Follow the Money / Reports

Financial institutions from countries such as China, Brazil, India and Thailand are playing an increasingly active role in financing infrastructure and mining projects around the world. With new loan approvals of $36 billion, China Exim Bank for example became the world’s largest export credit agency in 2007. Although they invest in environmentally sensitive sectors, many emerging financiers do not yet apply internationally accepted standards in their projects.

This new report discusses the experience with environmental standards and how it can be useful for new financiers.

中国已经成为非洲基础建设项目的主要投资者。中国进出口银行，这个国家的官方信
贷机构，已经批准了65 亿向非洲的贷款，其中大部分都是基础设施投资。中国进出口银
行的贷款往往是中国与非洲国家更大合作项目的一部分，包括商业贸易、武器出口、学生
交换，以及维和人员的派出等。

As part of its going-out strategy, China is rapidly expanding its economic cooperation with Africa. China Exim Bank plays an important role in this cooperation. The policy bank is financing more than 250 projects in Africa, primarily in the infrastructure sector.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has called corruption the single most important obstacle to development and has ratcheted up the fight against graft in Bank projects. While this effort is welcome, it is being undermined by the bank’s simultaneous increase in infrastructure lending. The experience of Pakistan’s water sector shows that the bank’s self–interests facilitate rather than discourage corruption in infrastructure development. Unless the World Bank addresses upstream the corruption incentives that drive infrastructure decisions, the poor will continue to be deprived of access to essential services.

A Critique of the World Bank’s Progress Report on Infrastructure

Introduction

In July 2003, the World Bank launched an Infrastructure Action Plan in order to massively increase its lending for the infrastructure sectors, and to middle–income countries more generally. In August 2005, the Bank prepared a progress report on the implementation of this plan.¹ The Development Committee will discuss this report at the World Bank’s Annual Meeting on September 25.

Financing Dams in India

In 2003, the Government of India proposed to double the current electricity generation in the country, proposing 162 new Hydroelectric Projects. The government endowed India’s National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) with the largest number of projects. This briefing paper informs about the risks of doing business with NHPC.

Report Counters World Bank’s "High–Risk / High–Reward Strategy",
NGOs Predict Increased Conflict Around Risky World Bank Projects

(19 September 2003 – Dubai) As World Bank representatives gather in Dubai for the 2003 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, and International Rivers Network today released a report in response to the World Bank’s new "high–risk/high–reward" strategy in the water, forestry, and extractive industries sectors. The report, Gambling With People’s Lives, analyzes the World Bank’s ability to manage social and environmental risks in high–risk projects and to learn from its past mistakes. The report is available at www.foe.org (or, IRN direct link).

The International Experience with Power Purchase Agreements of Private Power Projects

In ancient Greece, a nine-headed snake called Hydra lived in the marshes of Lerna. She was the daughter of a giant and a nymph, and the sister of Sphynx, Cerberos, and Chimaera. Again and again, Hydra ravaged the fields, destroyed the crops and devoured the cattle of the local farmers. At last, King Eurystheus asked the Greek hero Herakles to bring Hydra’s reign of terror to an end. A horrible battle unfolded in the marshes of Lerna. Every time Herakles cut off one of the serpent’s heads, two new ones grew from the ghastly body. In the end, of course, the courage of the hero prevailed over the serpent’s evil blood.