacing the traditional extensive grazing pattern.
The studies from the sponsors and the analyses of the World Bank, however, paint a different picture. The dam will drastically alter the character of both rivers, displace thousands of desperately poor residents and disrupt the livelihoods of tens of thousands more.
Farmers will be relocated to unproductive soils, and fisheries in both rivers will collapse. The reservoir will be subject to such severe fluctuation that 80 percent of its bed will be exposed as water is drawn down o produce power.
One Laotian in 60 – 100,000 people – will be directly and adversely affected. A project of comparable impact in the United States would put the livelihoods of four million Americans at risk.
The dam was a critical test of the banks own policies, as well as a direct challenge to the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams. It is a test the bank failed, writes Hales.
Bank officials have still not released a detailed analysis of how the proposal meets its safeguard standards, nor have the governments that voted for Nam Theun been transparent with their own assessments of compliance.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
