WRI Stories Feed: Equity, Poverty, and the Environment

Threats to Village Land in Tanzania: Implications for REDD+ Benefit- Sharing Arrangements

Peter Veit — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:28:02 -0500

This piece originally appeared in Lessons About Land Tenure, Forest Governance and REDD+: Case Studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America.¹ The full text of the article is available here.

Abstract

REDD+ presents an important opportunity for Tanzania to leverage its forest resources to bring in new capital flows, promote forest management and provide benefits to communities. With a legal framework designed to promote decentralization and more than a decade of experience with Participatory Forest Management, the country appears ready to capitalize on REDD+.

On closer examination, however, villagers face multiple obstacles in securing rights over land and realizing forest benefits. This paper examines five challenges—classification of General Land; recognition of Village Land; recognition of village government; transfer of Village Land to General or Reserved Land; and Participatory Forest Management procedures. Legal ambiguities and contradictions coupled with inconsistent implementation and governance structures pose unique threats to the success of REDD+ in Tanzania. With REDD+ infrastructure yet to be developed, however, opportunities exist for these challenges to be addressed. The current legal and institutional framework needs clarification and strengthening to make REDD+ a success for all Tanzanians.

Read the full article

Naughton-Treves, L. and C. Day. eds. 2012. Lessons about Land Tenure, Forest Governance and REDD+. Case Studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Madison, Wisconsin: UW-Madison Land Tenure Center. ↩

Government Report on Deepwater Horizon Spill Fails to Recognize Its Own Responsibility

Alisa Zomer — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:15:33 -0400

An official report released by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE, formerly MMS) and the Coast Guard puts BP, Transocean, and other contractors at…

SEC Regulations Could Bring Oil Revenue Transparency to Uganda

Alisa Zomer — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:07:24 -0400

Now twice delayed during the public comment and rule-drafting periods, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is due to release regulations for Section 1504 of the Wall Street Reform Act in late August. Recent developments in Uganda’s…

Agricultural Land Grabs Threaten Local Property Rights and Sustainable Development

Mercedes Stickler — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:09:27 -0400

With large-scale agricultural investments on the rise, the rights of local people must be protected.

Large-scale land acquisitions for agricultural use by both local and foreign commercial entities – often dubbed “land grabs” - are on the rise worldwide. Often touted as a form of economic development, these investments could have profound negative effects on the environment and rural livelihoods if transactions go through without the meaningful participation of affected peoples and due consideration for the many benefits they derive from nature.

Land provides the very platform on which sustainable lives and livelihoods are built. As a result, the land on which people build their homes and organize their communities is directly linked to their quality of life. Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and a majority of rural livelihoods depend primarily on natural resources to provide food, fresh water, and a healthy environment, among other benefits. Reliable access to land and the ability to make decisions about land use is therefore critical to rural economies.

The Importance of Recognizing Local Land Rights

In many developing countries, however, local peoples’ rights to land are not recognized or enforced by governments. Often times, governments make decisions about how land and natural resources will be used without consulting the people who depend on those resources for their livelihoods. People who rely on customary or traditional rights are particularly vulnerable to losing their land because there is little or no official documentation of their rights to protect them from their land being taken by someone else. This is a serious problem in Africa, where formal tenure covers only some 2 – 10% of all land.

The Risks and Opportunities of Large-Scale Agriculture Investments

Rising global demand for food and biofuel crops has driven a recent wave of large-scale agricultural investments in the Global South. Following the food price spike in 2007-08, media reports suggest that up to 56 million hectares of land were targeted for agriculture and forestry investments in less than one year, compared with an annual average cropland expansion of 1.9 million ha between 1990 and 2007.

Case studies have found that land transfers of hundreds and even thousands of hectares have been made without due consideration of existing rights or potential impacts on ecosystem services and the livelihoods they support. As a result, these investments may undermine sustainable development in countries already struggling to escape poverty.

In Ethiopia, for example, official government data in five of its nine regions indicate that a total area of at least 1.2 million ha – roughly 8.6% of the country’s cultivated area – were transferred to domestic and foreign commercial entities between 2005 and 2010. Although production data are scarce, media reports indicate that land acquired by Saudi Arabian companies in Ethiopia will be used to produce vegetables, flowers, and rice for export to nations in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Ethiopia is due to receive food aid for 5.7 million people in 2011 from the United Nations World Food Programme.

