Medellin, Colombia, March 31 (IDB 50 Coalition) – A coalition of civil society organizations from throughout Latin America urged donor countries of the Inter-American Development Bank to insist on deep reforms before granting any capital increase. The coalition members vowed to step up pressure on their respective governments, demanding a full review of the Bank’s effectiveness in meeting the conditions of the last $41 billion replenishment in 1994.
The Coalition, which comprises 42 organizations from across Latin America, met with bank president Alberto Moreno and other Bank directors during the 50th meeting of the Board of Governors in Medellin, Colombia, as well as organizing a parallel public forum and demonstration last Thursday, where some 2000 protested the Bank�s policies.
“We are dismayed at the IDB’s continued lack of accountability and transparency under Moreno’s leadership,” said Atossa Soltani of the US based Amazon Watch. “The bank is unwilling to listen to critical voices and left little room in Medellin for a real debate about its performance.”
The coalition published a magazine “IDB Watch” where it featured articles about the Bank’s failure to deliver on its mandate of reducing inequality and promoting sustainable development. The group presented information on how the Bank has set back poverty levels 20 years in some areas of Latin America and the Caribbean.
“IDB projects across the region are a disaster. In many cases their ‘cure’ has been far worse than the disease,” commented Juan Carballo from the Argentinean NGO, Center for Human Rights and the Environment (CEDHA).
Critics point to a number of IDB financed ‘development’ projects. Brazil’s Cana Brava hydroelectric project forcibly removed 800 families from their homes. Six years later, they still have not been compensated for their loss of land.
In Paraguay, the IDB financed the Yacyreta hydroelectric project, against the advice of an array of NGOs concerned that no environmental impact studies were carried out. The resulting social and environmental damage to the area was devastating for local residents.
Cesar Gamboa from the Peruvian NGO Rights, Environment and Natural Resources (DAR), added: “In Peru, the massive IDB funded Camisea natural gas project has harmed indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Amazonian rainforest. By driving pipelines deep into their ancestral territories, the project brought contact with workers carrying diseases that are deadly to these populations.”
The Coalition says that this small sampling of the profoundly negative effect of IDB lending practices on communities is why structural reform of the institution is so essential – especially if it is to be granted the huge $180 billion capital increase it is seeking.
“While the Bank publicly laments the inevitably harmful effects of the unfolding financial crisis on Latin America’s poor,” said Vince McElhinny of the Washington, DC based Bank Information Center, “the management ignores any responsibility for it and offers little vision for how new funding could be more effectively used to confront it.”
Compared to prior annual meetings, Bank officials made an obviously concerted effort to restrict the ability of civil society organizations to get their message heard. Officials confiscated copies of IDB Watch, detained members of the civil society delegation, attempted to block the media’s access to Civil Society’s office, which was the only space where NGOs were allowed to hold press events, and prevented access to official press conferences and areas. This restrictive behavior on the part of the Bank considerably set back its relationship with civil society.
