Washington: “So often it’s the poorest that pay the price for projects that are supposed to bring development,” said Peter Bosshard, main author of the International Rivers Network report.

“Bank-funded dams have displaced more than 10 million people, flooded millions of hectares of lands and pushed many countries deeper into debt. Yet the bank is set to repeat its mistakes all over again,” he added.

The report, published on Earth Day and presented as the IMF and World Bank hold their spring meetings in Washington, underlines what it calls the dangers of the World Bank’s renewed interest in engaging in big dam projects.

Richard Uku, spokesman for the World Bank’s infrastructure branch, said the bank is indeed reinvigorating its development of water, communications, sanitation, energy and transportation infrastructure.

The agenda is outlined in the Infrastructure Action Plan released in September 2003.

The world spends about $60 billion on the water sector, including sanitation, irrigation, hydro power and water supply in developing countries, said a World Bank spokesperson. About 90 percent of that comes from domestic sources.

The World Bank accounts for 50 percent of external financing or $3 billion a year.

World Bank supporters and bank President James Wolfensohn say the lender’s involvement in the projects helps ensure that some social and environmental regulations are met.

“If we withdrew, in one case, it would have been financed separately by people who didn’t give a damn,” Wolfensohn told reporters on Thursday.

“Sometimes there’s criticism of us for staying in when it would be a lot easier for us to move out.” However, Bosshard said, large dam projects often do more harm than good to the environment and the displaced people. The report, which focuses on India as a case study, calls on the bank to look more into alternative projects like rainwater harvesting
systems. The report also suggests the World Bank apply the recommendations of the 2000 World Dam Commission review.

The review was the first global assessment of dams and was co-sponsored by the World Bank.

The Bank has its own environmental and social safeguard policies, Uku said. Critics argue, however, that the bank has a poor track record of implementing those safeguards.

Alok Agarwal is a long-time activist with Save the Narmada, a group against a controversial dam project in India with which the World Bank was involved.

“On paper there is a policy that people should be given land for land, but the government is not following those principles,” Agarwal said.

Nor, he said, did the bank provide adequate compensation for the displaced people.

“The WCD analysis showed that in the past, those safeguard policies . .. generally have not been implemented,” said Deborah Moore, a former commissioner on the World Commission on Dams. “If you’re going to reengage with those kinds of projects, what is it that you will be doing differently this time?”