(Sorry for x-postings)
http://gga.org/stories/editions/aif-22-apart-at-the-seams/fire-on-the-water
Fire on the water
The two neighbours are complicit in hydro-electric projects that could dry up Lake Turkana and destroy the lives of those who live near it.
by Ben Rawlence
May 01, 2014
Ben Rawlence is researching and writing a book about Somali refugees in Kenya with the support of the Open Society foundation. He is the author of "Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War". Mr Rawlence received his master's in international relations from the University of Chicago. He lives in London.
Here today...
In the middle of the arid red desert of Kenya�s far north-west is a miraculous band of green water: Lake Turkana, the world�s largest desert lake. During calm weather, algae float on the surface and turn the lake green. This has given rise to the lake�s other name: the Jade Sea. It is also known as Anam Ka�alakol, meaning the �sea of many fish�, in the local Turkana language. Nearly 300,000 people living near the lake depend on it for fishing, farming, watering livestock and drinking water, according to US-based campaign groups International Rivers and the Oakland Institute.
This may end soon, however, if the predictions of a December 2013 report from Oxford University�s African Studies Centre hold true. The Lake Turkana area, also known as the cradle of mankind for its abundance of hominid fossils, has held water for at least 5m years. Evaporation rings at the water�s edge function like ice cores at the poles, providing an archive of climate information. It is why the lake is a UNESCO World Heritage site as well as an environmental wonder.
This year, however, may mark the beginning of Lake Turkana�s slow demise.
The lake�s northern tip touches Kenya�s border with Ethiopia. Its main source is the Omo river, which rises out of the green hills in southern Ethiopia, about 600km upstream of the lake, spilling out into a rich fertile delta before it meanders into Lake Turkana. But Ethiopia, in desperate need of foreign exchange and electricity, has plans to choke this vital artery. Many warn that Lake Turkana may suffer the same fate as the Aral Sea in central Asia, which was once one of the world�s largest lakes, but is now nearly bone dry because its waters were diverted for irrigation.
The Ethiopian government has built Africa�s tallest dam, the 243-metre high Gibe III, on the Omo river. It is the third in a cascading series of hydroelectric projects. Other dams, Gibe IV and V, will follow soon. When the rains begin falling in May they will also start filling the Gibe III dam. In addition, downstream of the barrage, an Ethiopian parastatal is digging canals in the Omo Valley to irrigate up to 375,000 hectares of sugar plantations. In the process, Human Rights Watch says, the Ethiopian military has been evicting indigenous agro-pastoral communities such as the Mursi, Bodi and Suri.
The Gibe hydroelectric and irrigation scheme has been mired in controversy from the start. The Ethiopian government never made an official announcement of this irrigation scheme before construction began. It never carried out proper environmental and social impact assessments. It never consulted the people living near the river, according to the US-based pressure groups Human Rights Watch, the Oakland Institute, International Rivers and the Oxford study.
In the absence of any official estimates, the Oxford University study is an attempt to predict Gibe III�s effects on Lake Turkana. The report�s author, hydrologist Sean Avery, forecasts that the water diverted to feed commercial agriculture could result in a 16- to 20-metre permanent drop in Lake Turkana�s levels. The lake could reduce to two puddles, he says. And with increased salinity and evaporation, it will no longer be able to support its fish stocks. Hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who rely on fishing as a way of life will need to find alternative livelihoods.
The Kenyan government and other Western donors have not protested or opposed the potential destruction of this unique ecosystem and irreplaceable natural jewel. The Gibe III hydroelectric plant, Africa�s biggest, will generate 1,860 megawatts (MW) of power. This electricity will surge into the Eastern Africa Power Pool, a regional market set up in 2005, for onward transmission to Kenya and the region.
Other major projects are planned near the lake that link Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan. Kenya is building sub-Saharan Africa�s biggest wind farm, the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, 9km from the lake, expected to produce 300MW. Oil has also been discovered in the Turkana region, 100km south-west of the lake. A massive underground aquifer estimated to hold 250 billion cubic metres of water�equal to Lake Turkana�was discovered last year. The government claims this artesian basin could fulfil Kenya�s needs for 70 years. In addition, a $21 billion road, rail and pipeline network linking a new deep-water port at Lamu on the Indian Ocean to landlocked southern Ethiopia and South Sudan is planned to include a new resort city on the shores of Lake Turkana�if there is any water left.
Kenya is not alone in its silence on Ethiopia�s hydroelectric and irrigation scheme. International financial institutions are also complicit. The World Bank and the African Development Bank (ADB) withdrew from supporting the controversial dam project in 2009, but did not baulk at paying for the transmission line that will move the electricity across the border to Kenya. The World Bank approved the power line in late 2012, ignoring its own environmental safeguards that would have triggered a more thorough impact assessment, claiming instead that the line was simply connecting the national grids of the two countries.
Ties linking the three countries near the lake are proceeding at breakneck pace. But the building of the Gibe III dam and the irrigation scheme pose huge accountability questions. What happens when projects are conceived in secrecy, planned in violation of national and international standards, and executed at the barrel of a gun? Who takes the blame for international institutions that turn a blind eye to environmental risks and the lack of consultation?
By their nature, cross-border projects are harder to hold to account than purely national ones. Lobbying two or more governments as well as international financial institutions and their major shareholders (the United States, China, Europe and Japan) is tough and expensive. Vested interests are deep and strong and the argument is rarely clear. Critics claim, rightfully, that Ethiopia and Kenya should not be denied the right to exploit their natural resources; nor should they uphold ancient ways of life for their own sake. However, in solid democracies major infrastructure projects proceed in an open manner under proper scrutiny and without trampling the rights of the people whom they are intended to serve.
The lone Kenyan voice raised against the plans has been a small group called �The Friends of Lake Turkana�, led by charismatic activist Ikal Angelei. The Kenyan parliament, aside from asking a few questions, has been absent from the arena.
