Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-216"
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"en.20040331.7.3-216"2
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"Mr President, following the UN report on the situation in the Congo and the US Government report on global warming, a report commissioned by the World Bank itself has now confirmed the fears that the Greens have been expressing for some time. What has happened is that the World Bank set up a study on the extraction industries, which, after two years of consultation with public bodies, governments and business, has produced a report which is damning with regard to its development policy.
The report highlights the deficiencies and counter-productive effects of the World Bank’s policy in countries rich in natural resources. In the words of the study itself, the World Bank has attracted too many investors, without taking any real interest in helping the countries to develop their abilities to convert their natural riches into means of combating poverty.
Similarly, the Commission has emphasised the lack of action on the part of the World Bank in terms of environmental and social supervision. In this respect, the study states that, if the full force of the market is unleashed without any robust frameworks, the resultant damage may be extremely serious. There are numerous examples of loathsome financing. The Yanacocha gold mine in Peru is the prototype toxic tragedy. Managed by an American company, the mine has flattened five mountains, displaced thousands of people and polluted with cyanide the water throughout the entire region.
The World Bank has also given its support to the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, which we were alone in combating, and which has had disastrous social and environmental consequences: massive migration, an increase in the unreliability of food supplies and an increase in prostitution, with a consequent increased prevalence of AIDS. Can we really speak of a development policy? The exploitation of oil, gas or mines is not necessarily the same thing as poverty reduction.
In countries still subject to a high degree of corruption, where the legal frameworks are still unreliable and democracy is uncertain, the World Bank unfortunately is doing nothing to encourage sustainable development. On the contrary, in numerous countries, the extraction industries have been associated with violations of human rights and civil conflicts, as has been seen in Burma. Even worse, more than 80% of the World Bank’s oil financing is actually going to the North and not to poor countries. The consequence of this blind and generous investment: countries with disappointing results outnumber the countries making substantial progress.
The Greens, in line with the study’s recommendations, are advocating a moratorium on the financing of oil projects until 2008, the cessation of financing for coalmines in order to combat greenhouse gases, the encouragement of clean and renewable energy along with energy efficiency. The European Union has a major role to play here in demanding, through the Member States, that the World Bank should take account of the study’s recommendations. The World Bank has been on the wrong track for too long and it is time for it to change course so that development policy can at last benefit those most in need."@en1
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