DR Congo waits on funding for world's largest hydropower project
John Vidal, environment editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 21 May 2013
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/21/dr-congo-funding-world-largest-hydropower-dam
The dream of harnessing the mighty Congo with the world's largest set of
dams has moved closer, with the World Bank and other financial
institutions expected to offer finance and South Africa agreeing to buy
half of the power generated.
In the past 60 years French, Belgian, Chinese, Brazilian and African
engineers have all hoped to dam the river.
But decades of civil war, corruption, and the Democratic Republic of
Congo's (DRC) reputation as a failed state have limited the hydropower
developments at the country's Inga Falls to two relatively small dams,
built in 1972 and 1982. These, known as Inga 1 and 2, have a theoretical
capacity of 1,400 megawatts but produce about half that.
A new $20bn (£13.2bn) development to generate a further 4,800MW was
announced over the weekend in Paris, with work planned to start in
October 2015. According to the DRC government, working with European and
other consultants, five further stages at Inga Falls could eventually
have a capacity of 40,000MW - equivalent to more than 20 large nuclear
power stations.
This would make the complete Grand Inga development the largest hydro
project in the world, generating twice as much as the Three Gorges dam
in China. In theory, say its backers, it could provide 40% of Africa's
electricity needs.
The attraction of developing hydropower on the Congo, says the
government, is that unlike most of the world's great dam projects, it
would not require tens of thousands of people to be relocated, nor would
it block the river and result in significant environmental consequences.
Because the Congo River around Inga is so vast and falls nearly 100
metres over a short distance, water can be diverted to create a massive
new lake without disturbing its main flow.
"The impact on land use is very limited. The development can be
progressive and carried out in a series of further phases, eventually
providing 40,000MW of power," says the technical data for the proposed
development.
The African Development Bank, World Bank, French Development Agency,
European Investment Bank and Development Bank of South Africa have all
shown interest in financing the next stage of the project. No developer
has been chosen but Chinese, Korean and Spanish companies are said to be
in the forefront.
Key to the project is South Africa's commitment this week to buy 2,500MW
of capacity. "We have affirmed our commitment to the project by already
provisioning for this purchase in our budgetary plan," said a South
Africa ministry of energy official, Garrith Bezuidenhoudt.
But the prospect of local people getting power from Inga in the next 20
years is remote. Less than 10% of the population has electricity, with
nearly all Inga 1 and 2 power going directly to multinational mining
companies in the Katanga "copper belt". It is expected most Inga 3 power
would travel 1,500 miles to power-hungry South Africa or large mines in DRC.
Giant hydropower schemes in Africa have a poor track record. "Projects
such as Inga 1 and 2 have not unleashed economic development, but have
been major contributors to African countries' unsustainable debt
burden," said the US-based International Rivers network, which has led
opposition to major dams around the world for 20 years.
In a letter last week to the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, the
International Rivers and 18 other civil society organisations and
networks from Africa, Europe and the US said the reality of large-scale
dams seldom matched their expectations, mostly adding to debt problems
and allowing powerful companies to cheaply exploit and export Africa's
vast natural resources.
According to the groups, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has found
that because of the continent's low population density, grid-based
electrification - including through large hydropower projects - is not
cost-effective for much of rural Sub-Saharan Africa.
The letter said: "Renewable energy solutions such as wind, solar and
micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching the rural
poor.
"According to the IEA report, 70% of the world's unelectrified rural
areas are best served through mini-grids or off-grid solutions.
"In the DRC, the World Bank and other financiers have invested billions…
in the construction and rehabilitation of the Inga 1 and 2 hydropower
projects and associated transmission lines over the past 40 years.
"After all this investment, 85% of the electricity in the DRC is
consumed by high-voltage users, while only 6-9% of the population has
access to electricity. We are concerned that the bank's proposed focus
on large hydropower projects will write off electricity access for the
majority of Africa's poor."
________________________________________________
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: dams@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: dams@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
________________________________________________
This is International Rivers' mailing list on the role of international financial institutions in promoting large dams.
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: ifi@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
________________________________________________
This is International Rivers' mailing list on the role of international financial institutions in promoting large dams.