Silence reigns in Ethiopia, where the political environment is much harsher than in Kenya. The Omo Valley�s indigenous people, who are being evicted from their land to make way for the irrigated plantations, are unsophisticated in modern lobbying and almost completely disenfranchised in Ethiopia�s one-party state. Western NGOs, for the most part, have led the campaign to expose the lack of consultation, consent and social and environmental impact assessments as well as the human rights violations associated with the forced evictions and resettlement of the indigenous people.
The work of Human Rights Watch, UK-based Survival International and the Oakland Institute in publicising the expulsions prompted the African Commission on Human and Peoples� Rights last November to write to the Ethiopian government to stop the resettlement of the Omo Valley people while it investigates the allegations. The UK and US governments have suppressed information about human rights abuses connected with the irrigation schemes, according to a July 2013 report by the Oakland Institute. Another 2012 report by Human Rights Watch showed that the UK�s Department for International Development (DFID) knowingly subsidised the resettlement of the indigenous peoples. DFID denied the claims but admitted its funds might have contributed �indirectly� to the activities of local governments, including resettlement.
The NGOs have made some positive impact. In January 2014 the US Congress ordered that American dollars �not be used to support activities that directly or indirectly involve forced evictions�, according to an appropriations bill. But, while important, these legal moves are likely to prove too little, too late. In Lake Turkana, regional power plays have worked against accountability. The complexity of such a large project and the many actors involved militates against holding anyone to account.
Ethiopia may have the right to develop the dam and the agriculture but not without reference to its own laws, which make very clear the rights of indigenous peoples to their own land, to consultation and to compensation in the event of eviction. Kenya, too, has the right to develop its resources but it also has a responsibility to protect its own citizens. Funders such as the World Bank, DFID, the US Agency for International Development, the ADB, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have a responsibility to follow their own procedures and abide by their own codes.
Bigger and more ambitious infrastructure projects can only proceed lawfully and benefit citizens if all the players involved are held to account, a painstaking process. Lake Turkana shows that without sustained democratic movements to keep governments in check, regional integration can easily be turned from a force for good to a torrent of tyranny.
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Friday, April 25, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Ghana's energy prod slows with drought
Hydrodependency and climate change don't mix� Too bad Ghana didn't figure that out before damming Bui Nat'l Park and displacing people (for an update by a local researcher on what is going on w/ Bui Dam resettlers: http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/8269)
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Ghana�s energy production to slow due to Akosombo Dam
By Ghana News -SpyGhana.com
http://www.spyghana.com/ghanas-energy-production-slow-due-akosombo-dam/
The Akosombo Dam is expected to record poor inflow of water in the next two years, which will lead to a shortfall in electricity generated from hydro, an informed analysis of water inflow into the dam has shown.
The minimum operating water level for the Akosombo Dam is pegged at 240 feet. However, the water inflow into the lake has recorded consistent reduction in year-end inflow since 2010. The water level in December 2010 was 275.40 ftt; 271.97 ft in 2011; 268.50 ft in 2012; 257.80 ft in 2013.
For the first quarter of 2014, the water level has continued to dwindle. January recorded an inflow of 256 ft; 254 ft in February; and 252 ft in March.
Historical analysis of the water inflow into the Akosombo Dam indicates that there are 24 years out of 47 years (51%) that average-to-above inflows were recorded. Typically, one year of below average inflow is followed by another year of below average inflow.
The worrying trend has raised concerns about mitigation measures put in place to bridge any potential shortfall in hydro power generation.
This portends an increase in thermal power generation and a cutback on hydro power �reversing the current energy mix of 63 percent hydro and 36 percent thermal power generation going forward.
Given the cost of generating power with crude, consumers are ultimately expected to pay more for power going by the Public Utilities Regulations Commission�s (PURC) automatic tariff adjustment formula if gas supply from both Nigeria and the Jubilee Field is not available in the required quantities.
�We will experience challenges come 2015 and 2016 if we don�t manage the reservoir well. The earlier we get an alternative source of fuel the better. About 41-42 percent of global electricity generation is coal-based. We need to explore alternatives now,� Dr. Kwabena Donkor, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy told the B&FT
The Akosombo Hydro Generating Station, the largest hydro installation in the country, generates 1020 Megawatts of power. Each of the installation�s six turbines generates 170MW of electricity. The Kpong Hydro Generating Station also generates 160 MW from four installed units.
The Station, according to sources, has been over-drafting for the last six years. In 2013, the Station exceeded its planned generation of 7,100 GWh by 780GWh to supplement the thermal power generated by the VRA plants and other independent power producers. The Station is also expected to over-draft about 780GWh this year.
The over-drafting of waters of the Akosombo Lake for power generation has been necessitated by the power challenges brought on by the shortage of gas from fields in Nigeria.
The country�s energy-mix is made up of 1180 Megawatts hydro by the Volta River Authority; Bui Hydro 400MW; thermal (VRA) 922MW; thermal � Independent Power Producers 310MW; and solar 2.5MW.
Rising electricity demand, which is driving a shift from hydro power generation to thermal power generation, according to energy experts requires more investors in the oil and gas sector that will produce gas to power thermal plants.
The largest power producer, the VRA, has had to rely on the importation of expensive crude oil to power its plants.
Source: Ghana B&FT
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-------------------------
Ghana�s energy production to slow due to Akosombo Dam
By Ghana News -SpyGhana.com
http://www.spyghana.com/ghanas-energy-production-slow-due-akosombo-dam/
The Akosombo Dam is expected to record poor inflow of water in the next two years, which will lead to a shortfall in electricity generated from hydro, an informed analysis of water inflow into the dam has shown.
