Dam Constructions
Dam constructions in Lesotho and Uganda harm people and environment

afrol.com, 16 November - Dam critics are marking today's release of the report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) by challenging the funders of the dam industry, including the World Bank, to halt all support for dams until the commission's recommendations are fully implemented. Dam projects in Lesotho and Uganda are named as especially harmful in the report.

The groups are also demanding reparations for social and environmental damage caused by dams. "The World Commission on Dams report vindicates much of what dam critics have long argued. If the builders and funders of dams follow the recommendations of the WCD, the era of destructive dams should come to an end", says Mr Patrick McCully, campaigns director of the California-based International Rivers Network (IRN).

- Had the planning process proposed by the WCD been followed in the past, many dams would not have been built, concludes Patrick McCully. Among the ongoing and planned projects which are clearly in breach of the WCD guidelines are the Bujagali Falls Dam in Uganda, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, China's Three Gorges dam, the dams on India's Narmada river and the Ilisu dam in Turkey.

Uganda: Bujagali Falls Dam on Nile River
The US-based AES corporation, the world’s largest independent power producer, proposes to construct a US$ 530-million hydroelectric dam that would drown Bujagali Falls on the Nile River, a culturally significant site that also supports a growing whitewater tourism industry. The project is now being considered for funding from the IFC, the World Bank, the US agency OPIC, and a number of European export credit agencies. 

- In addition to the fact that this project will not help the poor majority, NGOs and civil society in Uganda have a number of other concerns about the project, the WCD report states. The existing grid to which the dam will supply electricity is very inefficient and only a fraction of the nation’s population is connected to it. 

Allegations of corruption have dogged this project, which was not subject to competitive bidding and has enjoyed undue favoritism from both the Ugandan and US governments. Bujagali is also a very risky project for Uganda. Under a "Take or pay" contract, Uganda has committed to buy a set amount of power every year regardless of how much is actually produced. As the project design and projected outputs are based on highly optimistic hydrological studies of the river, Uganda could end up paying for power that is not produced.

There are alternatives to this dam, most importantly by improving the existing system, as it is estimated that 30 - 40% of electricity generated in Uganda is lost before it reaches the consumer. An important conclusion in the report is that the Bujagali Dam will not bring power to the rural poor, as no more than 7% of the total population in Uganda can afford unsubsidized electricity. 

Also environmental risks are high. Scientists believe East Africa could be hit with increasing and more serious droughts due to global climate change, thus increasing the project’s already significant "hydrological risk." The Victoria Nile also is an extensive fishery resource with an estimated potential of 10,000 metric tons of fish per year.

Lesotho Highlands Water Project, Senqu River
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, according to the WCD report. 

A Lesotho NGO Representative at the site of Mohale Dam Photo by Lori Pottinger, IRN.

The project also poses serious threats to Lesotho’s mountain river systems because of reduced flow rates and less-frequent floods. Several endangered plant and animal species in the Senqu River basin (known as the Orange River in South Africa) "will be placed under severe strain and may entirely disappear from project areas," the report concludes. 

The LHWP has had an undeniably profound impact on Lesotho’s economy. In 1998 it accounted for 13.6% of Lesotho’s GDP. Royalties from the sale of water and project-related customs dues make up 27.8 percent of all government revenue. Yet, the country’s poor, and especially the dispossessed, have seen little of this economic boom. 

Financing dam projects
- It is time for the iron triangle of governments, dam industry and funders to cease building dams until they have incorporated the WCD's recommendations into their policies and practices, says Ms Liane Greeff of South African NGO Environmental Monitoring Group, based in Cape Town.

The evidence of hasty funding by institutions like the World Bank is overwhelming in WCD's report. The second stage of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project evidently was unneccesary, but the World Bank "was eager to keep the project moving." Consumers of the project's water in Johannesburg collect water from old systems that waste up to 50 percent of the piped water. When the second dam was being considered, Gauteng’s water utility, Rand Water, suggested that the project could be delayed as much as 17-20 years if system efficiency was increased through the use of demand-side management. The World Bank ignored this, and pushed the project forward.

- The World Bank and export credit agencies play a key role in dam building and must act on the WCD's recommendations, says Mr Peter Bosshard of the Swiss NGO Berne Declaration. "NGOs are calling on them to place a moratorium on funding dams until they have adopted the WCD guidelines, and to review all ongoing projects in the light of the new recommendations."

The WCD (World Commission on Dams) is an independent body, itself sponsored by the World Bank, to review the performance of large dams and make recommendations for future planning of water and energy projects. It is comprised of 12 Commissioners from a wide spectrum of backgrounds.

The failure of large dams
The WCD's final report provides ample evidence that large dams have failed to produce as much electricity, provide as much water, or control as much flood damage as their backers claim. In addition, these massive projects regularly suffer huge cost-overruns and time delays. Furthermore, the report shows that:

•  large dams have forced 40-80 million people from their homes and lands, with impacts including extreme economic hardship, community disintegration, and an increase in mental and physical health problems. Indigenous, tribal, and peasant communities have been particularly hard hit. People living downstream of dams have also suffered from increased disease and the loss of natural resources upon which their livelihoods depended;
•  large dams cause great environmental damage, including the extinction of many fish and other aquatic species, huge losses of forest, wetland and farmland; and
•  the benefits of large dams have largely gone to the already well-off while poorer sectors of society have borne the costs.

Based on these findings, the commission recommends that:

•  no dam should be built without the agreement of the affected people;
•  comprehensive and participatory assessments of the needs to be met, and alternatives for meeting these needs should be developed before proceeding with any new project;
•  priority should be given to maximizing the efficiency of existing water and energy systems before building any new projects;
•  periodic participatory reviews should be done for existing dams to assess such issues as dam safety, and possible decommissioning
•  mechanisms should be developed to provide social reparations for those who are suffering the impacts of dams, and to restore damaged ecosystems.

Source: Based on IRN, WRC and environmentaljournalists

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