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: ifi@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa (fyi)
Grand Inga - the World Bank's Latest Silver Bullet for Africa
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: africa@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
Peter Bosshard
Huffington Post, May 21, 2013
www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/grand-inga-the-world-bank_b_3308223.html
When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of
Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but
blighted by a lack of basic services. The world's poorest country has
not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose
development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other
donors are now concocting the continent's biggest pie in the sky: the
$80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.
Close to 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a state of
permanent power outage. It is tempting to provide electricity to so many
people with one ambitious silver bullet. The Grand Inga Dam would divert
the Congo River near its mouth and, according to its promoters, meet the
electricity needs of more than 500 million people. With a capacity of
40,000 megawatts, the scheme would be the world's largest hydropower
project.
On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on
the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development
Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World
Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the
much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi
River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the Bank
President's visit to the DRC.
The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a
long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of
dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River.
The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below
capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor. About 85 percent of the
electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6
to 9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the
centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all
system that has encouraged tension and civil war.
The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could "catalyze
very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services"
in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are
designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half
of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South
Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of
Africa's rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic
option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once
again bypass them.
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any
other continent. The World Bank's proposed support for mega-dams will
further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls
are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized
reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.
Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy
solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend
a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind,
solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching
the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.
Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives
of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and
electric grid systems.
Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen
the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They
have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast
to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects they are at a scale that
can be monitored by a poor country's civil society.
Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures
with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the
decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to
the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18.
World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the
Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague Rudo Sanyanga from
attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams
for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank's fund for
the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated
top-down approach that has failed Africa's poor in the past. Or they can
throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy
technologies of the future. Africa can't afford to waste another decade
on a new generation of mega-dams.
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Friday, May 17, 2013
China gives environmental assessment for hydropower plant - public hearing announced
China gives environmental assessment for hydropower plant
March 16, 2013
Xinhua News
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-05/16/c_132387309.htm
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Environmental Protection has
given an assessment for the construction of a major hydropower plant in
southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The Shuangjiangkou hydropower plant will have a total installed capacity
of 2 GW, with annual power generation to reach 7.93 billion
kilowatt-hours upon completion.
The project will affect the spawning and movement of rare fish species,
as well as the growth of endangered plants, including the Chinese yew,
which is under first-class state protection, the ministry said in a
statement.
The ministry suggested countermeasures to help mitigate the plant's
effect on the environment. The measures include protecting fish habitats
in tributaries, building fish ladders and increasing fish breeding and
releasing, as well as constructing seed banks for rare plants and
cultivating them artificially.
Waste treatment facilities will be built in order to protect the
environment while local residents are relocated, the statement said.
The project is estimated to cost about 27.3 billion yuan (4.42 billion
U.S. dollars), about 1.46 billion yuan of which will be used to cover
the cost of environmental protection efforts, the statement said.
Relevant parties can apply for a public hearing of the assessment during
the period from May 13-17.
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March 16, 2013
Xinhua News
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-05/16/c_132387309.htm
BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Environmental Protection has
given an assessment for the construction of a major hydropower plant in
southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The Shuangjiangkou hydropower plant will have a total installed capacity
of 2 GW, with annual power generation to reach 7.93 billion
kilowatt-hours upon completion.
The project will affect the spawning and movement of rare fish species,
as well as the growth of endangered plants, including the Chinese yew,
which is under first-class state protection, the ministry said in a
statement.
The ministry suggested countermeasures to help mitigate the plant's
effect on the environment. The measures include protecting fish habitats
in tributaries, building fish ladders and increasing fish breeding and
releasing, as well as constructing seed banks for rare plants and
cultivating them artificially.
Waste treatment facilities will be built in order to protect the
environment while local residents are relocated, the statement said.
The project is estimated to cost about 27.3 billion yuan (4.42 billion
U.S. dollars), about 1.46 billion yuan of which will be used to cover
the cost of environmental protection efforts, the statement said.
Relevant parties can apply for a public hearing of the assessment during
the period from May 13-17.
________________________________________________
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Sudan Nile Dam Threatens To Drown Nubian Villages
Sudan Nile Dam Threatens To Drown Nubian Villages
By: Reem Abbas for Al-Monitor Posted on May 14, 2013
www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/sudan-kajbar-dam-nubians.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan - On the morning of June 13, 2007, Mohamed Fageer
Sid-Ahmed spent one hour convincing his mother that he needed to
participate in a protest taking place later that day to protect his land.
