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The ancient town of Hasankeyf will be flooded by the Ilisu Dam (peevishsoul)

Governments and financial institutions have come under increasing pressure not to fund environmentally and socially destructive projects. In the case of the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, the Nam Theun 2 Dam in Laos and the Ilisu Dam in Turkey, the World Bank and Western governments have resorted to approving financial support under strict conditions. This approach has so far not worked because funders were not serious about enforcing their conditions. The Ilisu Dam is now facing a crunch. It may salvage the remaining credibility of Western donors – or drown it out completely. (Updated)

Protest in Berlin

The high drama over Turkey’s Ilisu Dam continues. A new report by the official monitoring team demonstrates that the project continues to violate the conditions under which Austria, Germany and Switzerland agreed to fund the project. Ilisu has become a test case for the dam industry’s efforts to strengthen the social and environmental acceptability of its projects.

The ancient town of Hasankeyf will be flooded by the Ilisu Dam (peevishsoul)

By sending an Environmental Failure Notice to the Turkish authorities, the governments of Germany, Austria and Switzerland have started the process of withdrawing their financial support for the Ilisu Project in Turkey. This is a fantastic success of the European anti-Ilisu campaigners. While the German government has pushed for this unprecedented step, the attitude of the Austrian and Swiss governments is ambiguous. The next two months will decide over the fate of the project.