Third WCD Forum Meeting
25-27 February 2001 - Cape Town, South Africa

International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID)
Felix Reinders

Introduction

The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) is dedicated to enhancing the world-wide supply of food and fibre for all people by improving water and land management and the productivity of irrigated and drained lands through appropriate management of water, environment and the application of irrigation, drainage and flood management techniques. ICID was founded in 1950 and has at present over 80 member countries, covering in total about 95% of the world's land area. The economics status of the ICID member countries varies from the richest to the poorest. Area irrigated varies from a few thousand hectares to tens of millions of hectares. Most of the countries experiencing floods and droughts are ICID's members. Some countries need only drainage schemes; some only flood management or flood protection schemes, but most need irrigation. Twenty countries with the largest irrigated area account for about 85% of total global irrigated area.

On 16 November 2000, the report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) has been launched in London, Great Britain. During the preparation stage of this report, the President of ICID has been a member of the WCD Forum, which was constituted to act as an advisory body or a sounding board. The most important input of our Commission to the WCD has been the ICID position paper on "The Role of Dams for Irrigation, Drainage and Flood Control". This position paper was published after broad consultations with our National Committees and concerned work bodies. The position paper was approved almost unanimously by our International Executive Council Meeting in Granada, Spain, during September 1999. A second written submission was submitted and presented during the Forum meeting at 7 and 8 April 2000 in Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to our submissions, we had requested the WCD to send us their draft report for comments and review by our National Committees.

Unfortunately, we never received any comment of the WCD on our submissions, nor did we receive their report in draft before launching. While the same holds true for the other professional associations working in this field, viz. the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) and the International Hydropower Association (IHA), the Presidents of the three organizations jointly published an open letter before the launching of the WCD report, clarifying our position. In addition, ICID issued a "Press Release" focusing on the key issues of its position paper.

Shortly after the launching of the WCD report, a widespread growing concern developed amongst our members about the contents of the WCD report, especially regarding two issues:

• the analysis of existing dams is unbalanced with a strong implication that the majority of the world's 45,000 large dams are environmentally damaging or socially destructive. Very little attention is devoted to the many well-known benefits of carefully planned dams, and no feasible alternatives are suggested for meeting the future water, food and energy needs of the developing world;
• the conditions proposed in the 26 guidelines for the planning and implementation of future dams are, in many instances, idealistic but not realistic. They have no doubt been conceived with good intention but have not been verified on their applicability in practice. We feel they will have the effect of preventing or at least seriously delaying, future water, food and energy needs of the development world;
• the conditions proposed in the 26 guidelines for the planning and implementation of future dams are, in many instances, idealistic but realistic. They have no doubt been conceived with good intention but have not been verified on their applicability in practice. We feel they will have the effect of preventing, or at least seriously delaying, future water resources projects, which will be urgently needed during this century, particularly in developing countries. There is a serious danger of condemning some third-world countries to a future of "sustainable underdevelopment".

This concern resulted in a joint letter - dated December 28, 2000 - of the Presidents of ICOLD, ICID and IHA to the President of the World Bank. He was directly approach, as the World Bank was one of the two initiators of the process that led to the WCD report, and as the WCD stood decommissioned, it could not be expected anymore that the report could be changed by WCD, after receipt of our comments. The three Presidents thereafter have issued another letter to the President of the World Bank on February 5, 2001 giving more detailed comments.

The comments are organized in three categories:

• major comments;
• a short background;
• detailed comments on each chapter.

In essence, the two issues as presented to the President of the World Bank remain fully valid and are strongly supported by the comments that follow. In addition, several more issues are presented that unfortunately disqualify most of the WCD report. This implies that our Commission considers the WCD report as not more than a document to generate discussion, but absolutely to find the required sustainable solutions. This is especially the case for the developing countries where sustainable water resources development will be of utmost importance for the welfare of future generations in a secure environment. Therefore, we like to repeat at this place the statement that can be found at the end of our position paper. "Decisions on dams are basically government decisions. There are often disagreements and decisions are difficult to take. The challenge will be to find balance between the requirements based on the needs of society, acceptable side effects and a sustainable environment."