The size of individual deals can be staggering – in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a Chinese company has reportedly acquired rights from the central government to some 3 million ha of forest land across three provinces where indigenous people and other communities still rely on forests for their livelihood and culture. This transaction represents roughly two-thirds of the entire area in DRC that is potentially suitable for growing oil palm but not yet cultivated.

The scale of these transactions alone makes it even more imperative that the customary rights of local people be recognized and the impacts on existing land uses, especially forests, be considered. Large-scale land acquisitions that ignore customary rights not only risk undermining local livelihoods; illegitimate deals can slow investment implementation, damage company reputation, and even undermine regional stability – as demonstrated by the role that a high profile 1.3 million ha deal in Madagascar played in that country’s 2009 coup.

Governments often justify these transfers by citing their potential contribution to economic growth – however, any gains in national accounts (which to date appear few) risk being greatly outweighed by negative impacts on local livelihoods. Increased investment in agriculture can be used to promote sustainable development through the introduction of new technology and improved management of natural resources using an integrated planning approach. To achieve broad-based economic growth and increased standards of living, however, major agricultural investments must respect customary and traditional rights and mitigate or compensate negative impacts on the ecosystem services that support local livelihoods.

As food production will likely need to double in the next forty years to feed an additional two billion people by 2050, demand for agricultural land is likely to remain high. There is therefore an urgent need for governments, civil society, and the private sector to work together to improve the governance of agricultural investments in ways that are environmentally sustainable and accountable to local people.

WRI at the World Bank Land Conference

WRI is excited to be participating in this year’s Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, April 18-20, 2011, in Washington, DC. Below are several events that feature WRI staff and research:

April 19th 4:00-6:00 PM (panel): Monitoring Land Acquisitions from Different Angles: Is There Scope for Collaboration? - Manish Bapna, WRI Executive Vice President and Managing Director, will chair a panel addressing monitoring land acquisitions with regard to IFC performance standards, lessons learned on participatory monitoring of large land deals, and civil society responses to large-scale land acquisitions.
April 20, 8:00-9:30 AM (panel): Land Tenure in the Context of REDD+ and Climate Change - Fred Stolle, WRI Senior Associate, will present on “Shifting cropland expansion to degraded areas: Experience from Indonesia’s POTICO project.” This panel will also address country-level perspectives on making REDD operational, tenure issues at REDD project sites, and the large-scale acquisition of forest rights.
April 18-20th (exhibit): Focus on Africa: An Interactive Educational Tool on Land Tenure and Property Rights. The Focus on Africa website, a joint initiative of WRI and Landesa, with support by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to inform policymakers and development practitioners on critical land tenure issues. The tool provides land tenure experiences and lessons from six sub-Saharan African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. Please visit the site - http://www.wri.org/property-rights-africa/.

For more information about WRI’s participation, please contact Emily Norford at enorford@wri.org or +1 (202) 729-7754.

Q&A: Avoiding the Resource Curse in Uganda

Peter Veit — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:48:36 -0400

The following Q&A and photo essay originally appeared on allAfrica.com, and are reposted with permission.

Uganda stands to be the latest African country to benefit from newly discovered resources of oil. If used successfully, the nation’s petroleum reserves could spur development and improve the lives of millions of Ugandans. But if used improperly – with lack of transparency and insufficient regard for the environment – Uganda could become stricken by the “resource curse,” or a negative overall impact despite great potential to improve a nation’s wellbeing.

WRI is working with Ugandan non-governmental organizations to help assure that Uganda’s petroleum industry is transparent, benefits all Ugandans and is environmentally careful. Peter Veit, a senior fellow at WRI, and associate Florence Landsberg, discussed the impact of the discovery of oil in Uganda with allAfrica’s Cindy Shiner.