His mother was adamantly against the idea - he was her only child after
all - but he won the argument and joined the protest. Thousands of
Nubian women and men protested that day from different towns and
villages that would be affected by the Kajbar Dam, a dam project
proposed by the Sudanese government in the mid-1990s.
The protesters marched to the dam site to protest; after being hit by
heavy tear gas, all of a sudden, live bullets were fired and Sid-Ahmed
was the first victim to fall to the ground.
"He was shot in the back. At the time, he was giving water to the
protesters, but police forces shot at the protesters from up the
mountains," said Osman Ibrahim, the secretary-general of the Higher
National Committee to Resist the Kajbar Dam, in an interview with
Al-Monitor.
With tears in his eyes, Ibrahim told the story of Sid-Ahmed and the
story of his activism against the Kajbar Dam since 1995.
Ibrahim hails from Nubia, an area that stretches from northern Sudan to
southern Egypt and dates back thousands of years.
When Egypt built the High Dam in the 1960s, tens of thousands of Nubians
in Egypt and Sudan were displaced. In Sudan, they were resettled in an
area far away from the Nile, the bloodline of their community.
"I feel that there is a conspiracy against Nubians, the government wants
to get rid of us, they think we are all Communists," said Ibrahim.
The government of Sudan stated through Yousef Tahir Qureshi, an adviser
to the governor of Northern state, that the dam will generate 360
megawatts of electricity.
Qureshi told the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) earlier this month that two
large-scale agricultural projects will be established and services will
be offered to those resettled.
The head of the anti-dam committee, Ezzeldeen Idris, told Al-Monitor
that it is unclear how many villages will drown.
"The dam implementation unit failed to provide us with a feasibility
study that tells us how high the dam will be, so we can't clearly say
how many villages will be submerged," said Idris, who lives in Fareeg,
one of the villages threatened.
Sometimes government officials make revealing statements about the dam,
helping Nubians to estimate the extent of the damage.
"Qureshi said that the drowned area is 180 kilometers (112 miles), which
means from Kajbar to Al-Guld, which is 25-30 kilometers from Dongola,
the capital of Northern state," Ibrahim said.
Arif Gamal, a Nubian scholar now teaching at the University of
California at Berkeley, wrote on RescueNubia.org that in 1964, as
Nubians were being transported by train from their soon-to-be submerged
villages, one woman left the train and ran back to the village. There
was confusion on board for some time, and then as people were preparing
to follow her, they saw her coming back. She went to lock her house, she
told everyone.
The woman's house was locked, but soon submerged in water. Half a
century later, Nubians refuse to go through the same ordeal.
"What is happening is seriously making us think about secession, why
would we want to be in a state that wants to drown our villages along
with our culture and history?" Ibrahim asked, bitterly.
Ibrahim was detained for a month in a wave of arrests of Nubian
activists following the 2007 protest. He spent a year in detention in
the 1970s for political activism when he was a student.
Now in his late 60s, he walks around with a file full of statements by
the committee, pictures of the protests and what the committee calls the
"Kajbar massacre."
The police center in Kajbar refused to open the complaint into the 2007
killings, so activists took the struggle to the international community
through Rescue Nubia, a Washington-based organization led by Nubians in
diaspora.
After the 2007 incident, the government grew silent about the dam
project, before speaking again about the ambitious $1.5 billion project
financed by China.
Even with the attractive development projects proposed by the
authorities, the Nubians oppose the dam because it will drown their
history and disperse a group of people whose identity is tied to this land.
"If they want to give us services in exchange for the dam, they are too
late, we already built a hospital and are building a secondary school
for girls now in Fereeg," Idris said, adding that the residents have
also sustained a collective agriculture project since the 1950s through
donations.
For the Nubians, the experience of the Manasir, an ethnic group
displaced by the Merowe Dam — a multibillion dollar project completed in
2010 — makes them hesitant to even consider the Kajbar Dam.
After waiting for compensation for years, 1,500 men from the Manasir
took matters into their own hands and went to El-Damer, the capital of
River Nile state, 300 kilometers (190 miles) from Khartoum, and
organized a sit-in that lasted three months.