Major Comments

Some key-issues are summarized and can be found in ICID's position paper in the sector vision on "water for Food and Rural Development":

• it is expected that during the coming 25 years, a duplication in food production will have to be achieved to feed the still growing world's population. Most of the increase in food production will have to be realized in the developing countries.
• the development of dams in the world has not taken in absence of knowledge. Large volume of experience is available. The ICOLD, ICID and IHA with the help of their participating member countries around the world, for instance, have developed a variety of standards and guidelines. They have been adopted in international and professional fora and fine-tuned especially during the last 50 years.

In the WCD report only a passing reference is made to these tremendous knowledge bases, nor have the 26 criteria that the WCD has developed been put in perspective with the developed guidelines and criteria as outlined above, nor have the major concerned government been consulted on their process of decision making. With respect to this, it has to be realized as well that the preparatory work for decision making on an individual dam, or the potential alternative solutions and options is in general much more elaborate than the work of the WCD:

• water scarcity is engulfing many countries of the world. Thousands of dams are still to be built to store water and make it available, during the first half of this century itself, on a world wide basis, especially in the non-industrialized countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
• It would have been highly appreciated if the guidelines as developed by the WCD could be in support of this process and therefore could contribute to the improvement of existing guidelines, standards and criteria in the concerned countries.
• Every human activity modifies the environment. Some changes are for the good, some are not so always, but awareness in societies about size and scope of adverse impacts plays an increasing role in decision making. Effort is made to mitigate and compensate such effects, while increasing positive impacts so that sustainability of development is maintained and the natural resource base is not eroded. Water resources development is particularly environment friendly and dams by and large protect and enhance the environment. The challenge is to see that the enormous positive effects of dams on environment far outweigh the negative effects. Mitigation and enhancement measures have been evolved, over a period of time, by concerned professionals. ICOLD and ICID have developed detailed listings, criteria and guidelines for study of environmental impacts and their mitigation. Many countries have developed appropriate policies and measures for compensating negative social and environmental impacts. While respecting the privilege of countries/Governments to develop their water resources plans and priorities, it will be only fair to expect that adequate compensatory packages are provided by them to adversely affected people and to ensure that these people are better off, after the project implementation than before it.

The major general remarks that can be made on the WCD report itself are made related to the role of dams for irrigation, drainage and flood control:

