World Commission on Dams / Articles

Five years ago, on November 16, 2000, Nelson Mandela, the Prince of Orange, the President of the World Bank and other luminaries launched the report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) at a glitzy ceremony in London. Initiated by the World Bank and the World Conservation Union, the report was the first independent evaluation of the performance of the world’s large dams.

World Rivers Review, October/December 2005

Five years ago, the World Commission on Dams – on which I served as one of 12 commissioners – culminated with the release of our report, Dams and Development. I find it a useful exercise to pause and reflect on one’s work, to understand its impacts, to examine your hopes or disappointments, and

The recently released Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a UN–sponsored analysis of the overall health of the planet, reveals the extent to which humanity’s destruction of the natural world is threatening our ability to thrive on the planet. The report – the largest–ever assessment of environmental changes and their impacts on human well–being – reveals the rapid and accelerating degradation to ecosystems that are essential to life on Earth.

Four years ago, the 12 commissioners of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) concluded their three–year effort to analyze the world’s record of dams and development by stating: "We have told our story. What happens now is up to you." A group of dedicated South Africans boldly accepted this challenge. Representing varied interests on dams, they have been working together for nearly four years to incorporate the WCD’s findings into South African national policies and laws.

Nearly 100 delegates representing government, the
private sector, NGOs, affected communities, utilities and others came
together on October 13–14 for the fourth and final forum of the South
African Multi–Stakeholder Initiative on the World Commission on Dams in
Johannesburg. The objectives of this Initiative were to broadly

Thank you. I would like to thank NAPE for inviting me to attend today’s meeting. I work with International Rivers Network (IRN), and was invited today to observe this gathering here in Uganda. IRN has been working for 20 years with NGOs and dam affected communities in the South to amplify the voices of those who bear the true cost of dams. IRN is not out to stop development. Rather, we work with local groups to ensure that development planning includes the voices of civil society and affected communities, which results in more sustainable, better–planned projects that share risks and benefits across society. IRN’s work has revealed that dams are often presented as a solution without having asked the right questions. IRN followed the WCD process closely, and we believe that the WCD recommendations provide a clear path to ensuring that the best development decisions for water and energy needs are made.

Bujagali Project Torpedoes Options Assessment for Uganda 

Local and international groups have been lobbying for a full and fair review of the various energy options available to Uganda ever since the Bujagali Dam site was first granted to the US–based AES Corporation in the mid–1990s. However, extensive efforts by NGOs to promote further analysis of energy alternatives have for years fallen on deaf ears at the World Bank Group, the project’s main backer. In fact, the Bank has actually subverted efforts to analyze non–hydropower options: it manipulated data to justify Bujagali as the "least–cost" option for Uganda after its consultants pointed to other projects as cheaper; hired a dam–building firm to produce an "energy alternatives" report that analyzed only hydropower projects, and has consistently dismissed (without justification) the promising option of geothermal power.