Although other groups were also affected, the Manasir were the most
affected and were kept waiting for government compensation.
The protesters demanded to be compensated; finally, a delegation from
the government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Manasir in
March 2012.
"The agreement is on paper, but the reality is we have not been
compensated for our land. We want to be resettled around the lake, but
the government wants to resettle us far away," said Al-Rashid
Al-Affendi, of the Executive Committee of the Manasir People Affected by
the Merowe Dam, in an interview with Al-Monitor.
Affendi added that the only compensation received was for the lost palm
trees since they represented a large resource for the Manasir.
Peter Bosshard, the policy director at International Rivers, a US-based
environmental and human rights organization that published reports on
Kajbar Dam, said that this is an international test case.
"The Kajbar Dam is an international project, and international actors —
particularly from China — share a responsibility for it. The human
rights violations caused by the Merowe Dam have tarnished the reputation
of the Chinese companies and financiers involved in the project,"
Bosshard said in an email interview with Al-Monitor.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights filed a
complaint against two executives at Lahmeyer International GmbH, a
German engineering company that was a consultant in the Merowe Dam project.
In the villages of Nubia that will be affected by the dam, electricity
is not available the whole day, but the citizens there confirm that
there are many other ways to generate electricity other than the dam.
"Our area is very hot, they could try providing us with solar energy,"
said Idris.
Bosshard agreed. "Sudan has a solar energy potential and a big wind
energy potential that is much less damaging than the Kajbar Dam and
other projects on the Nile."
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist based in Khartoum and an
award-winning blogger. She currently contributes to www.theniles.org. On
Twitter: @ReemShawkat. Read more:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/sudan-kajbar-dam-nubians.html#ixzz2TO0xW78U
________________________________________________
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By: Reem Abbas for Al-Monitor Posted on May 14, 2013
www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/sudan-kajbar-dam-nubians.html
KHARTOUM, Sudan - On the morning of June 13, 2007, Mohamed Fageer
Sid-Ahmed spent one hour convincing his mother that he needed to
participate in a protest taking place later that day to protect his land.
His mother was adamantly against the idea - he was her only child after
all - but he won the argument and joined the protest. Thousands of
Nubian women and men protested that day from different towns and
villages that would be affected by the Kajbar Dam, a dam project
proposed by the Sudanese government in the mid-1990s.
The protesters marched to the dam site to protest; after being hit by
heavy tear gas, all of a sudden, live bullets were fired and Sid-Ahmed
was the first victim to fall to the ground.
"He was shot in the back. At the time, he was giving water to the
protesters, but police forces shot at the protesters from up the
mountains," said Osman Ibrahim, the secretary-general of the Higher
National Committee to Resist the Kajbar Dam, in an interview with
Al-Monitor.
With tears in his eyes, Ibrahim told the story of Sid-Ahmed and the
story of his activism against the Kajbar Dam since 1995.
Ibrahim hails from Nubia, an area that stretches from northern Sudan to
southern Egypt and dates back thousands of years.
When Egypt built the High Dam in the 1960s, tens of thousands of Nubians
in Egypt and Sudan were displaced. In Sudan, they were resettled in an
area far away from the Nile, the bloodline of their community.
"I feel that there is a conspiracy against Nubians, the government wants
to get rid of us, they think we are all Communists," said Ibrahim.
The government of Sudan stated through Yousef Tahir Qureshi, an adviser
to the governor of Northern state, that the dam will generate 360
megawatts of electricity.
Qureshi told the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) earlier this month that two
large-scale agricultural projects will be established and services will
be offered to those resettled.
The head of the anti-dam committee, Ezzeldeen Idris, told Al-Monitor
that it is unclear how many villages will drown.
"The dam implementation unit failed to provide us with a feasibility
study that tells us how high the dam will be, so we can't clearly say
how many villages will be submerged," said Idris, who lives in Fareeg,
one of the villages threatened.
Sometimes government officials make revealing statements about the dam,
helping Nubians to estimate the extent of the damage.
"Qureshi said that the drowned area is 180 kilometers (112 miles), which
means from Kajbar to Al-Guld, which is 25-30 kilometers from Dongola,
the capital of Northern state," Ibrahim said.
