Last month, International Rivers supported community and civil society representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who traveled to Washington, D.C. to urge the World Bank to reconsider its plans to fund Inga 3, the next phase of the Grand Inga Project on the Congo River. Grand Inga is a seven-phase, mega hydropower facility expected to cost up to $100 billion which, if built, would be the largest hydroelectric scheme in the world.
The delegation met senior World Bank officials and raised concerns that the proposed Inga 3 project would exacerbate harms imposed by the earlier Inga 1 and Inga 2 dams, which plunged the country into debt, displaced and impoverished communities, and failed to deliver electricity as promised. They also questioned the World Bank’s rationale for reengaging with the project after the Bank was compelled to cancel its earlier support for Inga 3 in 2016 over significant governance concerns, while many of the factors that prompted the Bank to withdraw remain. These concerns are particularly heightened by the World Bank’s plan to develop Inga 3 as a public-private partnership, which would incentivize the developers to sell the electricity to industrial interests at the expense of the Congolese public and risk ballooning the national debt in the likely event of cost overruns and delays.
The visit also coincided with the World Bank’s increased appetite to resume major lending for large-scale dams. After over a decade of declining investment from the World Bank in mega-dams, its interest in Inga 3, along with its recent decision to fund the last phase of the Rogun Dam in Tajikistan, suggests that the World Bank may be poised to resume its support of large-scale hydropower.
With World Bank approval set for the first half of 2025, the delegation raised concerns that a project of this magnitude is being fast-tracked in the absence of basic, critical information about what the initial $250 million would be used to fund. Meanwhile, communities in Kongo Central where the project would be built are being left in the dark about how the project would affect them with no meaningful consultation performed to date.
Speaking at a roundtable at the Bank Information Center, community advocates articulated their opposition to the project, citing the inefficiencies of Inga 1 and Inga 2, explaining that Inga 3 is “not for the people” and would result in further displacements of communities who were previously displaced by the construction of Inga 1 and Inga 2.
“Our parents gave up their land so Inga 1 and Inga 2 could be built,” said Angelique Mvuezolo, a community advocate from Femmes du Fleuve. “There has been no compensation, and we have received nothing in exchange for giving our land away.”
She explained that the original Inga dams have undermined food security in Inga, resulting in fewer fish in the rivers–a food source residents have long relied on for sustenance. Farming has also been compromised as many residents have been displaced from their lands. “How can we support Inga 3 when we’re facing all these issues from Inga 1 and 2,” asked Mvuezolo.
Planning for Inga 3 has failed to consider community concerns. Many residents have been excluded from participating in planning conversations about the project, with some even sharing that they’ve been intimidated from speaking up at all. When community members are involved, it’s often because they’ve been cherry-picked as the “voices of their communities.”
Instead of another costly and destructive mega-dam, experts have estimated that the region’s electricity needs could be met by deploying wind and solar power–sustainable solutions that would prevent the far-reaching impacts of a large hydropower project like Inga 3.
Emmanuel Musuyu, from the Congolese civil society coalition CORAP, reiterated that Inga would be ill-suited to alleviate the persistent energy poverty in the DRC, where 80% lack access to electricity. Inga’s electricity, he noted, would be intended for sale to industries, mines, and neighboring countries that would be prioritized over the Congolese public. The vast majority of Congo’s population lacking electricity access would be best served by decentralized renewable energy options.
Twenty-five years ago, the findings of the groundbreaking World Commission on Dams were published, challenging the efficacy of large-scale hydroelectric projects, and revealing that large dams have failed to live up to their promised benefits. The report helped fuel a growing international backlash against large-scale hydropower and prompted the World Bank, at that point a major funder of mega-dams, to withdraw from funding such projects for over two decades. The World Bank’s reengagement in the Inga dam shows that the Bank has failed to learn some of the hard-won lessons of the past, and Congolese communities and civil society remain firm in opposing a project that benefits corporate actors at the expense of communities, the environment, and the Congolese public.