Lake Albert

Kyohero fishing village on the shores of Lake Albert, Uganda. The discovery of oil around the Lake Albert region has raised hopes of boosting development in the nation. Photo: Greenwatch

Development Challenges

Women coming from the market at Runga fish landing site in the Lake Albert region. Although development has improved with the construction of new roads, population growth and greater trade have depleted fish stocks that local communities rely on for their livelihoods. There are concerns that local development will not be sustainable. Photo: Robert Byaruhanga

Kisoro Market

Biweekly Market in Kisoro, south of Lake Albert on the border with Rwanda. This is within the Albertine Rift, where oil is being explored in Uganda. Photo Richard Duncombe

Community Engagement

Local non-governmental organizations have been active in undertaking community engagement for villages affected by oil production on Lake Albert. Photo: Robert Byaruhanga

Awareness of Rights

They are being made aware of their rights and how the discovery of oil might affect their communities. The goal is to avoid the ‘resource curse’ that has plagued some nations that have vast wealth underfoot, but have failed to develop. Photo: Robert Byaruhanga

Community Meeting at Bombo Parish

Here, villagers put on a drama show on the impact of oil exploration. This was held at Bombo parish, Kigorobya subcounty, Hoima District in the Lake Albert region. Photo: Robert Byaruhanga

Managing the Flow of Oil

Open drill waste management pit managed by Tullow Oil in Uganda’s Hoima District. With the assistance of the World Resources Institute (WRI), Ugandan NGOs are working to help ensure that Uganda’s petroleum industry is transparent, benefits all Ugandans and is environmentally careful. Photo: Greenwatch

National Parks

Government officials and others on tour of Kaiso Tonya Oil Exploration sites on Lake Albert. There are fissures within the Ugandan government over how to deal with oil exploration and extraction in the country’s national parks. Photo: Robert Byaruhanga

Total, S.A. Petrol Station, Kampala

Total owns two major oil concessions in the Lake Albert region of Uganda. Three promised petroleum bills are being presented to parliament this year about management of Uganda’s oil revenues. WRI says they should give a good indication about how transparent the government will be regarding Uganda’s oil industry. Photo: Alisa Zomer, WRI

A Need for Transparency

Mini buses crowd the streets of Kampala, Uganda. The actors linked to Uganda’s oil agree that the discovery of petroleum is a good thing for the country, as long as there is transparency, respect for the environment and sustainable development. Photo: Richard Duncombe

Tell us about WRI’s work in Uganda.

Veit: We’ve been working in Uganda for over 20 years on a range of issues that place us nicely to deal with some of the oil issues. We have been looking at alternative revenue-sharing formulas for oil revenue management and reinvestment. We’ve been looking at issues of disclosure and transparency, specifically on the production-sharing agreements, but also more broadly on oil revenue information.

Florence [Landsberg] has been working on the environmental aspect of the potential oil effects, both to protected areas and, perhaps most importantly, on local populations around Lake Albert. More recently we’ve been working on land-grabbing issues in the oil districts. Land values have increased, the number of land transactions has increased and the number of non-Bonyoro people that have acquired land in the oil districts has increased significantly.

What are the potential environmental impacts? The Albertine Rift has great value for its biodiversity.

Landsberg: There are direct impacts; they are going to convert wild areas to settlement and things like that. But I would like to speak about the indirect impacts.

For example, the Albertine Rift in Uganda used to be quite remote. You will have more migrations of more people into the area, and better roads. The rate at which natural resources are used is going to increase - which could be an opportunity for development, except that it is not likely to be sustainable. Many local populations around the lake are fisher folks. They already have a hard time, because there are less fish and they are smaller. And now that there are more people around the lake and more access to markets, there has been more overfishing, so the situation is worsening.

You said that development would not be sustainable – why?

Landsberg: The fish stock is already at risk, because there is more catching of fish that are not mature. The upgrade of the roads has allowed for more fish to be exported. The restocking of the fish is not going to happen if there is no intervention.

Veit: To add to that, many scientists will tell you that the Albertine Rift is the most biologically diverse area in all of Africa. There are national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, forest reserves, and there already is some impact on these protected areas. For example, there is drilling in Murchison Falls National Park, even though many public interest environmental lawyers in Uganda will tell you that the law does not allow that. Kenneth Kakuru of Greenwatch has filed a pleading in the High Court over extractive resource industries in national parks.

There was already discussion of de-gazetting one of the parks to make way for an oil refinery. There is discussion of a pipeline that would take the oil to Mombassa that would have effects on biodiversity. And there is also discussion about oil workers poaching inside protected areas.

How receptive has the government of Uganda been to these issues being brought to their attention?

Veit: There’s what appears to be an interesting split between the president, his cabinet and the oil department, versus the forestry department and the Uganda Wildlife Authority. On one hand, the Wildlife Authority has threatened to kick Tullow Oil workers out of some parks. (More here.) On the other hand, there seems to be no stopping extractive industries from operating in fully protected national parks such as Murchison.

