Dams and Development
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Why are dams controversial?
An insight into the dams debate
The debate over dam projects is often polarized into two simplistic positions. One sees dams as a necessary instrument of development to provide water, electricity, irrigation and flood management benefits to an increasing population. The other sees widespread social and environmental impacts, low performance and inequitable sharing of costs and benefits.
The underlying issues are however more complex and go beyond the water sector to encompass wider development concerns and societal choices. They involve basic concerns about how decisions are made and their influence on utilization of a country's natural resources.
In the mid 1990s, the World Bank conducted an internal review of 50 projects. At the same time NGO concerns intensified and were publicized more globally through the internet.
A joint initiative of the World Bank and IUCN-The World Conservation Union brought both sides together in a workshop in 1997, Large Dams: Learning from the Past, Looking at the Future . Former World Bank environmental advisor, Robert Goodland summarized the basis of the controversy at the time, Environmental Sustainability in the Hydro Industry: Disaggregating the Debate. An insight into contrary claims of proponents and opponents is provided in Figure 2 of Goodland's paper.
Emerging from this initiative came the World Commission on Dams (WCD) with the express aim of undertaking an independent review of past experience with dam projects and developing new approaches for the future. It concluded that:
'the positive contribution of large dams to development has, in many cases, been marred by significant social and environmental impacts which are unacceptable when viewed from today's values' (WCD, p198).
Read more details on WCD findings and recommendations.
Almost five years after publication of the WCD report, many new ideas have been introduced, but significant challenges remain for governments, the public and private sector financing agencies, industry and civil society.
Experience shows that with political will, new projects can be planned to address the problems that arose in a number of past projects. By providing a window on such experience and links to relevant sources of information, this e-paper aims to demonstrate that there is a middle ground to the pro- and anti-dam positions of the debate. It looks for solutions to meet development needs in a socially and environmentally acceptable way. A list of project examples used in the e-paper to illustrate new approaches in social, environmental, technical and economic arenas appears in the reference section.
The challenges for development institutions such as ADB are considered in the final section of the e-paper and are seen as part of an ongoing process of change.
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