Response to the Final Report:

African Development Bank

Letter to the WCD Chair
26 January 2001

Professor Kader Asmal
Chair, World Commission on Dams

On behalf of the African Development Bank, we would like to express our sincere appreciation for providing us with a copy of the above-cited report for our review. We are also very appreciative of being given the unique opportunity to serve as a form member since early 1998, in the process that led to the development of this report. We look forward to participating in the final forum meeting to be held in Cape Town, during the last week of February 2001, for more broader consultation on the report findings and recommendations.

We feel that this report represents a major milestone in the assessment of economic, technical, and environmental performance of large dams. The report has been based on an exhaustive review involving broad stakeholder participation resulting in sound conclusions and recommendations. The criteria, guidelines and standards, provided in the report, would be particularly useful during the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams financed by the Bank. We plan to incorporate the criteria and guidelines during the development of Bank`s technical guidelines to support our recently completed policy on Integrated Water Resources Management. The participatory process that the report advocates is also fully in line with Bank`s newly developed policy on Collaboration with Civil Society Organisations, and the Participation Handbook presently under preparation. We will soon embark upon revision of Bank`s Environmental Policy, which will give a stronger emphasis on social issues typically relevant for large infrastructure projects. The Policy will also incorporate the recent international trends addressing issues related to Resettlement and Involuntary Displacements such as those typically associated with large dam projects.

We would like to congratulate the entire WCD team, which under your leadership resulted in this excellent report. We eagerly await the final forum meeting to echo our support and also to listen to the inputs of our various partners in this process.

Sincerely

Oumar Aw