What have dams got to do with peace? Conflict and the politics of infrastructure development

(The Corner House, Dorset, 19 December 2005) OECD Export Credit Group Member ECAs seem poised to subsidize new dam construction now with newly authorized subsidies. Nicholas Hildyard addresses the real and damaging conflicts that dams (and other large infrastructure projects such as oil pipelines and mines) can cause and exacerbate. Infrastructure development is often at the junction where conflicts over resources and decision-making meet, where future conflicts are created and where past conflicts are perpetuated. This paper raises key questions about decision-making, and political and economic power, about wider geo-politics and re-colonisation.