The minimum operating water level for the Akosombo Dam is pegged at 240 feet. However, the water inflow into the lake has recorded consistent reduction in year-end inflow since 2010. The water level in December 2010 was 275.40 ftt; 271.97 ft in 2011; 268.50 ft in 2012; 257.80 ft in 2013.
For the first quarter of 2014, the water level has continued to dwindle. January recorded an inflow of 256 ft; 254 ft in February; and 252 ft in March.
Historical analysis of the water inflow into the Akosombo Dam indicates that there are 24 years out of 47 years (51%) that average-to-above inflows were recorded. Typically, one year of below average inflow is followed by another year of below average inflow.
The worrying trend has raised concerns about mitigation measures put in place to bridge any potential shortfall in hydro power generation.
This portends an increase in thermal power generation and a cutback on hydro power �reversing the current energy mix of 63 percent hydro and 36 percent thermal power generation going forward.
Given the cost of generating power with crude, consumers are ultimately expected to pay more for power going by the Public Utilities Regulations Commission�s (PURC) automatic tariff adjustment formula if gas supply from both Nigeria and the Jubilee Field is not available in the required quantities.
�We will experience challenges come 2015 and 2016 if we don�t manage the reservoir well. The earlier we get an alternative source of fuel the better. About 41-42 percent of global electricity generation is coal-based. We need to explore alternatives now,� Dr. Kwabena Donkor, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy told the B&FT
The Akosombo Hydro Generating Station, the largest hydro installation in the country, generates 1020 Megawatts of power. Each of the installation�s six turbines generates 170MW of electricity. The Kpong Hydro Generating Station also generates 160 MW from four installed units.
The Station, according to sources, has been over-drafting for the last six years. In 2013, the Station exceeded its planned generation of 7,100 GWh by 780GWh to supplement the thermal power generated by the VRA plants and other independent power producers. The Station is also expected to over-draft about 780GWh this year.
The over-drafting of waters of the Akosombo Lake for power generation has been necessitated by the power challenges brought on by the shortage of gas from fields in Nigeria.
The country�s energy-mix is made up of 1180 Megawatts hydro by the Volta River Authority; Bui Hydro 400MW; thermal (VRA) 922MW; thermal � Independent Power Producers 310MW; and solar 2.5MW.
Rising electricity demand, which is driving a shift from hydro power generation to thermal power generation, according to energy experts requires more investors in the oil and gas sector that will produce gas to power thermal plants.
The largest power producer, the VRA, has had to rely on the importation of expensive crude oil to power its plants.
Source: Ghana B&FT
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Monday, April 21, 2014
EU shuns African hydro power projects
EU shuns hydro power projects
The European authorities have turned away from financing dams, leaving the way open for Asian government donors.
An EU-Africa Business Forum roundtable on sustainable energy that served as curtain-raiser for the EU-Africa summit meeting in Brussels on April 2-3 made it abundantly clear hydro power is no longer a priority of theAfrica EU Energy Partnership.
The projects backed by European overseas development institutions likeProparco, CDC, KfW and the European Investment Bank (EIB) primarily involved solar, wind and geothermic power. The spotlights were on the German firm Mobisol which installed 3,000 solar cell systems in Tanzania and Ghana, and Ormat Technologies which put together finance for Kenya's 110 MW Olkaria 3 geothermic plant.
No mention was made of any major African hydro power project even though the Africa EU Partnership staged a workshop in Addis Ababa in February that underscored the determination of European financial institutions to help increase Africa's generation capacity by 10,000 MW. The continent's capacity in 2010 was 26, 762 MW in 2010 and it has risen by only 2,000 MW in the past two years.
The deliberate choice to sideline hydro power appears to stem from growing opposition to big dams that was voiced in the European Parliament in 2011 when a report by British Euro MP Nirj Deva won wide support, including among Socialists and Greens. The EU now turns its back on the hydropower market in developing countries, leaving it to emerging powers like China and India.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
The twisted tale of Inga 3
(Sorry for x-postings)
The twisted tale of Inga 3
By Michael Igoe, Paul Stephens17 April 2014
An aerial view of the existing semi-functional Inga dam on the Congo River. A new dam, the Grand Inga Dam, is being proposed and is currently the world's largest hydropower scheme. Photo by: International Rivers. Photo by: International Rivers / CC BY-NC-SA
In the lush southwest corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a massive dam project on one of Africa's largest rivers has created a twisted tale of political maneuvering and heated debates on the tradeoffs of economic development that has tripped up foreign aid leaders in Washington as they decide whether to support a project that is hailed as a solution to Africa's "energy poverty."
World Bank President Jim Kim says the project, known as the Inga 3 base chute, the next step in what would become the largest hydropower complex in history, is exactly the type of "bold" initiative a revamped and reenergized World Bank ought to support, and he is vying for U.S. support.
The debate about whether the U.S. government — the world's largest bilateral aid donor — should support the project has mostly been waged behind closed doors. But as Kim, who was nominated for his current job by President Barack Obama, tries to negotiate U.S. support for the controversial project, he has set off fierce debates and met strong resistance from the halls of Congress.
The lack of a clear U.S. policy on the dam and other energy projects raises tough questions about how thoroughly the Obama administration has thought through its Power Africa strategy, which aims to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite the concerns, the World Bank's board of directors approved last month a $73 million loan for a project to provide the initial technical assistance to plan the construction of Inga 3.
That project would eventually cost between $9 billion and $12 billion to build and would be an important step toward construction of the Grand Inga Dam, a massive hydropower project that would cost roughly $80 billion. Its potential 40,000 megawatts of output would dwarf that of China's Three Gorges Dam and double the African continent's energy output.
"We need this power desperately in Africa," Kim said at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this month. "Today, the combined energy usage of the billion people who live in the entire continent of Africa equals what Belgium offers to its 11 million residents. This is a form of energy apartheid that we must tackle if we are serious about helping African countries grow and create opportunities for all Africans."
