WASHINGTON: Policies suggested for the World Bank’s lending programme for water could aggravate pollution, poverty and displacement of local people as well as cost more money, says a critique by international advocacy groups.

The proposals betray the mission of the Bank’s water resources sector strategy (WRSS) — to help lessen world poverty and introduce clean water to millions of people — says the critique authored by the US based advocacy group, International Rivers Networks (IRN).

They “comprehensively fail at these tasks,” says the IRN. The policies, included in a Bank review of the programme, “do not translate earlier principles into suggested actions,” it adds.

The Bank, a major player in foreign-funded water projects, says that the new policies would be adopted in mid 2003 to replace current guidelines, in operation since 1993.

The draft strategy calls for “public-private partnerships,” with funds from private investors managed within a public policy framework.

Big hydraulic projects, like dams and water desalination plants, would be given priority because “easy and cheap” options, such as groundwater extraction, have mostly been exploited, says the review.

The Bank argues that major water projects spur regional development, both directly and indirectly benefiting the poor living near such projects, through permanent jobs and higher incomes, for example.

Of an estimated $60 billion invested in water projects in developing countries each year, 90 per cent comes from domestic sources. The World Bank accounts for one-half of the foreign investments or $3 billion annually, it says. Its projects include the controversial Bujagali dam in Uganda, the rural water supply and sanitation operations in Tanzania, and the Bukhara and Samarkand water supply projects in Uzbekistan.

According to the IRN analysis, endorsed by 19 international groups from countries including Sweden, Thailand and Senegal, the new directives fail to improve on current practices.

“The 1993 (policy) had problems but it also had a lot more language about the need for participation, the importance of dealing with problems in rural areas, and it recognizes that the main way to get water to rural areas is small scale, decentralized, community based projects,” says McCully of the IRN.

The negative effects of large projects include “polluted and degraded rivers and watersheds” and “large-scale displacement and impoverishment” of riverside people, the IRN says.

The World Bank shrugs off the criticism as outdated.

“The views of the International Rivers Network are at one end of the spectrum of views held on issues of water management and development,” says John Briscoe, the Bank’s senior water advisor.

“The critique is consistent with the IRN’s long-held and much- publicized views opposing all large water infrastructure, even for countries which have very little of such infrastructure,” he added.

Briscoe says that the Washington-based development bank does not favour one option for supplying water but often reviews all possibilities before loaning money to its clients.

But the IRN says that the Bank should focus more on low-cost, community-led projects, such as rainwater harvesting and low and no-water sanitation technologies.

The Bank says those alternatives proposals are too restrictive.

The Bank estimates that some 3.4 million people die annually for lack of clean water or because of disease-carrying organisms, such as mosquitoes, that breed in contaminated water.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.