Ken Kakuru tells me that the law allows for extractive industries in reserves and sanctuaries, but not in national parks. Even if Ken’s case succeeds and the judge rules that drilling is illegal, I would not be surprised if the judge does not order the government to stop all drilling in national parks. Even if he does, I suspect the government would either not comply or simply change the law.

How much power do wildlife authorities have to follow through on threats to expel oil workers?

Veit: Not sure. But even if they have the legal authority to do so, it is unclear whether they would actually do so. My sense is that they are using the media to raise the profile and push Tullow to be more careful and watchful. Tullow doesn’t want this type of publicity.

The bottom line is: drilling is taking place in Murchison Falls and in some of the forest reserves and sanctuaries as well. The National Environment Management Authority (Nema), which approves the environmental impact assessments (EIAs), is under some political pressure in reviewing these EIAs. As far as we know, most, or all of the EIAs have been approved - an indicator that suggests the oil sector will continue to be developed. I don’t know of any oil EIAs that were rejected by Nema, although they have called for changes in the associated mitigation plans.

Landsberg: There was one project, the early production scheme, that was inside a gazetted area, that at the very last moment actually stopped. They located somewhere else. So it does happen.

Veit: An oil refinery there, which was targeted to be placed within a protected area, was subsequently scrapped. But the information we have suggest that it had less to do with the Uganda Wildlife Authority and more to do with the European funder, who was not happy.

To what degree is there enough transparency and fairness in governance to assure that the wildlife and environment authorities have genuine power?

Veit: Probably not enough. I doubt [President Yoweri] Museveni would allow drilling to stop. Eventually he would step in and broker some agreement.

We’re not privy to those discussions. The EIAs that have been approved usually come back with some conditions, which need to be met by the oil companies before they can proceed. But the bottom line is that oil development will progress in that area. There’s just too much oil, and it means too much for Uganda as a whole.

Landsberg: Under certain conditions that can be good. Establishing these conditions is the role of environmental impact assessments at project level and the strategic environmental impact assessments at regional level. That’s where there could be some improvement. The strategic environmental impact assessment hasn’t taken place yet.

The strategic environmental assessment aims at comparing different development alternatives at a regional level. It means that you don’t only look at oil development. You weigh a scenario with oil development versus a scenario with some oil, some renewable energy, some tourism development, for example. It could translate into a zoning where no oil development would be allowed in order to preserve the area’s tourist potential. A strategic environment assessment will provide the regional context in which the impacts of a specific project will happen, which will be addressed in the project EIA.

What effect do you think this year’s elections might have in terms of Uganda’s oil, how it is used and the transparency process?

Veit: If Museveni wins then probably not much. If [Kizza] Besigye wins, perhaps. The parliamentary elections are more interesting in this regard. If the opposition picks up a number of seats then they may be powerful enough to change matters. There is a caucus of MPs on oil, which can be influential.

You had mentioned problems of land grabbing. Are there proper land-use laws in place in Uganda?

Veit: Uganda’s land law recognizes undocumented customary tenure arrangement, but in practice, it can be difficult for rural people to protect their customary holdings. Much of the ‘land grabbing’ is legal. The law provides opportunities for well-connected and well-heeled individuals to acquire land through the legal processes. So a lot of that land is being taken and held in speculation for when the likely development that comes with the oil sector takes place.

I have been told that when rural people see oil workers coming on their land, they quickly sell it out of fear that the government will just expropriate it and they won’t get anything. There are more land transactions taking place in western Uganda than in any other part of the country. Many of the transactions are resulting in new owners who are not Bunyoro or Acholi – the traditional groups in western Uganda.

What we’re trying to do is create more transparency around some of these transactions. A lot of them are willing seller-willing buyer types of arrangements. But a lot of the land in that area is held under customary land arrangements, is undocumented and the transactions are being done in ways that are not clear until it’s been finalized. That’s one of the problems – the fact that a lot of it is undocumented, unregistered, untitled land. Nobody knows how much land is actually titled and registered in Uganda, but it’s actually a very, very small percentage.

Is this creating any tension locally?

