Elegantes Telefax - JAV der TUB - TU Berlin

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result of a combination of causes: The inclusion of environmental evaluation procedures
in operational policies which made the planning of these projects more timeconsuming
and cost-intensive for the Bank and the staff, potentially revealing the lack
of economic feasibility of proposals is certainly a contributing factor. Another more
direct effect can be attributed to the international campaigning against the dams in
general which resulted in the Inspection Panel and in the cancellation of two dams
which were relatively well advanced in their internal process: Sardar Sarovar and
Arun II. The inability of staff to answer the questions of the Inspection Panel added to
the reduced incentive of operational staff to support dams.
The reduction of lending for hydropower and for other hydraulic infrastructure has
implication for the level for IBRD lending, which constitutes the core of lending of the
World Bank. These activities form the basis of the relative autonomy of the World
Bank as an agent. As Kapur pointed out, the expansion of IDA-based loans reduces
the autonomy of an MDB and it needs to maintain the loan-based share of its activities
(Kapur 2002). The major customers for these loans are middle-income countries
which have access to other sources of financing nationally and internationally. This
diagnosis is repeated again in the WRSS, its accompanying documents and in the
Infrastructure Action Plan (IAP). As the process of developing the WRSS and IAP
have been designed by the higher management in cooperation with the Board of ED
to focus on these borrowers and to give international NGOs a reduced role, compared
to the WCD process, it seems clear that the Bank changed it course to placate
the major borrowers and it accepted the potential increase in conflicts with the international
NGOs.
The Bank’s management seems to be aware that resumption for hydraulic lending
risks a resumption of NGO-campaigning against new dam projects and an effective
use of the leveraging in the US Congress and in the US Treasury. The proposed
“new business model” of elevating the responsibility these projects to “corporate” projects
is designed to deal explicitly with the complexity of these projects and their applicable
criteria. The NGOs are not convinced that their concerns will be adequately
addressed (Bosshard et al 2003).
Another interesting observation concerns the process leading to the water policy
document. The 1993 Water Resource Management Policy Paper was based on a
comparatively low key internal process which reflected probably changes in the preferences
among the major principals and which served as a basis for integrating policy
views within the Bank’s management and staff. It seems as if the NGOs were
largely excluded from it despite the smaller workshops; although they managed to
reach selective Executive Directors, but a real impact is not discernable. With these
characteristics, the influence of the NGOs was considerably lower compared to all