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dam-l Bujagali Dam story/LS
DEVELOPMENT: Environmental Groups Question Dam
Plans for Uganda
By Danielle Knight
WASHINGTON, Jun 22 (IPS) - World Bank funding should not go toward
building a large hydroelectric dam in
Uganda when smaller scale renewable energy, like wind and solar, would
more likely benefit the East African
nation's rural poor, according to environmental groups here.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of
the World Bank, and the International Development
Association (IDA) of the institution, are considering whether they will
provide financial support to the US company that will
build the 250 megawatt Bujagali dam.
The 22-metre-high dam, to be located on the Nile River, will be
constructed and operated by AES Corporation, one of the
world's largest power companies.
As environmentalists publicise their campaign against the dam, the
Virginia-based corporation argues that hydropower is the
only way to meet what it says is a 44 percent energy deficit in Uganda,
one of the world's poorest nations.
Given the go-ahead by the Ugandan government, this 500 million dollar
project - one of the largest single investment in East
Africa - is also being considered by the US Overseas Private Investment
Corporation (OPIC), and other publicly financed
export credit lending and investment guarantee agencies.
Environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the
International Rivers Network (IRN), argue that the majority
of Uganda's rural poor will not benefit from the dam since about 95
percent of the population in Uganda are not hooked up to
the energy grid.
Despite some recent efforts by the World Bank to expand the energy grid
in Uganda, Lori Pottinger, Africa campaigns director
at the California-based IRN, says this project goes against the
institution's mission to alleviate poverty.
''This project reveals how the IFC's process for evaluating such
projects is often skewed toward predetermined outcomes that
favour corporations over the poor,'' says Pottinger.
She says the Bank is falsely relying on a premise that economic growth
spurred by the project will trickle down to the poor.
Pottinger argues that the institution is not taking into account how
corruption and social inequalities will inhibit the poor from
benefiting from the dam.
Alternative energy - such as wind, geothermal, and solar power - could
be the key to meeting Uganda's needs, say
environmentalists here. These smaller-scale projects could provide
affordable energy to rural populations who are not
connected to the energy grid, they argue.
Groups say the dam will benefit urban areas - primarily industry in
Uganda and Kenya.
''We want to take a close look at the best ways to meet Uganda's energy
needs,'' says Andrea Durbin, with FOE's international
finance programme. ''Renewable energy has to be on the table.''
It is unclear how much the energy from the Bujagali project will be
needed in Uganda, says Durbin, since the latest dam built in
the country - the Owens Falls Extension Project - is not yet fully
operational.
When the company meets here on Jun. 27 with interested non- governmental
organisations (NGOs), Durbin says she will ask to
see a copy of the power purchasing contract between AES and the
government of Uganda.
US NGOs, especially IRN, have been critical of public financing going
toward large dam projects, since they often damage
river ecosystems and relocate thousands - sometimes tens of thousands -
of poor people in rural areas.
In developing countries, reservoirs caused by dams also increase serious
water- borne diseases like malaria and schistosomiasis
since stagnant pools of water are breeding grounds for malaria-carrying
mosquitoes and snails which spread schistosomiasis.
According to Christian Wright, a manager for AES working on the project,
the Bujagali dam would relocate 44 households or
387 people, much less than many other large dams.
Yet environmental groups which have been tracking World Bank- funded
large dams for decades note that those displaced -
especially in Africa - are left permanently poorer as a result of the
project.
Some local Ugandan-based environmental organisations, including the
National Association of Professional Environmentalists,
are concerned about losing the Bujagali Falls, cascading rapids that
will be drowned by the reservoir.
According to IRN's Pottinger, recent figures show that more than 6,000
people raft the Nile each year near Bujagali Falls,
spending nearly four million dollars a year in Uganda.
She also warns that changes to the river could also permanently harm
fisheries.
''The area around Bujagali Falls supports a substantial number of
subsistence and commercial fishermen, who depend on the
resource for both food and income,'' she says.
The company is currently having its Environmental Impact Assessment of
the project revised and will release its findings in
mid-July.
Wright with AES, says the company will then meet six weeks later with
NGOs to further discuss the report. He argues that the
proposed dam would be located in a site that would pose the least
environmental damage and provide energy at the least cost.
Because the project site is in a gorge, the inundation stays within the
river banks, unlike other large dam projects which flood
much larger areas, he says. He contends that the amount AES would
provide the government in taxes - 18 to 20 million dollars
per year, according to Wright - far outweighs any revenue generated by
tourism related to the Falls.
He says lack of energy is crippling the land-locked country.
''The country loses two percent of its GDP per year because of power
cuts and the average firm in Uganda loses 90 work days
a year because of insufficient power,'' says Wright, quoting World Bank
and Ugandan Ministry of Finance figures.
A poll taken in October 1999 by New Vision, a Ugandan national
newspaper, found that 85 percent of the populace supported
the project, according to Wright. He says local NGOs and affected
communities have been consulted.
Wright points to an opinion poll taken this past April by Steadman
Research Services, a Nairobi-based firm, which found that
96 percent of Ugandan NGOs polled expressed support for the project.
''Certainly there is opposition to the project, but we have felt that
this is a project the Ugandan people want,'' says Wright.
Pottinger says the poll figures seem unbelievable to the NGOs that IRN
works with in Uganda. ''We question the use of a single
opinion poll in determining Uganda's future energy course, especially
because it appears there has not been an open, informed
debate about energy options in Uganda, '' she wrote in a letter this
week to Wright.
The IFC board of directors is expected to vote on the project early next
year. (END/IPS/DV/EN/dk/da/00)
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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