Veit: Most of that area is claimed by the Bunyoro Kingdom and most of the people acquiring land are non-Bunyoro people. That’s creating problems, because a lot of people make their living off the land. When they sell their land, it creates problems for their livelihoods and well-being.

Which major oil companies are operating in Uganda?

The three companies that hold oil real estate in Uganda are Tullow, Tower and Dominion, all UK exploration companies. Tullow has made the major find in Lake Albert. They are hoping to transfer themselves into an oil production company as well. But in order to speed up production, they want to sell a third of their shares to Total France and another third to a Chinese oil company, CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company). That sale has not yet been approved by the government of Uganda. It’s partly held up by some capital gains tax the government claims that Tullow owes them.

Do you think there will be any difference in terms of impact if a Chinese company comes in?

Veit: We’ve been grappling with that question ourselves. WRI has an office in China that we recently opened, and we have an effort ongoing to do two things. One is to put in place better social and environmental safeguards with Chinese banks that are investing in the Chinese national oil companies. The second is to work more closely with the Chinese companies themselves to make sure they actually implement those higher standards. We have been meeting with Chinese oil companies in Beijing and briefing them on Uganda laws.

The recent Wall Street Reform [and Consumer Protection] Act here in the United States requires companies to submit annual reports to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and be much more open about the revenues that they pay foreign governments. The Chinese company that is likely to buy some of these shares, as well as Total, would qualify, and therefore in their annual reports to the SEC they might have to be much more open about some of their dealings with the government of Uganda. (See WRI’s working paper for more details.)

Uganda stands to potentially gain quite a lot through its oil resources. From the work you’ve done so far, do you see a trend that indicates a positive outcome for the country’s development?

Landsberg: Locally, there are better roads, better infrastructure, better healthcare and education. There are good things for sure. The fact that people can export their fish to market is a good thing. Now it really depends - are they going to do it for two years, three years or forever? It’s about sustainability at the local level.

I think it’s a great opportunity for Uganda, and all local NGOs agree on that. We just want to make sure it’s done the best way possible.

Veit: Tullow Oil certainly has made an effort to invest in the areas in which they are drilling. That’s a good thing. The real prize here is when the oil production starts and the oil revenues begin to flow. There are statements by the president of Uganda and other senior officials that they will manage these oil revenues in ways that will promote economic growth and poverty reduction. A lot of this will be codified in three promised petroleum bills that are supposed to be presented to parliament this year and next.

We won’t know the details until those bills are public. Only one has been released so far, and it doesn’t deal with oil revenue management and reinvestment. However, it does deal with transparency issues. The public statements the president has made on transparency are not consistent with what we see in the first of these petroleum bills. The bill is much more secretive and does not allow as much disclosure on production and revenue as the president has promised or that’s in the national oil policy. So we’re a little nervous.

The Norwegians are providing guidance to the [Ugandan] government and that bodes well, because the Norwegians have done well at managing their oil. So if you have anybody in there advising the government, that’s probably a good set of actors to do so. There’s a very active NGO society, and parliamentarians are beginning to speak up on these issues. Even the High Court. For example, several years ago, Ken Kakuru took a case to the High Court to have a Power Purchase Agreement for a dam declared a public document. He won. Yet, recently, a Magistrate Court ruled that the oil Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) do not need to be released. I believe Ken will win his up-coming case in the High Court regarding the PSAs. It has made some rulings that would suggest that they have some independence from the executive branch on these matters.

Avoiding the Resource Curse: Spotlight on Uganda Oil

Janet Ranganathan — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:17:18 -0400

Can new SEC disclosure rules help bring transparency to Uganda’s oil sector?

This piece originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Nestled near the end of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (HR 4173) is Section 1504, two and half pages of text that aim to bring much needed transparency to the extractive resources industry, especially its operations in the developing world.

President Obama’s recent speech on international development to the UN General Assembly highlighted the role of transparency and accountability as ways to improve government institutions. The financial reform bill provides one such mechanism by strengthening business and government accountability in the extractive sector.

The law requires domestic and foreign companies that submit annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to publish annually how much money they pay to U.S. and foreign governments for extracting oil, gas, and minerals.

Why does this matter?

