The Bangkok Post reports on an address given by James Bond (Chief Operating Officer of the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency) to the Mekong River Commission.
Here is an extract from Bond’s speech:
The third consideration is properly mitigating the impact on the environment and the people affected. While stakeholder participation and engagement is important throughout all the processes that I have mentioned, it is especially important when social and environmental impact is being managed. Communities need to have a say in this process, as well as civil society organisations and partners. Best practice programmes need to be implemented and this is when it is useful to tap the global and local knowledge that is available.
For example, Laos can draw on the lessons that have and are emerging from the Nam Theun 2 project. The preparation of NT2, with the numerous studies conducted and the at-length consultation processes, paved the way for more participatory, transparent and improved hydropower developments in Laos. These lessons can be evaluated and replicated in future projects so the best social and environmental programmes are put in place in order to effectively manage impact.
Were any New Mandala readers at the meeting? Exactly what were the Nam Theun 2 lessons that Bond was referring to? From my point of view the key lesson is this: produce a mountain of social assessment paperwork and hope that no one will notice just how unsustainable the package really is.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Bounmy Kambung // Sep 27, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Bond’s prestige and the magic of development
One does not have to believe in conspiracy theories and vested interests to realise that there is an entire multi-billion dollar industry operating in Laos and elsewhere that relies primarily on the internal logic of a special language it has created in its report documentation and a special procedural performance it has created to carry out its projects that serve to justify its existence.
It is a common observation that the things people say very rarely match with the things that people do. Despite this, people want to believe that there is a connection. In Christopher Priest’s, The Prestige, a successful magic trick has three parts – the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. The pledge is the set up. The turn is the performance of the trick. The prestige is the effect of the trick. There are so many ways to go about these stages, so many methods used to set up and perform the magic trick and these can be squabbled over, changed and mastered. One thing, however is tantamount: the trick, while unbelievable on the face of it, must be believed, even if only for a second. People must believe that one man travelled twenty metres in two seconds (in one door and out another) or that a bird and a cage actually vanished with the bird reappearing behind the magician’s back. And this is the real magic, the real prestige, the real ‘effect’ of the trick – it makes people ‘want’ to believe the impossible. They know it cannot be ‘real’ and, in fact, they also know that they do not want to know the reality of the trick (of the bird being crushed in the cage, or the use of a double) because it would destroy their interest.
A good deal of international development is rather similar. Those involved know deep down inside that what is being promised is impossible, but continue to to squabble over, search for and master the right formula, the right special language, the right performance. If it is attained, then enough people are willing to believe that the impossible has actually happened and enough people are prepared to ignore the reality of suffering and charade that lies behind the prestige. Magic is a science.
Patrons and pushers of development know full well that any sustained empirical analysis of the impact of many of the industry’s activities would show that the language and performances do not match with the material outcomes of these activities. Yet quite a few of them are genuine in their belief that their activities are having a positive impact, even if not the intended one. The history of hydropower projects and the lessons they could provide, and the actually existing current circumstances of the people trying to live alongside Nam Theun Two quite simply do not matter. This is not to argue that there is nothing outside the text or the performance. For one thing, there is a shite load of money to be made outside of the text and the performance and many people stand to lose this money if the prestige fails. But people also stand to lose the hope that the projects that this prestige supports are widely beneficial. Enough people in Laos want to sustain this hope, and are willing to turn a blind eye toward those who have been disenfranchised by the project.
Bond’s speach reads like a fairly superficial thing in itself, with some warm fuzzy bits, which is its intent. The bit about consultation sounds like it was taken out of the introduction to an impact assessment manual (perhaps one written by the World Bank).
2 jonfernquest // Sep 27, 2008 at 10:37 pm
These projects seem set up to be “told you so” sort of projects from the start, reminiscent of the Hayek debate over state-planned economy and market guided economies.
How can you make the assumption that some complex bureaucratic process is going to replace individual initiative with a plan to meet all contingencies. Why didn’t they give them a lump sum settlement and set them on their way?
3 Andrew Walker // Sep 29, 2008 at 5:39 pm
For a very non-James Bond view of Mekong river development see the recent announcement (and attached reports) on oneworld.net .
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