World Commission on Dams / Fact sheets

(prepared by International Rivers)

In July 1995, the Government of Tanzania began construction of the 180–megawatt Lower Kihansi Hydropower Project (LKHP) in order to meet the growing electricity demands of its mining and tourism industries. The World Bank jointly funded the $275 million project along with the European Investment Bank and development agencies from Norway (NORAD), Sweden (SIDA), and Germany (KfW). Formally commissioned in July 2000, the project has been supplying electricity to the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (TANESCO), the parastatal that owns and operates the project, since December 1999.

Africa’s largest infrastructure project the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) is a massive, multi–dam scheme built to divert water from Lesotho’s Maloti Mountains to South Africa’s industrial Gauteng Province. The first phases of the World Bank–supported project involve the construction of three large dams which, when completed will dispossess more than 30,000 rural farmers of assets (including homes, fields, and grazing lands) and deprive many of their livelihoods.