"No choice" to support Inga?
The idea for a giant dam across the section of the lower Congo River known as Inga Falls — a section of rapids spanning 9 miles — is hardly new. It was first dreamt up in the early 20th century and has captured the imaginations of engineers, government officials and foreign power companies for decades.
More recently, the plan has become the focus of attention for development officials like Kim who see the possibility, with a single project, of making a huge leap toward alleviating Africa's energy poverty, a cause célèbre for development agencies and advocates — including Bono, the U2 frontman and humanitarian — which has managed to attract bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, partially due to an emphasis on including U.S. businesses in African energy solutions.
Kim told reporters that, given the reality of climate change and the energy needs in Africa, the World Bank has "no choice" but to seriously consider supporting a plan for Inga.
Not everyone sees the Inga scheme as such a no-brainer. Many of the hurdles to such a large construction project, and concerns about whether it would actually benefit locals, remain. And if the political wrangling over the project in the United States is any indication, mega-dams like Inga are going to be at the center of the debate about the role international development institutions should play to deliver electricity to poor people around the world.
In late December, Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, tweeted a photo of himself with a smiling crowd of World Bank, U.S. and Congolese officials in front of the Inga 3 site at the end of a "great day" touring the area. Other top USAID officials — including Power Africa Coordinator Andy Herscowitz — followed suit with their own Twitter enthusiasm.
Rajiv Shah tweets about the Inga 3 site.
During the visit, Shah told a Bloomberg reporter USAID would consider contributing to the construction of the dam. The announcement raised eyebrows given USAID's avoidance of large hydropower projects elsewhere on the continent, and the fact that the DRC is not one of the countries included in the Obama administration's legacy-building Power Africa initiative.
But the massive potential of the Grand Inga scheme had obviously captured the administrator's imagination at a time when alleviating energy poverty in Africa has risen to the fore of U.S. development policy.
If the U.S. government plays a role in facilitating the successful construction of the Grand Inga dam complex, it would mean helping to generate enough megawattage in a single project for President Obama's Power Africa initiative to reach its goal.
With official development assistance representing a smaller and smaller piece of total overseas capital flows, Inga 3 — and eventually Grand Inga — is the kind of "transformational project" that opens up opportunities for aid agencies to leverage limited funds to achieve outsized gains on poverty reduction and economic growth. Not engaging on Inga 3 could appear to aid leaders like a lost opportunity to stay relevant in a rapidly changing development landscape.
U.S. officials on the defense
Since the visit, the Power Africa team has grown much quieter about Inga, and about any projects outside of the original six Power Africa countries. That's likely because Shah's comments on the Inga initiative, as vague as they may have been, quickly spurred a backlash from Capitol Hill that surprised even close observers.
That backlash came in the form of a directive, embedded deep in the omnibus spending bill for 2014, that instructed the Treasury to advise the U.S. representatives to the World Bank and other international financial institutions that "it is the policy of the United States to oppose any loan, grant, strategy or policy of such institution to support the construction of any large hydroelectric dam."
These directives, known as mandates, have become a fairly common way for members of Congress to assert their will over multilateral investment banks using the power of the purse. This one came from veteran Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who sees potential U.S. involvement in Inga 3 as a huge mistake.
U.S. foreign assistance agencies, including USAID, rely on Leahy to bankroll their programs. He is one of a few members of Congress who have been vocal in their support of a robust foreign aid budget, and he pulls funding strings as the chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.
But the senator also uses his leverage as a vital foreign aid advocate to speak out against U.S. development initiatives and programs he feels do not make the grade. When USAID's "Cuban Twitter" program came to light two weeks ago, Leahy was one of its highest-profile critics, calling the idea "dumb, dumb, dumb."
Leahy holds similar views about U.S. government support for Inga 3, according to an aide who spoke with Devex about the senator's concerns.
"The Inga dam … is a classic example in a country where everything that can go wrong often does, and particularly because it could be the first of many similar projects on that river which sustains the livelihoods of millions of people," the aide told Devex, citing the potential environmental and social costs of the project.
"If you add all those factors together," the aide suggested, "it is unwise to use public funds for projects of this scale, particularly in countries where corruption is rampant and where often the electricity is either exported or sold to industry and doesn't benefit the people who need it most."
Leahy is particularly concerned, the aide noted, that the power the Inga dam will produce won't be accessible to rural residents who currently live off the energy grid. Much of the power from Inga 3 is expected to be sold to South African power offtakers or directed to DRC's industrial mining interests, which currently face a power shortage.
The project would also flood Bundi Valley in southern DRC, displacing an estimated 8,000 people, according to a U.S. government cable obtained by Wikileaks.
The mandate tucked into the 2014 omnibus spending bill was "intended to signal that the Congress wants assurance that mega-projects like this make sense in terms of the long-term economic, environmental and social costs before public funds are used."
Despite uncertainty, bank officials charge ahead
After postponing a vote for more than a month, the World Bank's board of directors approved funding on March 20, with the U.S. executive director abstaining. In the official position paper on the U.S. vote, released by the Treasury Department, the U.S. executive director's office explained that "the United States believes that given the enormous challenges associated with Inga 3, the governance and environmental risks required further mitigation as part of this TA (technical assistance) proposal."
While the paper did not cite Leahy's mandate as a reason for the abstention, it seemed to have its intended effect.
But the rest of Congress is hardly lined up behind Leahy, and the mandate the senator inserted in the omnibus bill will expire at the end of the fiscal year. Efforts to shore up future U.S. support for Inga 3 seems to be underway already. Last month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Electrify Africa Act after inserting language that counters the Senate mandate.
While the bill doesn't mention any other form of energy specifically, it goes out of its way to say that "it is the policy of the United States ... to encourage private sector and international support for construction of hydroelectric dams in sub-Saharan Africa," albeit only ones that are in the "national security interests of the United States" and built following "international best practices" for environmental and social safeguards — another mixed message from the legislative branch.
