By Hemantha Withanage
Executive Director/Senior Environmental Scientist, Environmental Foundation/Friends of the Earth Sri Lanka

The Narmada River Dam in India, Three George Dam in China, Park Moon Dam in Malaysia, Victoria, Kotmale, Samanalawewa, Lunugamwevehera Dams in Sri Lanka are some examples of world dams. They have created many social and environmental disasters while serving certain people.

As a result of the anti dam campaign of NGOs and the affected communities, the WORLD DAM COMMISSION was established by the World Bank with the help of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the final report was published in November 2000. It has well ACCEPTED THE DAMAGE done by the large dams and the responsibility of the Multilateral Banks and the respective governments. Further it has suggested a number of precautions for present and future large dams.

By year 2000, the world has built 45,000 large dams over 150 countries, to irrigate a third of all crops, generate a fifth of all power, control floods in wet times and stop water in dry times. Yet, in the last century, large dams also disrupted the ecology of half the world’s rivers, displaced over 40 million people from their homes and left nations burdened with debt.

During the 1990s, an estimated US$ 32-46 billion was spent annually on large dams, four fifth of it in developing countries. Of the US$ 22-31 billion invested in dams each year in developing countries, about four-fifths of it were financed directly by the public sector.

The overall global level of physical displacement could range from 40 to 80 million people thus in India and China together and large dams could have displaced between 26-58 million people during 1950 and 1990.

Sri Lanka has so far constructed 46 large dams. Sri Lanka has displaced over 100,000 people in dam development. Under the Mahaweli project 13,000 from Kothmale and 45,000 families from Victoria were displaced. The majority of them are living in the Mahaweli area and are suffering various problems.

Lack of sufficient water, man-wildlife conflict, Malaria and other diseases, and the lack of basic living needs kill them gradually. Because of the loss of social structure, economy and unsuitable, involuntary (forced) resettlement programmes some of them have become the worst development refugees in Sri Lanka. The Mahaweli, Lunugamwehera and Samanalawewa projects are infamous for this situation.

The commissioners of the World Dam Commission visited some of these communities in December 1998. Dr. Jin Velthrop, Honorary President, International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) said that he was shocked to see the development refugees in Mahaweli area.

Pro. Thayer Seduder of the California Institute of Technology, a consultant on a number of Dam schemes around the world and a member of the World Dam Commission, wrote in 1990 thatÉ what is becoming distressingly clear is the systematic way the governing elite may use river basin development projects not just to transfer resources to themselves and their supporters, but also to pursue self-governing political goals at the expense of riverine population, and of ethnic and religious minorities and opposition groups at regional and national levels.

The World Dam Commission was established in 1998, following NGO and dam-affected peoples’ calls for an independent review of the impacts of large dams. Originally the World Bank had tried to satisfy this demand with a desk review by its Evaluation Department. When this was dismissed as partial and inadequate, the Bank worked with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and others to pull together a new process. The WCD’s mandate was to evaluate the development impacts of large dams, and to recommend new guidelines for future planning.

The commission composed of 12 persons from NGOs, government and public utilities, industry and academic. The commission was established in Cape Town, with a South African government minister, Kader Asmal, as chair. On 16th November 2000, the WCD launched its final report.

According to the "Bretton Woods update" First quarter 2001, this unprecedented exercise brought together representatives of different perspective on the dams issue and conducted a major series of studies and its conclusions have far reaching implications for the World Bank and similar agencies, not only on their approaches to dams but also for all project planning.

Among the conclusions of its final report are that large dams have in general produced considerable benefits but:

• failed to provide as much electricity, water or flood control as their sponsors predicted;

• suffered massive cost-overruns and time delays;

• proven uneconomic, even before accounting for their social and environmental costs;

• had huge social and environmental impacts which have not been mitigated;

• Provided benefits to the already well-off while poorer sectors of society have borne the costs.

It was also revealed that the large dams designed to deliver irrigation services have typically fallen short of physical targets, did not recover their costs and have been less profitable in economic terms than expected.

Those who were resettled rarely had their livelihood restored, as resettlement programmes have focused on physical relocation rather than the economic and social development of the displaced;

The finding of the WCD led to a number of important recommendations which apply to dams but which could also be applied to the infrastructure development.

WCD report recommends:

• Giving priority to optimising the performance of existing infrastructure before starting a new project.

• Periodic participator reviews for existing dams to assess issues such as dam safety

• Mechanisms to provide social representation for those who are suffering the impacts of dams, and to restore damaged ecosystems.

According to the Bretton Woods updates the WCD report provides the best and most detailed analysis of "participation" yet elaborated by a body of such standing. It says participation should mean "free, prior informed consent" or "demonstrable public acceptance" of affected people, expressed in binding formal agreements.

These agreements should be "negotiated in an open and transparent process" which begins by recognising rights and addressing risks. Options assessment should be conducted at all stages of planning, project development and operations.

This should include giving social and environmental aspects the same significance as technical, economic and financial factors among other things.

There are a number of dam projects in the pipeline. Many of them have become controversial already due to the environmental, social and resettlement related problems. Among them Moragahakanda, Sudu Ganga, Matale Kalu Ganga, Upper Kotmale, Menik Ganga, Uma Oya diversions are already at the feasibility stage.

Sri Lanka has developed a fairly good involuntary resettlement policy already with assistance from Asian Development Bank. It has so far not been approved by Cabinet. That will cover only the present and future development projects. That will not help the resettlers under past development projects who suffer for the wealth of the beneficiaries.

However, WCD recommends a CLEAN decision-making procedure for dams in the pipeline.

The report states that "the social, environmental, governing and compliance aspects have been undervalued in decision-making in the past. The commission suggests a new criteria and guidelines to provide a new direction for appropriate and sustainable development.

The WCD report states that the experience of the commission demonstrates that common ground can be found without compromising individual values or losing a sense of purpose. But it also demonstrates that all concerned parties must enter into the process in good faith if we are to resolve the issues surrounding water and energy resources development.

I believe there is no argument about the positive impacts or the benefits of the Sri Lankan dams. But Sri Lankan decision makers are still reluctant to accept the negative impacts of the past dam business. The World Dam Commission and the international financing institutions have already accepted these failures. They are in the process of correcting the problems.

Therefore we urge the Sri Lankan Government; to follow the suggestions made by the World Dam Commission and not to have large dams in the future.