• In the WCD report, the benefits of dams are described in passing, almost without quantification, while the negative effects are outlined in detail. This plays especially a role in the analyses on the social issues where almost no attention is given to the role of dams for rural development, while hundreds of millions, if not billions of farmers have benefited tremendously from the revenues of irrigation that only could be realized in conjunction with reservoirs. The same holds true for the environmental benefits and protection against natural disasters, which have almost not been touched upon, while they are in many cases very significant. For example:
• about 1 billion people depend on food produced by reservoir related irrigation. There is no suggestion of how this food could have been produced by other means;
• the WCD report paints a totally negative picture of health impacts of dams, while the positive aspects as follows are not mentioned:
  • huge benefit of food production;
  • benefit of having better quality of drinking water all year round, even during droughts;
  • beneficial effect on woman and children due to improved accessibility to a safe water source;
  • reduction of the intensity of floods, which are a major threat to health;
• even if we interpret the scanty data that are shown in the WCD report in a balanced way by paying proper attention to the advantages, disadvantages and actual results, then one could state that dams have been in general very beneficial so far, that it has been shown that lessons have been learned from inadequacies of the past and they have been incorporated into the adopted practices and that risks for future occurrences of inadequacies have been significantly reduced. This leaves of course the responsibility with those concerned to improve the situation, where improvements can be made;
• it is an illusion that decisions on development or infrastructural projects will get full and total support in society. They have to be politically acceptable;
• the WCD report advocates "rights and risks" approach for affected people only. This approach as well as other proposals related to affected people has to extend to the "would be beneficiaries" of a dam project as well. They normally number more than 100 times than those affected and their "rights and risks" are as those of affected people;
• the paragraph on irrigation in Chapter 2 of the report shows in fact very positive results. These become even more positive when they would compared with the "no project" alternative or would be determined over the lifetime of the concerned dam. The negative impression that is given in the WCD report results from the comparison between data in the feasibility studies compared to actual data, mainly valid for the initial period after construction of a new scheme. Under that condition the remarks are valid, but this is not so relevant when we really look at the relatively high level of the actual performance figures;
• most of the dam projects not only have the objective of economic benefits, but they also address the overall socio-economic development of the people of the region. The dam projects often help prevent the migration of rural people to the cities, while giving them a higher standard of living in their native areas. This is particularly true of areas with an arid, or semi-arid climate from where seasonal forced migration occurs;
• the developing nations of the world are mostly located in arid and semi-arid areas. Rapidly increasing populations and relatively weak economics of these countries cause degradation of ecosystems. In several cases, dams are instrumental to prevent, or at least reduce such degradation;
• the ratios of numbers of beneficiaries to those adversely affected are not identified in the examples in the WCD report. For example, in the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project in India - often quoted in the report - the Supreme Court of India has stated in its verdict that the direct ratio in this project is 100. If the multiplier effect is considered, it would rise to 200;
• if the WCD had examined the widespread and serious impact of drought on socio-economic life in rural areas, it would have comprehended the significance of drought proofing and employment generation in the farm sector through irrigation. The ravages brought about by repeated droughts on the rural economy also need recognition. The WCD should have recognized the wide spread chronic under employment, and migration of rural labourers particularly of tribals and weaker sections to far away places, in search of livelihood because of failure of harvest and hence of employment. Had they recognized these maladies, then possibly the social dimensions of the positive impact of large dams in arid regions of the world would have been appreciated by the WCD;
• in the WCD report, it is stated that single purpose dams are beneficial as compared to multipurpose dams. This is in general simply wrong when compared with the umpteen cases of multipurpose dams, which have proven to be necessary and optimal in water development for competing needs. Based on this wrong comparison, effort is made to malign irrigation and drinking water sector dams. The consumptive nature of irrigation water use in contract to generally non-consumption nature of other sectors is not understood, nor recognized in the WCD report;
• basically, the WCD report proposes four options as alternatives to large dam irrigation:
• improving performance and productivity of existing systems;
• improving the productivity and livelihood opportunities offered by alternative supply through enhancing rainfed agriculture;
• investing in conventional supply side measures to develop new irrigation areas based on direct abstraction from rivers and groundwater;
• importing food from other countries.

In this respect it may be useful to clarify that most of the required duplication in agricultural production during the forthcoming 25 years, will have to come from existing cultivated land, among others by improved irrigation and drainage. Support and incentives for rainfed farming are considered to be of importance for poverty alleviation, but it is not correct that rainfed farming without a irrigated water management system will significantly contribute to the required increase in food production. As indicated before it will be unavoidable to increase storages. The remark on food import is an interesting one, especially related to developing countries. One has to realize that the number of food exporting countries has significantly reduced during the past years. When this process further continues as is expected, then it may be expected that food prices will sooner or later sharply rise. This will put a high burden on the concerned government to assure sufficient food at affordable prices, especially for the poor in their countries. It would have been better if the WCD had studied this aspect in some detail before formulating this recommendation.

Conclusion

We consider the WCD report simply as a useful document to generate further discussion, but absolutely inadequate, as it stands, to find the required sustainable solutions.

We do not accept the unbalanced judgement on the role of existing dams.

The 26 WCD guidelines as they currently stand are considered unrealistic for application.

As during the WCD process, our organizations are available to contribute to your work in refining the guidelines and criteria. However, we like to stress that this should also be done in close consultation with those who are really in charge of decision making on dams and guidelines should not be imposed on them through indirect channels.