Arif Gamal, a Nubian scholar now teaching at the University of
California at Berkeley, wrote on RescueNubia.org that in 1964, as
Nubians were being transported by train from their soon-to-be submerged
villages, one woman left the train and ran back to the village. There
was confusion on board for some time, and then as people were preparing
to follow her, they saw her coming back. She went to lock her house, she
told everyone.
The woman's house was locked, but soon submerged in water. Half a
century later, Nubians refuse to go through the same ordeal.
"What is happening is seriously making us think about secession, why
would we want to be in a state that wants to drown our villages along
with our culture and history?" Ibrahim asked, bitterly.
Ibrahim was detained for a month in a wave of arrests of Nubian
activists following the 2007 protest. He spent a year in detention in
the 1970s for political activism when he was a student.
Now in his late 60s, he walks around with a file full of statements by
the committee, pictures of the protests and what the committee calls the
"Kajbar massacre."
The police center in Kajbar refused to open the complaint into the 2007
killings, so activists took the struggle to the international community
through Rescue Nubia, a Washington-based organization led by Nubians in
diaspora.
After the 2007 incident, the government grew silent about the dam
project, before speaking again about the ambitious $1.5 billion project
financed by China.
Even with the attractive development projects proposed by the
authorities, the Nubians oppose the dam because it will drown their
history and disperse a group of people whose identity is tied to this land.
"If they want to give us services in exchange for the dam, they are too
late, we already built a hospital and are building a secondary school
for girls now in Fereeg," Idris said, adding that the residents have
also sustained a collective agriculture project since the 1950s through
donations.
For the Nubians, the experience of the Manasir, an ethnic group
displaced by the Merowe Dam — a multibillion dollar project completed in
2010 — makes them hesitant to even consider the Kajbar Dam.
After waiting for compensation for years, 1,500 men from the Manasir
took matters into their own hands and went to El-Damer, the capital of
River Nile state, 300 kilometers (190 miles) from Khartoum, and
organized a sit-in that lasted three months.
Although other groups were also affected, the Manasir were the most
affected and were kept waiting for government compensation.
The protesters demanded to be compensated; finally, a delegation from
the government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Manasir in
March 2012.
"The agreement is on paper, but the reality is we have not been
compensated for our land. We want to be resettled around the lake, but
the government wants to resettle us far away," said Al-Rashid
Al-Affendi, of the Executive Committee of the Manasir People Affected by
the Merowe Dam, in an interview with Al-Monitor.
Affendi added that the only compensation received was for the lost palm
trees since they represented a large resource for the Manasir.
Peter Bosshard, the policy director at International Rivers, a US-based
environmental and human rights organization that published reports on
Kajbar Dam, said that this is an international test case.
"The Kajbar Dam is an international project, and international actors —
particularly from China — share a responsibility for it. The human
rights violations caused by the Merowe Dam have tarnished the reputation
of the Chinese companies and financiers involved in the project,"
Bosshard said in an email interview with Al-Monitor.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights filed a
complaint against two executives at Lahmeyer International GmbH, a
German engineering company that was a consultant in the Merowe Dam project.
In the villages of Nubia that will be affected by the dam, electricity
is not available the whole day, but the citizens there confirm that
there are many other ways to generate electricity other than the dam.
"Our area is very hot, they could try providing us with solar energy,"
said Idris.
Bosshard agreed. "Sudan has a solar energy potential and a big wind
energy potential that is much less damaging than the Kajbar Dam and
other projects on the Nile."
Reem Abbas is a Sudanese freelance journalist based in Khartoum and an
award-winning blogger. She currently contributes to www.theniles.org. On
Twitter: @ReemShawkat. Read more:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/sudan-kajbar-dam-nubians.html#ixzz2TO0xW78U
________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: africa@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
China gives environmental approval to country's biggest hydro dam
China gives environmental approval to country's biggest hydro dam
By David Stanway
Reuters
May 15, 2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/15/china-hydropower-idUSL3N0DW2B420130515?feedType=RSS
China's environment ministry has given the go-ahead for the construction
of what will become the country's tallest hydroelectric dam despite
acknowledging it will have an impact on plants and rare fish.
The dam, with a height of 314 metres (1,030 feet), will serve the
Shuangjiangkou hydropower project on the Dadu River in southwestern
Sichuan province.
