World Bank insists it is not in denial
River body accused of being misleading
Anchalee Kongrut, Bangkok Post, October 31, 2000
The World Bank has refuted criticism by
an international anti-dam organisation that it is in the state of denial
for refusing to accept the conclusion by the World Commission on Dams (WCD)
that the Pak Moon dam project is a failure.
In its rebuttal, the bank said: "It has come to our attention that
the World Bank's views on the WCD case study on Pak Moon have been
misrepresented in a press release issued by the International River
Network (IRN)."
The bank was responding to a press statement released earlier by IRN
and headlined "On Planet World Bank, Thailand's Pak Moon dam is a
success. Arrogance blinds bank to true impacts of disastrous dam".
In the release IRN said: "In a recently leaked memorandum, the
World Bank continues to deny the impacts of the Pak Moon dam despite the
findings of the independent World Commission on Dams and the affected
communities' 10-year struggle."
Aviva Imhof, IRN's Southeast Asia campaigner, said: "The bank's
comments demonstrate the continuing arrogance of World Bank staff, who
seem incapable of admitting that they were wrong. The bank said that it
would accept the findings of the WCD study, and now that the study is
contrary to their beliefs, they are attempting to discredit it."
However, the bank took great pain to stress that the study was not the
final opinion of the commission but rather an "input" from a
team of researchers commissioned by WCD to conduct research in a
particular case.
The bank quoted WCD chairman Prof Kader Asmal as saying: "The case
studies, thematic reviews, submissions and contributing papers are a
unique and rich contribution to the debate. They are products of many
individuals and teams ... Without them there would be no WCD report but
the WCD report they were not."
The collective voice of WCD will be presented in its final report due
to be released on Nov16 in London with special guests attending, such as
former South African president Nelson Mandela, UN Commissioner for Human
Rights Mary Robinson, and World Bank president James Wolfensohn.
In its commentary submitted to WCD in June, the bank said the claim
that the dam construciton has resulted in substantial and permanent loss
in fishery was unsubstantiated.
It attributed the fishery loss to overfishing, pollution and increasing
population.
It called the WCD report's conclusion that the project was not viable
economically as "too simplistic" and criticised the method used
by the research team to calculate the dam's actual benefits.
The bank criticised the WCD for not including its 1998's "unbiased
retrospective report" done by its Operations Evaluations Department
(OED).
In that report, the bank praised the resettlement programme of the Pak
Moon dam project as the "best practice" among all projects
supported by the bank.
The only weak point of the Pak Moon dam was the lack of baseline on
fisheries like inexact number of local fishermen which led to
"exaggerated and ever-increasing claims for compensation".
The WCD released its final study on the dam in Ubon Ratchathani last
August. The ad hoc organisation which is the creation of the World Bank
and the World Conservation Union has found that the dam has failed to meet
its projected benefits and has had substantial impacts on fisheries.
The study concludes: "If all the benefits and costs were
adequately assessed, it is unlikely that the (Pak Moon dam) project would
have been built in the current context."
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