Read the Working Paper on Uganda and the SEC Rules

This type of disclosure is critical. Lack of transparency around transactions between extractive industries and governments can lead to corruption and mismanagement of both resources and the associated revenues. The result, all too often, is the so-called “resource curse”: a paradox in which countries abundant in natural resources enjoy less economic growth and poorer development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. By requiring transparency around how much companies pay to foreign governments for these valuable resources, SEC disclosure will empower public interest groups to track funds more accurately and hold governments accountable.

Given its great potential, what impact will this law have in practice? Uganda, one of Africa’s newest petro-states, could provide a first test case.

Uganda and the Shadow of the ‘Resource Curse’

Uganda, a country rich in natural resources, is building a foundation for a progressive democracy. For example, it is one of a handful of countries in Africa that grants its citizens the right of access to information. But the discovery of oil in 2006 has some advocates concerned that Uganda may still fall victim to the “resource curse”.

The oil discoveries in the northern part of Uganda’s Albertine Rift spurred significant investment by foreign oil companies. As of 2009, over $700 million has been spent on oil exploration in the region. Companies have so far drilled only three of the nine exploration blocks, but have already found more than two and a half billion barrels of oil, raising high expectations for when full production begins, as early as this fall.

A Lack of Transparency

As oil production and extraction ramp up in Uganda, local NGOs have campaigned to gain access to Production Share Agreements (PSAs), the contracts between governments and resource extraction companies that dictate what percentage of revenues will go to the government. PSAs provide critical information which NGOs can use to calculate production amounts and track revenues.

However, the Ugandan government has refused to make these public, claiming that doing so would undermine the government’s negotiating position in allocating the remaining oil exploration blocks.

Since 2007, journalists have filed at least three pleadings in Ugandan courts over the release of PSAs—two in magistrate courts and one in the High Court. In the first case, heard in February of 2010, the Magistrate ruled in favor of the government by declaring that the PSAs are confidential documents based on an interpretation of the country’s Access to Information Act. In pleadings to the High Court in 2010, Greenwatch (a public-interest environmental law NGO) argued that it needs access to the PSAs in order to assess oil project impacts on the environment and public health to protect citizens’ Constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment. This case is scheduled to be heard shortly.

Help from the SEC?

Given these developments in Uganda at the national level, civil society groups in Uganda may need to look to the international arena for legislation such as the Dodd-Frank Act to gain transparency around the oil sector. The SEC rule-making period, which lasts until April 2011, will be critical in determining how the Act will play out on the ground.

Tullow Oil, the major oil exploration company with concessions in Uganda, is listed primarily on the London Stock Exchange and does not file annual reports with SEC. Tullow, however, is seeking to sell one-third of its shares to Total S.A., a French extractives company, and another one-third of its shares to the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), which are both registered with the SEC and file annual reports.

If the SEC rule-making process establishes regulations that cast a wide net, it will help Ugandan civil society get the information they need to hold their government accountable. WRI and partners will continue to track these issues and collaborate on how to build capacity of advocates, local NGO leaders and parliamentarians to learn how to acquire this information from the SEC. Only then can this new U.S. law help shift the balance of power from the government of Uganda to its citizens, and enable civil society to use this data to work with the government to improve environmental governance.

Download WRI’s Comments on the SEC Draft Regulations for Section 1504 (PDF, 8 pages, 124 Kb)

Momentum Builds for Gaining the Consent of Indigenous Peoples

Kirk Herbertson — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:26:34 -0400

Extractive industries explore the benefits of acquiring consent for their projects.

For years, indigenous communities have demanded the opportunity to grant or withhold permission for projects that affect their traditional lands and culture. Private companies, however, have been much slower to acknowledge the importance of “free, prior, and informed consent” (FPIC). But that may be changing. As a new report commissioned by Canadian oil and gas company Talisman indicates, companies can learn how to transform past mistakes into a corporate culture of responsibility.

Avoiding conflict by gaining consent

Indigenous peoples are communities that have lived on the same land for hundreds or even thousands of years, such that their ways of life, traditions, and knowledge about sustaining a living are closely tied to particular bodies of land and water. Development projects—such as oil pipelines and mines—can change the local environment, causing irreparable damage to indigenous communities’ ways of life. This has led to conflict between companies and indigenous peoples, as we saw on a large scale in Peru in 2009.

Free, prior and informed consent has emerged as an effective way to prevent conflict, empower indigenous peoples, and reduce the harmful impacts of development projects in poor areas. FPIC provides an indigenous community with the opportunity to collectively grant or withhold its support for a proposed project, through a process that the community determines (such as a village consensus, election, or negotiated agreement).