Scott Morris, a former treasury official who oversaw U.S. relations with the World Bank and other international financial institutions for the Obama administration, sees the lack of a clear policy on these issues as hugely detrimental to U.S. development interests.
"These are highly complex projects, and that's the very reason you need the multilateral development banks involved," Morris said, adding that backroom maneuvering like Leahy's had become increasingly frustrating.
"There's no reason that the mandate in the omnibus couldn't have been more carefully crafted instead of creating a political straight-jacket for the U.S.," he said. "And where are the hearings on these issues where we have a real airing of both sides?"
Who's going to build it?
Many feel that Inga 3 is going to happen one way or another, and that Grand Inga is too valuable a prize to go ignored indefinitely — particularly at a time when the narrative around development in Africa is shifting from one of foreign aid to one characterized by partnership and economic growth potential.
If the U.S. government and U.S. businesses remain on the sidelines of Inga development, Chinese state-supported companies, whose presence in Africa is already widely felt, could take a leading role in financing and constructing the massive dam complex. In fact, a Chinese consortium led by Sinohydro and China Three Gorges Corp. is said to be bidding for the Inga project. Much of the support for the Power Africa initiative in Congress is fueled by a desire to help U.S. companies compete against Chinese interests in Africa.
Additionally, many supporters of the project like Morris — and even some skeptics — feel the United States could play an important watchdog role through its own involvement in Inga's development. U.S. government agencies, their argumentation goes, are more likely to account for and guard against the massive potential social and economic consequences the Inga dam could entail, the types of consequences that are no stranger to those in the path of Chinese hydropower projects.
Even without official U.S. support, the World Bank's technical assistance project will go forward, but the U.S. government's lack of a clear policy on hydropower projects of this kind raises questions that extend beyond Inga's risks and into the overall strategy undergirding President Obama's Power Africa initiative.
A number of observers have raised the concern that Power Africa's leaders may be more interested in attaching the initiative's name to major power generation deals than they are in providing a realistic, operational plan for linking more African people, particularly those living in rural areas, to some kind of reliable power supply. The Inga dam project, and the USAID chief's enthusiasm for it, could reinforce some of that skepticism.
The debate continues
The battle over data on the project is sure to continue.
At a World Bank spring meeting panel last week, Vijay Iyer, a director of the bank's sustainable energy department who previously worked as the bank's task manager for Inga, reminded civil society representatives that energy poverty is hardly just a rural issue, as power generation in cities has merely kept pace with urban population growth. African cities routinely experience rolling blackouts due to energy shortages, and that inconsistent availability is a particular drain on industrial economic output and investment.
"Hydropower is perhaps the one largest source of clean affordable power than can be developed," Iyer said. "We have to see that sometimes, by not putting all the facts on the table, we do a disservice actually to the proliferation of good, cleaner solutions."
At the same event, Peter Bosshard, the president of International Rivers, an NGO, was particularly vocal in his criticism of Inga's development, referring to an Oxford University study that suggests cost valuations of the power generated by mega dams consistently fail to account for the cost and time overruns those dam projects tend to experience.
According to the Oxford study, 96 percent of mega-dam projects have costs overruns and 54 percent are not completed on time. And the potential for the Inga project to be derailed by corruption is a very legitimate concern given the DRC's weak institutions. The fact that a year ago SNC-Lavalin, a partner in one of three pre-qualified consortia that expressed interest in the project, was barred from winning World Bank contracts for 10 years due to alleged corruption in previous projects, has comforted no one.
"If Inga 3 is completed on cost and on time, it is very competitive. If it has average cost and time overruns … it ends up being very expensive," Bosshard said.
Of course giant dam projects aren't new to the World Bank, which financed dozens of large hydropower projects around the world throughout the second half of the 20th century. Those projects often became rallying points against the bank for environmental and human rights activists. Kim, in fact, got his start in international development providing health services to a community of Haitians living in extreme poverty after being displaced by a large dam that was partially financed by the World Bank.
This project would be different, Kim said in response to a question from Devex, because of the social and environmental safeguards the bank has introduced over the past 20 years and the involvement of "many stakeholders," public and private, working together.
"In other words, this will be a very different project than dam projects that have taken place before — one that I lived and worked near in Haiti for many, many years," he said.
Kim will have to hope that as the debate surrounding Inga 3 heats up, his prior experience on the front lines of dam displacement will be seen by policymakers — and residents of the Bundi Valley — as a mark of credibility, not irony.
Want to learn more about Inga or share your thoughts on it? Please leave a comment or question below or tweet @PaulDStephens and @twIgoe.
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The twisted tale of Inga 3
The twisted tale of Inga 3
By Michael Igoe, Paul Stephens17 April 2014
An aerial view of the existing semi-functional Inga dam on the Congo River. A new dam, the Grand Inga Dam, is being proposed and is currently the world's largest hydropower scheme. Photo by: International Rivers. Photo by: International Rivers / CC BY-NC-SA
In the lush southwest corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a massive dam project on one of Africa's largest rivers has created a twisted tale of political maneuvering and heated debates on the tradeoffs of economic development that has tripped up foreign aid leaders in Washington as they decide whether to support a project that is hailed as a solution to Africa's "energy poverty."
World Bank President Jim Kim says the project, known as the Inga 3 base chute, the next step in what would become the largest hydropower complex in history, is exactly the type of "bold" initiative a revamped and reenergized World Bank ought to support, and he is vying for U.S. support.
The debate about whether the U.S. government — the world's largest bilateral aid donor — should support the project has mostly been waged behind closed doors. But as Kim, who was nominated for his current job by President Barack Obama, tries to negotiate U.S. support for the controversial project, he has set off fierce debates and met strong resistance from the halls of Congress.
