Executive summary
A confusing maze of new funds, programs, and strategies (both within
Africa and from abroad) is now prioritizing large dam development as a
solution to Africa's pressing needs for improved supplies of energy and
water. Potentially huge amounts of money could be funnelled into
African large dam projects in coming years, with the potential to
greatly exceed the amounts allocated for rural electrification and
water supply. Across the continent, numerous dams are being
fast-tracked as priority projects, but the process by which most are
prioritized and developed has been nontransparent. So who benefits? In
too many places, large dams are powering multinational mining and
aluminum companies with few local benefits, while the majority of
citizens go without electricity.
Africa already has a sad legacy of impacts caused by existing dams: the
traumatized Tonga people left high and dry by Kariba, the huge debt
burden incurred for the Inga dams in DRC, increased poverty in the
Lesotho Highlands, blackouts and a draining Lake Victoria caused by
Uganda’s heavy reliance on (poorly designed) dams, the increase in
waterborne diseases in the Senegal River basin, and dessicated rivers
or erratic dam-induced flooding for multitudes of downstream dwellers
in many countries. In many cases, these legacy issues are being ignored
while new dams are being prioritized – projects which, in many cases,
could exacerbate the very same problems that earlier dams helped
create. African governments and their development partners should
prioritize reversing the damages from existing dams before pursuing new
mega projects on Africa’s rivers.
African nations have a wide range of standards for developing large
dams, from virtually nothing to more elaborate policies and laws that
could be used to address the environmental and social impacts of such
projects. Often, the financing agencies bring their own standards (for
example, the World Bank's Operational Policies). Some key players, such
as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and China's Export-Import Bank,
have minimal or no policies on large dams, despite investing heavily in
large dams across the continent.
Today, a number of African nations including South Africa and Uganda
have begun to discuss the implications of the World Commision on Dams
(WCD) recommendations through multi-stakeholder processes. These
processes are working to incorporate the WCD's recommendations into
national policies. The various groups that have taken part in these
processes deserve praise for their years of hard work, especially for
bringing different, often opposing, parties to the table to discuss
these difficult issues.
Even where WCD processes have gotten quite far, it’s not yet clear if
they will create lasting change in how energy and water projects in
Africa are developed. Fast-tracked dam projects are moving forward with
too little community input, too few protections for dam-affected
people, and using an "uneven playing field" for evaluating the various
options for meeting those needs. Projects are still being configured
behind closed doors, and communities are still left in the dark till
the eleventh hour. If the solar, wind and geothermal lobbies, or the
rainwater harvesting movement, were as powerful as the international
dam lobby, perhaps this would not be so. In the meantime, those
entering into multi-stakeholder dialogues will want to discuss ways to
improve the outcomes, and ensure that the processes are not being used
merely to smooth the way for more large dams.
Many of the agencies now interested in building dams in Africa – the
African Development Bank, Germany's GTZ, the World Bank, the European
Union and a number of African governments – have already endorsed the
WCD's Strategic Priorities. Yet progress in implementing these
priorities has been slow. The WCD is not a check-list approach, but
there are benchmarks and suggestions for better practice that must be
prioritized if the process of developing water and energy projects is
to be improved.
The WCD came about precisely because of the sorry legacy of past dam
projects and the inability of the international financial institutions
to address the serious issues they raise. Its “rights and risks”
approach to project decision-making, and its seven strategic priorities
and supporting principles make it an invaluable tool for Africa’s
energy and water planning.