To be built over 10 years by a subsidiary of state power firm Guodian
Group, it is expected to cost 24.68 billion yuan ($4.02 billion) in
investment.
The ministry, in a statement issued late on Tuesday, said an
environmental impact assessment had acknowledged that the project would
have a negative impact on rare fish and flora and affect protected local
nature reserves.
Developers, it said, had pledged to take "counter-measures" to mitigate
the effects. The project still requires the formal go-ahead from the
State Council, China's cabinet.
China aims to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its energy mix to
15 percent by 2020, up from 9.4 percent in 2011. Hydropower is expected
to make the biggest contribution.
It has vowed to speed up construction of dams in the 2011-2015 period
after slowing it down following the completion of the controversial
Three Gorges project in 2005.
The Three Gorges Dam, which serves the world's biggest hydropower
station on the Yangtze river, measures 185 metres.
The 300-m Nurek dam in Tajikistan in Central Asia is the world's
highest, though other taller dams are now under construction. China's
tallest dam now, at 292 metres, is the Xiaowan Dam on the Lancang River,
also known as the Mekong.
On completion, the Sichuan project will have a total installed capacity
of 20 gigawatts (GW), with annual power generation to exceed 7 billion
kilowatt-hours (kWh).
The government said this year that hydropower capacity was expected to
reach 290 GW by 2015, up from 220 GW at the end of 2010. It also said it
would begin building a controversial project on the undeveloped Nu River
in Yunnan province.
Guodian was one of a number of state-owned firms criticised by China's
national audit office last week for starting work on projects not yet
been approved by the central government. The office said by the end of
2011, the company had invested nearly 30 billion yuan in 21 unapproved
projects.
The Huadian Group, China's biggest power company, was also criticised
for launching construction of the Huangdeng hydropower plant before
receiving the government's go-ahead. ($1 = 6.1428 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Ron Popeski)
________________________________________________
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By David Stanway
Reuters
May 15, 2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/15/china-hydropower-idUSL3N0DW2B420130515?feedType=RSS
China's environment ministry has given the go-ahead for the construction
of what will become the country's tallest hydroelectric dam despite
acknowledging it will have an impact on plants and rare fish.
The dam, with a height of 314 metres (1,030 feet), will serve the
Shuangjiangkou hydropower project on the Dadu River in southwestern
Sichuan province.
To be built over 10 years by a subsidiary of state power firm Guodian
Group, it is expected to cost 24.68 billion yuan ($4.02 billion) in
investment.
The ministry, in a statement issued late on Tuesday, said an
environmental impact assessment had acknowledged that the project would
have a negative impact on rare fish and flora and affect protected local
nature reserves.
Developers, it said, had pledged to take "counter-measures" to mitigate
the effects. The project still requires the formal go-ahead from the
State Council, China's cabinet.
China aims to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in its energy mix to
15 percent by 2020, up from 9.4 percent in 2011. Hydropower is expected
to make the biggest contribution.
It has vowed to speed up construction of dams in the 2011-2015 period
after slowing it down following the completion of the controversial
Three Gorges project in 2005.
The Three Gorges Dam, which serves the world's biggest hydropower
station on the Yangtze river, measures 185 metres.
The 300-m Nurek dam in Tajikistan in Central Asia is the world's
highest, though other taller dams are now under construction. China's
tallest dam now, at 292 metres, is the Xiaowan Dam on the Lancang River,
also known as the Mekong.
On completion, the Sichuan project will have a total installed capacity
of 20 gigawatts (GW), with annual power generation to exceed 7 billion
kilowatt-hours (kWh).
The government said this year that hydropower capacity was expected to
reach 290 GW by 2015, up from 220 GW at the end of 2010. It also said it
would begin building a controversial project on the undeveloped Nu River
in Yunnan province.
Guodian was one of a number of state-owned firms criticised by China's
national audit office last week for starting work on projects not yet
been approved by the central government. The office said by the end of
2011, the company had invested nearly 30 billion yuan in 21 unapproved
projects.
The Huadian Group, China's biggest power company, was also criticised
for launching construction of the Huangdeng hydropower plant before
receiving the government's go-ahead. ($1 = 6.1428 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Ron Popeski)
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