Elegantes Telefax - JAV der TUB - TU Berlin

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cation and explanation of the Bank with the recommendations of the World Commission
of Dams (WCD 2001). Here agreement with the core values and the seven strategic
priorities is clarified, but also the differences between three of the 26 guidelines
emphasized. The first important is the guidance on “prior informed consent” of affected
and indigenous people which would amount in the view of the authors in a virtual
veto right. The second concerns the continued “proactive engagement” of the
World Bank in countries that are not “not already negotiating with their neighbors on
international waters” (World Bank 2004, 38) instead of the recommended disengagement.
The third is the WCD’s suggested “multi-stage, negotiated approach to
project preparation” which is considered impractical and the equivalent to the preclusion
of dam construction (World Bank 2004, 38).
The World Bank’s role is described as having comparative advantages in its combination
of knowledge, financial resources and engagements in all water sub-sectors
and scale and its ability to integrate them. For middle income countries, the Bank’s
financing is less preferred, compared to all other sources because of the complexity
of the procedures of the Bank, the resulting high transaction costs and the risk aversion
of the Bank.
The identified strategic options deal with the improved adoption of the IWRM approach,
the role of the Bank in attracting additional sources of financing for water resource
infrastructure and the decision-making about re-entering hydraulic infrastructure
(the business model dealing with high risk). The engagement in water resources
management is seen as an objective with a broad consensus; the major problem is
the identification of opportunity, the sequencing of steps in widely varying country
circumstances. Here the major answer is the improvement of country analytic work,
by including the political economy of reform and the integration of the Country Water
Resource Assistance Strategy in the overall country strategy. The financing section
analyses the development of private investment in the water infrastructure, particularly
the shortcomings for small countries and the resulting collaborative publicprivate
partnership approach in which the Bank can play a major knowledge-based
role. The final discussion of the more effective business model deals generally with
the approach to risky decisions and the implication of risk aversion on the Bank’s
side for low and middle income borrowing countries, i.e. the interest of these countries
in having a less risk averse approach of the Bank to complex water infrastructure.
Then, the implications for the management of these projects are debated with a
proposal of treating them as corporate projects with responsibility on a higher management
level, i.e. country directors and regional vice presidents, being able to
command the Bank’s internal resources to improve the implementation of environrisk
hydraulic infrastructure.