Frank Muramuzi of the National Association of Professional Environmentalists analyzes the World Bank's approach to energy lending, focusing specifically upon large hydropower projects in Uganda.

Large dams, believed for a long time to be solutions for energy deficits and to spur development, have been observed to do exactly the opposite. Instead of acting as a catalyst for economic development, dams have left the communities in a state of further aggravated abject poverty.

The otherwise humbly living communities have been denied  of their livelihoods, lost their fertile soils and access to water, firewood and rich biomass products and the benefits thereof in exchange for worsened living conditions, despite promises of better lives ushered in by dams.

These losses, combined with changes in climate, have made their present lives even worse, making communities wish they had known what was about to befall them before they lost their livelihoods by trading their fertile rich soils for the dams.

Having been geographically displaced from the river, unable easily to access water and wood from the rich riverine vegetation and rich soils, women are left struggling to cultivate and produce enough to feed their families from the poor, stony, erosion-prone hillside plots of land they received in exchange for their rich Nile soils. They expend vast amounts of energy and time and need a greater quantity of these poor soils to produce so little – not even enough to support their families.

These women walk long distances and take additional time to get water home, resulting in many social and health problems. They walk long distances to reach the next closest forest to collect firewood to cook their food.

The energy and time requirement and the risk involved in trying to access such resources demands that they use water and firewood so sparingly to the extent of compromising their hygiene, foregoing some meals or compensating by cooking the less labor and resource-intensive meals.

Women and girls in the affected resettled communities have experienced untold suffering while walking long distances through thick and isolated areas to get firewood. They have been raped, young girls defiled and beaten and their firewood confiscated by bad elements along the vast expanses between them and the forest.  Consequently they have suffered STDs in this era of HIV/AIDS, produced fatherless children, girls have been forced to drop out of school due to pregnancies of rape and defilement and become mother children (children mothering children).

The usual beneficiaries of the large dam projects that raise unnecessary expectations among the poor are those who are already affluent, living in big towns and cities. The industrialists and large companies are the beneficiaries of such projects even when they have not performed to their expectations, such as the Kiira extension dam in Uganda which produces only 40 MW instead of 200 MW.

The rich consistently gain, while the poor taxpayers pay for the failures. This is not how poverty is alleviated. Unless such an approach is scrutinized, the World Bank will continue to fund large dams that lead to more poverty than they alleviate, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor.

As civil society, we believe the World Bank must focus on alternative renewable energy options as well. Small hydropower dams are more sustainable and economically viable than the large hydropower projects as they will not need to transmit energy over long distances.

These will also attract industries upcountry as opposed to only to big towns. More importantly, the rural communities will access power. Solar, geothermal and wind energy have all been overlooked in the path to energy development, and this need not be.

By courtesy of the Bank Information Center of Washington, DC