The lack of a clear U.S. policy on the dam and other energy projects raises tough questions about how thoroughly the Obama administration has thought through its Power Africa strategy, which aims to double access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa.
Despite the concerns, the World Bank's board of directors approved last month a $73 million loan for a project to provide the initial technical assistance to plan the construction of Inga 3.
That project would eventually cost between $9 billion and $12 billion to build and would be an important step toward construction of the Grand Inga Dam, a massive hydropower project that would cost roughly $80 billion. Its potential 40,000 megawatts of output would dwarf that of China's Three Gorges Dam and double the African continent's energy output.
"We need this power desperately in Africa," Kim said at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this month. "Today, the combined energy usage of the billion people who live in the entire continent of Africa equals what Belgium offers to its 11 million residents. This is a form of energy apartheid that we must tackle if we are serious about helping African countries grow and create opportunities for all Africans."
"No choice" to support Inga?
The idea for a giant dam across the section of the lower Congo River known as Inga Falls — a section of rapids spanning 9 miles — is hardly new. It was first dreamt up in the early 20th century and has captured the imaginations of engineers, government officials and foreign power companies for decades.
More recently, the plan has become the focus of attention for development officials like Kim who see the possibility, with a single project, of making a huge leap toward alleviating Africa's energy poverty, a cause célèbre for development agencies and advocates — including Bono, the U2 frontman and humanitarian — which has managed to attract bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, partially due to an emphasis on including U.S. businesses in African energy solutions.
Kim told reporters that, given the reality of climate change and the energy needs in Africa, the World Bank has "no choice" but to seriously consider supporting a plan for Inga.
Not everyone sees the Inga scheme as such a no-brainer. Many of the hurdles to such a large construction project, and concerns about whether it would actually benefit locals, remain. And if the political wrangling over the project in the United States is any indication, mega-dams like Inga are going to be at the center of the debate about the role international development institutions should play to deliver electricity to poor people around the world.
In late December, Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, tweeted a photo of himself with a smiling crowd of World Bank, U.S. and Congolese officials in front of the Inga 3 site at the end of a "great day" touring the area. Other top USAID officials — including Power Africa Coordinator Andy Herscowitz — followed suit with their own Twitter enthusiasm.
Rajiv Shah tweets about the Inga 3 site.
During the visit, Shah told a Bloomberg reporter USAID would consider contributing to the construction of the dam. The announcement raised eyebrows given USAID's avoidance of large hydropower projects elsewhere on the continent, and the fact that the DRC is not one of the countries included in the Obama administration's legacy-building Power Africa initiative.
But the massive potential of the Grand Inga scheme had obviously captured the administrator's imagination at a time when alleviating energy poverty in Africa has risen to the fore of U.S. development policy.
If the U.S. government plays a role in facilitating the successful construction of the Grand Inga dam complex, it would mean helping to generate enough megawattage in a single project for President Obama's Power Africa initiative to reach its goal.
With official development assistance representing a smaller and smaller piece of total overseas capital flows, Inga 3 — and eventually Grand Inga — is the kind of "transformational project" that opens up opportunities for aid agencies to leverage limited funds to achieve outsized gains on poverty reduction and economic growth. Not engaging on Inga 3 could appear to aid leaders like a lost opportunity to stay relevant in a rapidly changing development landscape.
U.S. officials on the defense
Since the visit, the Power Africa team has grown much quieter about Inga, and about any projects outside of the original six Power Africa countries. That's likely because Shah's comments on the Inga initiative, as vague as they may have been, quickly spurred a backlash from Capitol Hill that surprised even close observers.
That backlash came in the form of a directive, embedded deep in the omnibus spending bill for 2014, that instructed the Treasury to advise the U.S. representatives to the World Bank and other international financial institutions that "it is the policy of the United States to oppose any loan, grant, strategy or policy of such institution to support the construction of any large hydroelectric dam."
These directives, known as mandates, have become a fairly common way for members of Congress to assert their will over multilateral investment banks using the power of the purse. This one came from veteran Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, who sees potential U.S. involvement in Inga 3 as a huge mistake.
U.S. foreign assistance agencies, including USAID, rely on Leahy to bankroll their programs. He is one of a few members of Congress who have been vocal in their support of a robust foreign aid budget, and he pulls funding strings as the chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations.
But the senator also uses his leverage as a vital foreign aid advocate to speak out against U.S. development initiatives and programs he feels do not make the grade. When USAID's "Cuban Twitter" program came to light two weeks ago, Leahy was one of its highest-profile critics, calling the idea "dumb, dumb, dumb."
Leahy holds similar views about U.S. government support for Inga 3, according to an aide who spoke with Devex about the senator's concerns.
"The Inga dam … is a classic example in a country where everything that can go wrong often does, and particularly because it could be the first of many similar projects on that river which sustains the livelihoods of millions of people," the aide told Devex, citing the potential environmental and social costs of the project.
"If you add all those factors together," the aide suggested, "it is unwise to use public funds for projects of this scale, particularly in countries where corruption is rampant and where often the electricity is either exported or sold to industry and doesn't benefit the people who need it most."
Leahy is particularly concerned, the aide noted, that the power the Inga dam will produce won't be accessible to rural residents who currently live off the energy grid. Much of the power from Inga 3 is expected to be sold to South African power offtakers or directed to DRC's industrial mining interests, which currently face a power shortage.
The project would also flood Bundi Valley in southern DRC, displacing an estimated 8,000 people, according to a U.S. government cable obtained by Wikileaks.
The mandate tucked into the 2014 omnibus spending bill was "intended to signal that the Congress wants assurance that mega-projects like this make sense in terms of the long-term economic, environmental and social costs before public funds are used."