The evolving views of governments on free, prior and informed consent

According to many companies and governments cited in the report, granting communities a formal right to grant or withhold consent would effectively give a community veto power over projects that are in the broader public interest. Many also argue that FPIC is too difficult to implement in practice. For example, who speaks on behalf of a community that has several different leaders and subgroups with conflicting interests?

Despite these ongoing challenges, momentum has grown around the need for FPIC. The concept played a prominent role in the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which considers FPIC to be an essential way to respect indigenous peoples’ rights. As of this year, the UN Declaration has been endorsed by 147 countries. Recently, the remaining two major governments to oppose the declaration -— the United States and Canada -— indicated that their positions may change. In March, the Canadian government announced its intention to adopt the Declaration, and in April the U.S. government agreed to review its position.

A new outlook for extractive industries

Talisman Energy, the Canadian oil and gas company, is not without its share of controversy. It drew international media attention and lawsuits between 1998 and 2005 for operating in Sudan during the genocide. Recently, the U.S.-based NGO Amazon Watch has criticized Talisman for operating in Peru on land used by the indigenous Achuar people without their consent.

In May, Talisman released the report it commissioned on the feasibility of adopting an FPIC policy. The report, written by law firm Foley Hoag LLP, concludes that “in the long-term, the benefits for oil and gas companies of obtaining community agreement based on FPIC principles, and thereby both supporting their social license to operate and reducing legal and reputational risks, are likely to outweigh the substantial challenges of securing consent.” The report is an important milestone for the extractive industry and provides a snapshot of companies’ efforts so far to implement FPIC. Talisman should take the next step and adopt the report’s recommendations.

At the request of Bâtirente and RRSE, the two Canadian pension funds whose shareholder proposal led to the report, WRI agreed to provide a third party commentary (PDF, 131 Kb) on the study on a pro bono basis. The commentary identifies issues of FPIC implementation that require further discussion, and makes recommendations to Talisman on how to move forward with the report.

Integrating FPIC into development

Over the next several months, the International Finance Corporation (the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group) is considering ways to integrate FPIC into its environmental and social policies, even if it is hidden in policy language such as “broad community support” and “good faith negotiations.” Its new policy will take effect at the end of 2010, and will likely be used by banks and companies across the world. WRI has also been actively engaged in this process.

Indigenous leaders have advocated for decades in the international community for greater recognition of their reliance on a healthy environment, careful management of natural resources, and respect for their traditional ways of life. FPIC has been a critical part of this movement. Now, understanding is growing among companies and governments that there is also a strong business case for FPIC. With these mutual benefits, we expect momentum and understanding of FPIC to continue to grow.

Maps Guide Water and Sanitation Planning in Africa

Norbert Henninger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:49:03 -0400

State of the art GIS maps shed new light on Uganda’s development challenges.

A primary challenge for government agencies working on water and sanitation issues is coordination – planning and implementing effective interventions across multiple sectors and actors. Data is often siloed, with poverty figures kept separately from information on water access, sanitation, and hygiene.

A new report, Mapping a Healthier Future, published by the Ugandan government with the World Resources Institute, shows how new kinds of mapping can help tackle these coordination problems and lead to more effective interventions. The report compares for the first time various water and sanitation indicators, helping to identify regions and communities with the greatest need and strengthen poverty reduction efforts.

Uganda: Proportion on Households with Improved Sanitation Facilities, 2002 Geographic Information Systems (GIS) maps are valuable tools to help overcome common coordination challenges. Better information means better decisions about how to allocate resources, and a good map can literally put all parties on the same page, opening the door for more efficient, transparent decision-making.

An examination of the spatial relationships between poverty, safe drinking water, improved sanitation, and better hygiene behavior can provide new information to help craft more effective—and more evidence-based—investments and poverty reduction efforts. This kind of spatial information can also empower the public to query government priorities, advocate for alternative interventions, and demand better decision-making.

Uganda’s national policy already reflects the central role safe water and sanitation play in addressing poverty. In 2004, Uganda’s central government set ambitious national targets to increase access to clean water and sanitation to 100% in urban areas and 77% in rural districts by 2015.

