A video conference between the World Bank’s Cairo and Washington, DC offices connected Bank representatives with the voices of civil society and members of affected communities, allowing 6 Egyptians to present the concerns of the community about the negative social and environmental impacts of a large Bank-funded power plant project in the North Giza region of Egypt.
This $2.2 billion natural gas-powered electricity plant is receiving about $840 million in funding from the World Bank, with additional financing coming from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development. The plant is located in an agricultural area along the Rosetta branch of the Nile, about 30 km NW of Cairo in the Northern part of the Giza governorate.
The participants from Cairo included representatives from three local organizations: the Egyptian Association for Collective Rights, Habitat International Coalition, and the Egyptian Center for Legislative Reform, as well as three affected persons whose land borders the project site. Two representatives from the Bank Information Center (BIC) Middle East and North Africa (MENA) program joined the meeting from Washington, DC.
The group presented their concerns in the meeting, as well as in a letter signed by the aforementioned organizations and individuals, to the Bank. Participants’ concerns included the general lack of transparency in the project and in consultations with affected communities, as well as water and environmental issues associated with the project. Community members stressed that during consultations and throughout the implementation process, it was not made clear that the World Bank and other International Financial Institutions were involved in financing the project. They detailed the direct negative impacts of the project on their land and crops, including the disposal of construction debris in a nearby canal, disruption of groundwater sources and of the flow of the canal, and drying up of wells in the area. These impacts, the group agreed, had negatively affected their ability to produce crops on their land, which borders the project site. One farmer spoke about his fears that he will be put in jail because the decrease in productivity of his land means that he cannot repay his agricultural loans.
To date, official World Bank reports on the project have been satisfactory, and in February of 2012 the Bank’s Board of Directors approved an additional tranche of financing that would allow for a third 750MW turbine to be constructed, expanding the capacity of the power plant. After hearing concerns from the affected individuals and civil society representatives, Stephen Lintner, Senior Technical Advisor in the Bank’s Quality Assurance and Compliance Unit, committed to informing MENA regional Vice President Inger Andersen and Egypt Country Director David Craig, and to organizing a fact-finding mission to the project site to investigate the issues brought to light by civil society and affected communities.
As the World Bank prepares for a broad review of its environmental and social Safeguard policies, which are meant to prevent and mediate negative environmental and social effects such as those currently plaguing residents of the land surrounding the North Giza power plant project, it is important that the Bank look to cases like this one as an example for why it is necessary to expand and strengthen the scope of the Safeguard policies, and to engage in proactive transparency mechanisms throughout project implementation. When affected communities are not aware of a project’s connection to the World Bank, they cannot take advantage of the Bank’s recourse mechanisms or its methods for engaging and consulting with civil society and affected peoples. And if policies intended to prevent environmental and social harm and protect local communities are ambiguous and narrow rather than broad and comprehensive, Bank-funded projects will be in danger of perpetuating cycles of poverty rather than alleviating them.