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dam-l World Bank news from bio-bio list <fwd>



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From owner-irn-biobio@igc.org  Wed Apr 22 16:21:23 1998
From: owner-irn-biobio@igc.org
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:16:59 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <199804221816.LAA15650@igcb.igc.org>
>SOURCE:  EL DIARIO
 --  WORLD BANK APOLOGIZES FOR RALCO.  World Bank
To: "undisclosed-recipients:;"@lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca

>President James D. Wolfensohn apologized this weekend for the
>bank's alleged participation in the Ralco hydroelectric project in
>southern Chile, which will displace as many as 96 indigenous
>Mapuche families from their homes on the upper Bio Bio River.
>Wolfensohn was visiting Chile for the Summit of the Americas.
>        Ralco is power company Endesa's much larger follow-up to
>the Pangue dam, which the International Finance Corporation
>(IFC), the credit arm of the World Bank, helped fund.  The National
>Environmental Commission (Conama) has approved the US$463
>million, 581 MW hydroelectric power station, but the National
>Indigenous Development Association (Conadi), the government
>agency charged with defending the interests of native Chileans,
>must approve it before it can go forward.
>        World Bank officials praised Chile for pioneering economic
>structural reforms in the region and for its dynamic social
>development strategy.  Head economist Guillermo Perry said Chile
>is the region's most successful case of development in the last 12
>years, due to its sustained growth rate and reduction in poverty.
>Nonetheless, the bank expressed some reservations about Chile's
>environmental progress.
>        Wolfensohn said Ralco "was not one of the high points in the
>bank's experience."
>        Endesa responded Monday that Wolfensohn's comments
>were regrettable, and furthermore inaccurate - the IFC funded
>only Pangue, not Ralco.  The company said it fulfilled all the IFC's
>social and environmental conditions for Pangue, and that Ralco is
>within Chilean norms.
>        Wolfensohn also said Sunday that the World Bank has
>changed its focus on Latin America to pay greater attention to the
>poor and disadvantaged, given that inequalities persist despite the
>region's economic progress.  He expressed particular concern about
>the rich-poor gap, and called for more multilateral cooperation to
>confront it.  He said the bank has also made more funds available
>for education, a leading agenda item at the summit.  Last week,
>before the summit, Chilean Foreign Relations Minister Jose Miguel
>Insulza said the bank would provide some US$20 billion to Latin
>America for education.
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Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:06:00 -0700
From: aleta@irn.org (Aleta Brown)
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Subject: CHIP News for April 21, 1998
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Chile Information Project

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Aleta Brown
Campaign Associate
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA 94703 USA
Phone: 1.510.848.1155
Fax: 1.510.848.1008
email: aleta@irn.org
http://www.irn.org