Despite uncertainty, bank officials charge ahead
After postponing a vote for more than a month, the World Bank's board of directors approved funding on March 20, with the U.S. executive director abstaining. In the official position paper on the U.S. vote, released by the Treasury Department, the U.S. executive director's office explained that "the United States believes that given the enormous challenges associated with Inga 3, the governance and environmental risks required further mitigation as part of this TA (technical assistance) proposal."
While the paper did not cite Leahy's mandate as a reason for the abstention, it seemed to have its intended effect.
But the rest of Congress is hardly lined up behind Leahy, and the mandate the senator inserted in the omnibus bill will expire at the end of the fiscal year. Efforts to shore up future U.S. support for Inga 3 seems to be underway already. Last month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Electrify Africa Act after inserting language that counters the Senate mandate.
While the bill doesn't mention any other form of energy specifically, it goes out of its way to say that "it is the policy of the United States ... to encourage private sector and international support for construction of hydroelectric dams in sub-Saharan Africa," albeit only ones that are in the "national security interests of the United States" and built following "international best practices" for environmental and social safeguards — another mixed message from the legislative branch.
Scott Morris, a former treasury official who oversaw U.S. relations with the World Bank and other international financial institutions for the Obama administration, sees the lack of a clear policy on these issues as hugely detrimental to U.S. development interests.
"These are highly complex projects, and that's the very reason you need the multilateral development banks involved," Morris said, adding that backroom maneuvering like Leahy's had become increasingly frustrating.
"There's no reason that the mandate in the omnibus couldn't have been more carefully crafted instead of creating a political straight-jacket for the U.S.," he said. "And where are the hearings on these issues where we have a real airing of both sides?"
Who's going to build it?
Many feel that Inga 3 is going to happen one way or another, and that Grand Inga is too valuable a prize to go ignored indefinitely — particularly at a time when the narrative around development in Africa is shifting from one of foreign aid to one characterized by partnership and economic growth potential.
If the U.S. government and U.S. businesses remain on the sidelines of Inga development, Chinese state-supported companies, whose presence in Africa is already widely felt, could take a leading role in financing and constructing the massive dam complex. In fact, a Chinese consortium led by Sinohydro and China Three Gorges Corp. is said to be bidding for the Inga project. Much of the support for the Power Africa initiative in Congress is fueled by a desire to help U.S. companies compete against Chinese interests in Africa.
Additionally, many supporters of the project like Morris — and even some skeptics — feel the United States could play an important watchdog role through its own involvement in Inga's development. U.S. government agencies, their argumentation goes, are more likely to account for and guard against the massive potential social and economic consequences the Inga dam could entail, the types of consequences that are no stranger to those in the path of Chinese hydropower projects.
Even without official U.S. support, the World Bank's technical assistance project will go forward, but the U.S. government's lack of a clear policy on hydropower projects of this kind raises questions that extend beyond Inga's risks and into the overall strategy undergirding President Obama's Power Africa initiative.
A number of observers have raised the concern that Power Africa's leaders may be more interested in attaching the initiative's name to major power generation deals than they are in providing a realistic, operational plan for linking more African people, particularly those living in rural areas, to some kind of reliable power supply. The Inga dam project, and the USAID chief's enthusiasm for it, could reinforce some of that skepticism.
The debate continues
The battle over data on the project is sure to continue.
At a World Bank spring meeting panel last week, Vijay Iyer, a director of the bank's sustainable energy department who previously worked as the bank's task manager for Inga, reminded civil society representatives that energy poverty is hardly just a rural issue, as power generation in cities has merely kept pace with urban population growth. African cities routinely experience rolling blackouts due to energy shortages, and that inconsistent availability is a particular drain on industrial economic output and investment.
"Hydropower is perhaps the one largest source of clean affordable power than can be developed," Iyer said. "We have to see that sometimes, by not putting all the facts on the table, we do a disservice actually to the proliferation of good, cleaner solutions."
At the same event, Peter Bosshard, the president of International Rivers, an NGO, was particularly vocal in his criticism of Inga's development, referring to an Oxford University study that suggests cost valuations of the power generated by mega dams consistently fail to account for the cost and time overruns those dam projects tend to experience.
According to the Oxford study, 96 percent of mega-dam projects have costs overruns and 54 percent are not completed on time. And the potential for the Inga project to be derailed by corruption is a very legitimate concern given the DRC's weak institutions. The fact that a year ago SNC-Lavalin, a partner in one of three pre-qualified consortia that expressed interest in the project, was barred from winning World Bank contracts for 10 years due to alleged corruption in previous projects, has comforted no one.
"If Inga 3 is completed on cost and on time, it is very competitive. If it has average cost and time overruns … it ends up being very expensive," Bosshard said.
Of course giant dam projects aren't new to the World Bank, which financed dozens of large hydropower projects around the world throughout the second half of the 20th century. Those projects often became rallying points against the bank for environmental and human rights activists. Kim, in fact, got his start in international development providing health services to a community of Haitians living in extreme poverty after being displaced by a large dam that was partially financed by the World Bank.
This project would be different, Kim said in response to a question from Devex, because of the social and environmental safeguards the bank has introduced over the past 20 years and the involvement of "many stakeholders," public and private, working together.
"In other words, this will be a very different project than dam projects that have taken place before — one that I lived and worked near in Haiti for many, many years," he said.
Kim will have to hope that as the debate surrounding Inga 3 heats up, his prior experience on the front lines of dam displacement will be seen by policymakers — and residents of the Bundi Valley — as a mark of credibility, not irony.
Want to learn more about Inga or share your thoughts on it? Please leave a comment or question below or tweet @PaulDStephens and @twIgoe.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
World Bank, U.S., China Discussing Congo’s Inga Hydropower Plant
World Bank, U.S., China Discussing Congo's Inga Hydropower Plant
By Michael J. Kavanagh, Bloomberg News, April 02, 2014
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-02/world-bank-u-dot-s-dot-china-discussing-congo-s-inga-hydropower-plant
The World Bank is in "active negotiations" with the U.S. government to
support the Democratic Republic of Congo's $12 billion Inga 3 hydropower
project, bank President Jim Yong Kim said.
