13 August 1999
Casting a Global Net
Dams Commission Hosts Latin America Hearing

The Second Regional Consultation of the WCD, on Latin America, was convened on 12-13 August 1999 in São Paulo, Brazil to assist the Commission in achieving the following goals:

• participation from a broad range of interested parties to inform the WCD’s work;
• facilitation of the public exchange of ideas and views among various constituencies in the region;
• providing the Commissioners with an opportunity to develop a shared knowledge base.

The commission received over 80 submissions from across Latin America and 34 individuals were selected to present their views at the consultaton. In line with the Commission’s commitment to inclusive and broad-based participation, the presenters came from more than 12 different countries on the continent and represented the full range of stakeholders in the debate including public officials, business leaders, officials from international development agencies, scholars, and representatives of NGOs and social movements. In total, 650 people attended the first day's sessions and over 250 the following day.

Presentations at the Consultation were divided into seven thematic panels and covered the following topics:

Panel 1 was a country panel on Large Dams and their Alternatives in Brazil. Various perspectives were provided by four speakers representing: a public sector utility in Brazil, a dams-affected peoples’ group, the Brazil chapter of the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), and the academic community.

Panel 2 on Large Dams and their Alternatives: Future Energy Trends comprised had four speakers representing the views of a national electricity regulatory agency, an alternate technology group, an energy efficiency research institute, and a regional internal lending institution.

Panel 3 focused on Large Dams and Indigenous/Traditional People and included five speakers including: representatives of NGOs and dams-affected peoples from Panama, Guatemala, and Brazil; an academic perspective on a Mexican case study; and a public sector utility's experience in dealing with indigenous communities.

Four speakers in Panel 4 presented case studies and perspectives on the debate on Large Dams and the Environment. Panel 5 on Large Dams and their Alternatives: Social and Resettlement Issues provided different viewpoints from Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina on national/local experiences in resettlement.

The last two panels, on Large Dams and Decision Making: Conflict and Negotiation and Large Dams and Decision Making: Policy and Institutional Frameworks provided varying government, NGO, private sector, and academic experiences from the region on management of conflicts and institutional mechanisms to support decision-making and public participation.

In summary, the Latin America Regional Consultation provided to the Commission a number of views and perspectives on the past, the present, and future.

Past Experience. The Commission heard a range of views on the performance and
development effectiveness of large dams and the problems faced by local people affected by the projects, including but not limited to the following:

• dams have played a major role in electricity supply in Brazil and to varying degrees in
  other Latin American economies. The need to ensure development and growth indicates that energy
  demand will increase, moderated by increased energy efficiency. A variety of views emerged
  on the role that dams will play in satisfying future needs, particularly for electricity
  supply;
• dams have contributed benefits to industry and cities and overall development of the
  country but the perspective of many was that considerable costs have been borne by the local communities affected by projects;
• many presentations stressed that there has been a marked absence of information about dam projects, and a paucity of consultation with the people in the project areas before and after dam projects have been launched. In the past, force and other coercive methods have, at times, been used to remove people from their settlements. Little attention has been paid to measures that address local needs in the planning and development of large dams in the Latin American region;
• project-affected peoples from various countries illustrated their deep concerns on the impact of dams on local communities, indigenous people, and particularly the resettled populations. There are considerable concerns that remain unaddressed regarding past projects. In particular, they feel downstream communities have been neglected;
• participants provided a range of views on the environmental impacts of dams and the need
  to consider the local, basin-wide, regional, and international dimensions of these impacts
  in decision-making processes both for new dams and with the operation of existing dams.

Emerging Factors.The submissions and ensuing discussions at the consultation highlighted a number of key factors that reflect the changing context surrounding dams and which will play pivotal roles in determining the future of dams:

• in earlier decades development projects could, in the main, be planned and implemented by authorities focusing on the benefits of the projects, with little interface with local communities. Now, however, there is growing articulation and organisation among those communities and other social and environmental movements. These groups should be associated with, and accommodated in the planning of such projects, to ensure they proceed smoothly and speedily.
• political change in Latin America in the 1990s has led to dramatic structural changes throughout the region in industry, regulation, and finance, all of which are redefining the roles and responsibilities of government and the private and civil society sectors in planning and decision-making in the energy sectors and for dams specifically;
• governments and their institutions are on a learning curve in terms of environmental and social awareness; and
• regional energy networks (eg gas pipelines and electricity grids) are emerging and
  promise to shape future roles of hydro, natural gas, coal, and other energy resources.

Directions and Challenges: A number of challenges for the future direction of policies, planning, and action were
identified in the sessions:

• dynamic and purposeful consultative processes at all stages of planning and implementation of projects are essential between project officials and interested communities, to maximise benefits from large projects;
• in Latin America concerns regarding significant environmental and social issues related
  to the management of existing dams remain unresolved, and these must be addressed
  alongside issues related to the development of new projects;
• in the changing policy and regulatory context there is a need to clarify the roles of government, the private sector, civil society, and project-affected peoples in planning processes; outstanding problems must also be resolved;
• a number of examples of innovative compensation mechanisms exist in the region and these
  must be reviewed, with the ‘lessons learned’ fed back into the planning
  process;
• careful assessment of renewable energy options that match local needs and priorities must be integrated with an evaluation of the potential for 'clean' development mechanisms to influence technology choices; and
• a major challenge is to implement, monitor, and enforce policies and
  regulations addressing the various environment and social concerns, while recognising differences in local contexts;
• the need for economic growth must be reconciled with the various options available to meet those needs, in light of social and environmental priorities;
• all parties must engage constructively in identifying the array of options available in providing services, and acknowledge constraints in realising those options.