Response to the Final Report:

A Decision-Making Process For Sustainable Under-Development

Prof. R. Lafitte
letter to the Editor, published in ‘Hydropower & Dams’, Issue Six, 2000

The Final Report of the World Commission on Dams "Dams and development: A new framework for decision making" was launched on 16 November in London.

The first sentence of Prof Kader Asmal, Chairman of the WCD, was: "If politics is the art of the possible, this document is a work of art". Effectively, the Report is a political one, and the 12 commissioners, who have signed the Report, are talented artists who have acted out a theatrical production. It could be a comedy, as long as it is not imposed on those who need to build dams; if this were the case, it might be described as a more sombre tragedy.

The WCD hoped to use a process of studies and dialogue to change the tenor of the debate about dams between the protagonists, from a lack of trust and destructive confrontation to constructive cooperation. In fact, on the day of the Report's launch, several NGOs issued a statement calling for a complete moratorium on dam construction.

The first objective of the WCD was: "to review the development effectiveness of large dams and assess alternatives for water resources and energy development". The effect of the Report, which had been sent to the general media some days before the official launch, was totally negative reporting on the effectiveness of dams. For example:

"WCD condemns past projects" - National Geographic
"Projects cause more misery than benefit" - The Wall Street Journal
"Report attacks the environmental cost of dams" - The Guardian

We cannot be surprised by this analysis by the media, because the Report itself is not balanced. I will not go into detail here, but three examples can be given:

• The benefits of dams are largely under-estimated or simply ignored, particularly as regards electricity supply. Concerning affected people, the Report speaks of resettlement, but there is no mention of stabilization of the lives of people by providing them with water and power.
• The authors make sweeping generalizations about deficiencies of dams, based on a very small sample of large dams.
• Some important factual errors appear, on which the Commission draws its conclusions. One example is the number of people displaced by the construction of dams: 40 to 80 million. These figures are acknowledged to be an unchecked extrapolation from very limited data by the World Bank, which first made this estimate in its report of 1993…

Another example is the offsetting of thermal energy by hydropower, presented in 'barrels of oil equivalent'. It is not 4.4 million per day, but 12 million (the Commission apparently ignores the second principle of thermodynamics).

All in all, the first part of the Report is in the realms of sophistry.

The WCD's second objective was "to develop internationally acceptable criteria, guidelines and standards, for the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams".

The Commission refers to the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948), to the Declaration on the Right to Develop (1986) and to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992). This is the best part of the Report, which is universally accepted. Also, the core values on which the Commission bases its criteria and guidelines: equity, efficiency, participatory decision-making, sustainability and accountability, are similar to those which have been adopted by the professional associations.

The problem lies where the Commission develops its criteria. Then its lack of experience in the process of dam construction begins to show in all its splendour:

• The Commission has identified five key decision points known as the 'WCD Criteria'. These do not correspond to the principal phases of development of a project, from master planning to implementation. 100 years of experience have demonstrated the importance of these phases. At the end of each, different stakeholders have to make a decision. In particular, there are two essential stages: authorization to use part of a river (the concession), and authorization to build the dam. These stages offer strong protection to the potentially affected people. Prior to this, an environmental and social assessment report is established under the jurisdiction of the legal authorities, and the early involvement of potentially affected people is essential to develop informed opinion.
• The creation of a stakeholder forum to follow the development of a project continuously will lead to interminable discussions. The aim of this is obviously political, and in the great majority of countries, political organizations exist to represent the interests of the population democratically. It is a rather condescending attitude of the Commission to consider that developing countries have no such organizations or expertise.
• The proposal by the WCD of an organization for compliance also ignores the role of the state.
• The proposal that the state authority could be controlled by an international organization is unrealistic.

On a more general point, it appears that the WCD has forgotten the fundamental purpose of dam construction (even though the UN declarations are mentioned), which is to develop countries. Dams are necessary to store water, which is not evenly distributed in space or time. 45,000 dams exist, and around the same number will have to be built during this century.

A development policy in a country should be implemented without delay (in accordance with the demographic pressure), with efficiency, in a democratic way, but also firmly.

The result of imposing the WCD criteria would be that the process of studying and constructing dams would become extremely lengthy, and financing organizations might only support projects applying these rules. This would initiate a process of sustainable under-development. People would die as a result.

In its full unconsciousness, the WCD proposes to disseminate its conclusions around the world. Some developing countries may gain the impression that it is some kind of supranational organization. The weight of the WCD is indeed important: around US$10 million was invested in the Report. The 39 participants of the workshop in Gland, in April 1997, gave themselves the authorization to create the WCD, and the WCD nominated its own commissioners; legitimacy cannot be bought.

On the podium at the launch on 16 November, Nelson Mandela said: "The problem, though, is not the dams. It is the hunger. It is the thirst. It is the darkness of a township. It is townships and rural huts without running water, lights or sanitation".

This distinguished gentleman has the sense of the State.

Prof. R. Lafitte