The lender, based in Washington, is providing $73 million in technical
assistance to develop the site, which could offer 4,800 megawatts of
power supply to South Africa and Congo by the beginning of the next decade.
"The U.S. is going to be a critically important partner, not only in the
sense of government participation, but there are a lot of great
companies in the United States that actually make the technology that we
need," Kim told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday,
according to a transcript on the World Bank's website.
Story: North Korea Bags $5 Million for Building Two Mugabe Statues
Congo is currently considering three groups of companies from Spain,
China and Korea to begin construction by October 2015. The government
has said it would welcome other companies that wished to join the project.
While the World Bank hasn't yet decided to support Inga 3's
construction, Kim said Africa "desperately" needed the power generated
from Inga, which could eventually produce as much as 40 gigawatts of
energy after expansion.
"It's going to be World Bank, African Development Bank, probably the
government of the United States," working on the site, Kim said. He
added that "the government of China has shown great interest in this
particular project."
"If we could get this group together, I really do think we could make it
work," he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa
at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________
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By Michael J. Kavanagh, Bloomberg News, April 02, 2014
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-02/world-bank-u-dot-s-dot-china-discussing-congo-s-inga-hydropower-plant
The World Bank is in "active negotiations" with the U.S. government to
support the Democratic Republic of Congo's $12 billion Inga 3 hydropower
project, bank President Jim Yong Kim said.
The lender, based in Washington, is providing $73 million in technical
assistance to develop the site, which could offer 4,800 megawatts of
power supply to South Africa and Congo by the beginning of the next decade.
"The U.S. is going to be a critically important partner, not only in the
sense of government participation, but there are a lot of great
companies in the United States that actually make the technology that we
need," Kim told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday,
according to a transcript on the World Bank's website.
Story: North Korea Bags $5 Million for Building Two Mugabe Statues
Congo is currently considering three groups of companies from Spain,
China and Korea to begin construction by October 2015. The government
has said it would welcome other companies that wished to join the project.
While the World Bank hasn't yet decided to support Inga 3's
construction, Kim said Africa "desperately" needed the power generated
from Inga, which could eventually produce as much as 40 gigawatts of
energy after expansion.
"It's going to be World Bank, African Development Bank, probably the
government of the United States," working on the site, Kim said. He
added that "the government of China has shown great interest in this
particular project."
"If we could get this group together, I really do think we could make it
work," he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa
at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: africa@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
World Bank, U.S., China Discussing Congo’s Inga Hydropower Plant
World Bank, U.S., China Discussing Congo's Inga Hydropower Plant
By Michael J. Kavanagh, Bloomberg News, April 02, 2014
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-02/world-bank-u-dot-s-dot-china-discussing-congo-s-inga-hydropower-plant
The World Bank is in "active negotiations" with the U.S. government to
support the Democratic Republic of Congo's $12 billion Inga 3 hydropower
project, bank President Jim Yong Kim said.
The lender, based in Washington, is providing $73 million in technical
assistance to develop the site, which could offer 4,800 megawatts of
power supply to South Africa and Congo by the beginning of the next decade.
"The U.S. is going to be a critically important partner, not only in the
sense of government participation, but there are a lot of great
companies in the United States that actually make the technology that we
need," Kim told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday,
according to a transcript on the World Bank's website.
Story: North Korea Bags $5 Million for Building Two Mugabe Statues
Congo is currently considering three groups of companies from Spain,
China and Korea to begin construction by October 2015. The government
has said it would welcome other companies that wished to join the project.
While the World Bank hasn't yet decided to support Inga 3's
construction, Kim said Africa "desperately" needed the power generated
from Inga, which could eventually produce as much as 40 gigawatts of
energy after expansion.
"It's going to be World Bank, African Development Bank, probably the
government of the United States," working on the site, Kim said. He
added that "the government of China has shown great interest in this
particular project."
"If we could get this group together, I really do think we could make it
work," he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa
at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________
This is International Rivers' mailing list on China's global footprint, and particularly Chinese investment in international dam projects.
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: chinaglobal@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
By Michael J. Kavanagh, Bloomberg News, April 02, 2014
www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-02/world-bank-u-dot-s-dot-china-discussing-congo-s-inga-hydropower-plant
The World Bank is in "active negotiations" with the U.S. government to
support the Democratic Republic of Congo's $12 billion Inga 3 hydropower
project, bank President Jim Yong Kim said.
The lender, based in Washington, is providing $73 million in technical
assistance to develop the site, which could offer 4,800 megawatts of
power supply to South Africa and Congo by the beginning of the next decade.
"The U.S. is going to be a critically important partner, not only in the
sense of government participation, but there are a lot of great
companies in the United States that actually make the technology that we
need," Kim told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday,
according to a transcript on the World Bank's website.
Story: North Korea Bags $5 Million for Building Two Mugabe Statues
Congo is currently considering three groups of companies from Spain,
China and Korea to begin construction by October 2015. The government
has said it would welcome other companies that wished to join the project.
While the World Bank hasn't yet decided to support Inga 3's
construction, Kim said Africa "desperately" needed the power generated
from Inga, which could eventually produce as much as 40 gigawatts of
energy after expansion.
"It's going to be World Bank, African Development Bank, probably the
government of the United States," working on the site, Kim said. He
added that "the government of China has shown great interest in this
particular project."
"If we could get this group together, I really do think we could make it
work," he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa
at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________
This is International Rivers' mailing list on China's global footprint, and particularly Chinese investment in international dam projects.
You received this message as a subscriber on the list: chinaglobal@list.internationalrivers.org
To be removed from the list, please visit:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/2486/unsubscribe.jsp
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