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NGOs are effective because of public trust.

NGOs - effective because of public trust

Op-ed by Peter Bosshard, International Rivers Network The International Journal of Hydropower & Dams, Issue 3/2005

Bashing non-governmental organizations has become a popular pastime. In Hydropower & Dams 6/2004, several authors argued that environmental NGOs are increasingly powerful, but out of touch with realities. The stereotype of rich and dogmatic NGOs does not explain why these groups enjoy strong popular support. It absolves dam builders from their own responsibilities, and from engaging in a dialogue with their critics.

With articles from Syda Bbumba, Sebastian Mallaby and Asit Biswas, Hydropower & Dams 6/2004 devoted a lot of space to the work of International Rivers Network and other non-governmental organizations. The authors paint a picture of NGOs that are "totally anti-dam organizations", pursue "vested interests and hidden agendas", and "harm the poor" through many of their campaigns. Biswas writes that dam-fighting NGOs have become "financially powerful" and have joined the gold cardholder clubs of major airlines. In fact, Biswas writes, the "anti-dam lobby" has become part of a $1.1 trillion "non-profit industry" with 19 million employees.

The importance of ground realities

If Biswas' figures are correct, International Rivers Network controls about one ten-thousandth of a percent of the resources of the non-profit industry. Biswas' own institute probably makes up a larger part of the "non-profit industry" than IRN. The resources of our global network are growing, but are still diminutive compared with the public relations budgets of the World Bank, governments, and large corporations. NGOs are effective not because they are rich, but because they enjoy the trust of the general public.

According to a global opinion poll recently published by Edelman, a public relations firm, advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace enjoy the highest public trust among all institutions. Their credibility by far outstrips the credibility of private corporations. In the United States, the share of so-called opinion leaders who say they trust NGOs has increased from 36% to 55% in only four years.

NGOs enjoy strong popular support because people trust that they are less beholden by vested interests than the private sector, that they are closer to ground realities, and in a better position to address the world's unresolved social and environmental problems.

The reality of the Bujagali experience

Even as dam developers are becoming more aware of the social and environmental impacts of large dams, they have rarely managed to effectively mitigate the impacts of their projects. "For much of my life, I have been a supporter of large dams", says Thayer Scudder, the world's leading expert on resettlement and a consultant to the World Bank since 1964. "I now consider that in most cases, large dams are part of a flawed paradigm that causes an increasing disconnection between the necessary environmental health of river basins and the current needs of people and governments for the provision of water, energy and food."

Let's take a closer look at the project that was praised in the articles by Syda Bbumba and Sebastian Mallaby, the Bujagali dam in Uganda. After they initially supported the project, the affected people realized that most of the promises they had received were broken. They were moved to barren hills that are far away from the river and the markets, and did not receive land titles for their new plots. As one elder explained when we visited the resettlement site, the affected people would "return to their old places running" if they could.

The impacts of Bujagali on the affected people are bad enough. Yet NGOs opposed the dam primarily because of economic and governance concerns, and it was these problems that eventually stopped the project. The government selected a private developer without competitive bidding, and agreed to an exceedingly sweet deal in the power purchase agreement. An analysis commissioned by IRN showed that compared with standard industry practice, the Bujagali contract was overpriced by $260 million, and would have resulted in electricity rates that Ugandan consumers could not afford. The private developer pulled out after the Ugandan government demanded a renegotiation of the contract, and the project was investigated for corruption by four governments and the World Bank. Bujagali is ill qualified as an example of how dam builders have learned the lessons of past mistakes.

The way forward

Contrary to what Asit Biswas and other writers say, NGOs are not fundamentally opposed to large dams, and support the concept of storing water to balance fluctuating rainfall. There are however many different ways to store water and generate electricity. The World Commission on Dams has proposed today's international best practice for adequately assessing the available options.

The WCD report is by far the most comprehensive, thorough and independent assessment of the development impacts of large dams. The dam industry and Southern governments were prominently represented in the Commission, and most contributors were consultants with a history of planning dams.

The WCD report has been misrepresented as a no-dam document, not least by one of its original sponsors. Yet if dam builders overcome their grudge against the report and take a fresh look at what the WCD actually recommends, they might find that they can work with the new decision-making framework. Why shouldn't all options - including small-scale solutions, the restoration of existing infrastructure etc. - be assessed in a balanced way before new water or power sector projects are approved? Why shouldn't social and environmental concerns receive the same weight as economic factors in dam planning? Why should affected people not obtain enforceable guarantees to compensation and rehabilitation - just as the interests of all other stakeholders are being contractually safeguarded? Why would poor people object to projects if they were guaranteed to become beneficiaries?

With or without a WCD-inspired process, fewer dams will be built in the future. The WCD's decision-making framework will offer governments, developers and financiers more predictability, and will avoid the deadlock in the water and energy sectors that countries like Uganda have experienced. This is why five years after the report was released, large banks and other institutions are still adopting the WCD recommendations.

The citizens' group that coordinated the Bujagali campaign recently carried out a workshop on how the WCD recommendations can be applied in Uganda, in cooperation with the government and the World Bank. The group has proposed a balanced, participatory assessment of all options in Uganda's power sector, including the promising potential of geothermal energy and a dam project on the Nile that appears to be lower-impact and more cost-effective than Bujagali. Similar WCD-based processes are taking place in other countries in the North and South.

A multi-stakeholder dialogue in Uganda may or may not lead to a new dam project, and the same is true for WCD processes in other countries. The different parties may or may not agree at the end of the day. Through such processes, they will at least recognize shared concerns and disagreements, and will not need to resort to cheap scapegoating.