Paper short abstract:

Risks from dam construction are acute the Himalayas, where earthquake and landslide risk are high, ecosystems are fragile and communities are vulnerable. I will review whether ecosystem service valuation within cost-benefit analysis may, or may not, support better benefit-sharing during planning.

Paper long abstract:

Risks from dam construction are acute the Himalayas, where earthquake and landslide risk are high and ecosystems are fragile. However, multiple dams are planned for the region and have already been constructed, mainly to allow for the export of energy from the region (Baruah, 2012; Dhakal & Jenkins, 2013).

To compound this, those most at risk from negative impacts of dam building in the Himalayas are also those most likely to capture the least benefits. In India, dams have displaced an estimated 2% of the population, with 40% of this population being from tribal and ethnic minorities (Johnston, Hiwasaki, Klaver, Castillo, & Strang, 2011, p. 304). While those communities immediately impacted by the dam may be compensated, those downstream reliant on subsistence fisheries and farming in a different state or country are not always considered (Baruah, 2012).

Careful measures are needed to ensure vulnerable groups share in the benefits from the dam, and that adequate compensation is provided. One way in which to do this is to consider which ecosystem-services may be lost either through dam construction or displacement. Another would be to ensure that cost-benefit analysis is not carried out on an aggregate basis to determine outcomes, but rather differentiates impacts on different groups.

I will review existing dam planning processes in the Himalayas and present my findings on how benefit-sharing processes could be improved in the region. I will review past cost-benefit analyses, how ecosystem-services were taken into account and what impact that had on subsequent benefit-sharing processes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper asks whether the dam resurgence involves greater benefit sharing with affected local communities using two case-study dams in Rwanda. Whilst differing from other African dams, these cases demonstrate that when designed on-high by experts, such schemes miss development opportunities

Paper long abstract:

Focusing on the practises of resurgence-era dam building, this paper examines attempts at reform and asks specifically whether these have initiated greater benefit sharing with affected local communities. The paper begins by overviewing benefit-sharing practises in the African dam resurgence. Evidence from across the continent, but particularly in the more illiberal developmentalist states, suggests replication of past dam-building practises that entail negative effects for affected communities and the narrow capture of benefits: Frequently built in the name of national interest, a dam's electricity tends to serve core urban areas and the elites who can afford it. However, cases from Rwanda suggest a different conclusion, demonstrating two instances of dams with explicit local benefit-sharing initiatives. The first case is on the Rwanda-Tanzania border, the Rusumo Falls Dam, financed by the World Bank. The dam in many ways appears to be a best-practise exemplar and includes specific longer-term local-development and livelihood-restoration programmes. The second Nyabarongo dam, financed by the Indian ExIm Bank, involves a health centre and locally-shared electricity. However, closer analysis of both cases reveals the depoliticising assumptions involved in an expert-centric decision-making process that excludes local understandings of developmental needs, misunderstands project impacts and overlooks geographical and social inequalities. Conclusions demonstrate missed opportunities to aid development through benefit sharing and argues that the case studies illustrate persistence and change in the dam resurgence. This paper is based on extensive thesis research, with primary fieldwork carried out between 2014-2017 and qualitative analysis involving elite interviews and participatory methods with affected communities.

(Also representing FutureDAMS)

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores opportunities for internalizing financing streams for local development within hydropower project design and national energy policy in Guinea. It balances mobilizing sufficient finance to meet local development needs with the ability of hydropower developers/consumers to pay.

Paper long abstract:

Budgets are typically provided for in Environmental and Social Management Plans (ESMPs) and Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) to mitigate the short term impacts of hydroelectric projects on the biophysical and human environments. However, the success of these ad hoc actions is often compromised by a lack of sustainable medium and long financing to reestablish local livelihoods. At the global level, sharing of the benefits from hydroelectric generation is becoming part of good practice, advocated for example by the International Hydropower Association (IHA) and the ECOWAS Directive on Large Water Infrastructure.

The paper presents results from field surveys and interviews with stakeholders upstream and downstream of hydro projects in Guinea. Various financing scenarios are analyzed, showing the long-term amounts that can be mobilized and their impact on tariffs and future hydroelectric development. Institutional and legal management mechanisms to deliver this financing to local communities are discussed.

For the approach in Guinea to be politically viable it had to :

1. Provide regular and sufficient annual funding to support local development over a 20-30 year period to be determined for each dam according to need;

2. Be acceptable to the electricity consumer; and

3. Avoid compromising the national investment programme of hydropower development

The paper focuses on how to internalize a viable finance stream within hydropower projects that can meet the long-term requirements of local communities, beyond what is done for them during the resettlement action plan, thereby ensuring that they become direct beneficiaries of the project that has affected them.

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