So far, these investment plans have helped improve drinking water coverage in rural sub-counties, from 25 percent in the early 1990’s to 65 percent in 2009. However, work remains to be done to ensure that all areas meet national targets. That is where the new maps come in. They can help the government see which communities are lagging behind and target the areas that can benefit the most from interventions.

Combining maps with indicators such as poverty rates, unsafe drinking water sources, lack of sanitation facilities, and lack of basic necessities like soap provides a stark picture of trends and needs across the country. “Data behind the maps show a direct correlation in Uganda between a high poverty rates and low access to adequate sanitation facilities,” said Francis Runumi Mwesigye, Health Planning Commissioner at the Uganda Ministry of Heath and co-author of the report.

Photo credit: flickr/travellingtom

Improved access to clean water is essential for Uganda’s continued development. Water-related diseases, such as typhoid, cholera, and hepatitis, caused 8% of all deaths in Uganda in 2002. Young children are particularly susceptible – 17% of all deaths of children under the age of 5 are contributed to water-borne diarrheal diseases.

The Ugandan example shows what is possible for other counties who want to develop their own maps, and the kind of analysis that is possible with the right data. This report follows Mapping a Better Future, a detailed examination of the links between Uganda’s wetlands and the locations of poor communities.

Mapping a Healthier Future is the result of collaborative efforts between the Uganda Ministry of Health, the Uganda Ministry of Water and Environment, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, the International Livestock Research Institute, and the World Resources Institute.

Stopping the Resource Wars in Africa

Peter Veit — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:54:00 -0400

Two upcoming Senate bills could have a big impact on the Democratic Republic of Congo, by exposing how its 10-year conflict is being funded.

Since 1998, fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has killed an estimated 5.4 million people and resulted in some of the most horrific sexual violence the world has ever seen. Almost a million internally-displaced people are still unable to return safely to their areas of origin. Despite the nine-year presence of the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping operation, the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations-Unies au Congo (MONUC)—18,422 personnel in 2008 at an annual cost of $1.2 billion—rebel forces continue to terrorize innocent citizens in this large central African nation, creating a dire humanitarian crisis that rivals the tragedies in Darfur and Myanmar.

The armed groups in eastern DRC are funded by the region’s abundant natural resources, especially from the extraction of tin, tantalum, and tungsten used to make laptops, cell phones, digital cameras, iPods, and video recorders. As a result, U.S. and international electronic companies—and the consumers who purchase their products—are funding this war.

Two-thirds of the people living below the poverty line reside in nations rich with extractive resources. Yet they rarely receive any meaningful benefits from their country’s resource wealth.

Two bills are now in Congress—the Congo Conflict Minerals Act and the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act. These two bills would require companies listed on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose new information in their financial reporting and help ensure that such minerals do not support the conflict.

The Congo Conflict Minerals Act, introduced by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), would require SEC-listed electronic companies, such as Apple, Nokia, and Nintendo, to disclose the exact location of the mines from which they receive their tin, tantalum, and tungsten in their regular reporting. By noting the source of their minerals, consumers will know whether the electronics they are buying are funding illegal armed groups in the DRC. As evident from the effective embargo on conflict timber from Liberia and blood diamonds from Sierra Leone, many U.S. and European consumers are sensitive to breaking the link between natural resources and conflict. Many U.S. and international companies are also concerned about their reputation and the financial risks associated with not being listed on the SEC (the SEC is a principal source of company information to potential investors).

Ending the conflict in DRC—often called “Africa’s World War” because the armies of nearly a dozen other African states have been drawn into the fighting—is a long-standing and high-priority U.S. policy objective. In October 2006, then-President George Bush argued that the conflict constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to our foreign policy and declared a national emergency. He issued an executive order to block the property of people and institutions contributing to the conflict in the DRC, including those who “have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support.” President Barack Obama’s administration has also made it clear that stopping the war in Congo a top priority of U.S. policy on Africa.

In addition to advancing U.S. interests, the Congo Conflict Minerals Act would contribute to the effective implementation of U.N. Resolution 1856. In December 2008, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1856—the latest in a series of resolutions on the DRC conflict—which links the “illicit trade in natural resources” with the “proliferation and trafficking of arms,” and places an embargo on illegally-exploited natural resources. It calls for the U.N. to heighten security around the mines and authorizes the peacekeeping forces to “seize or collect, as appropriate, the arms and any related material whose presence in the territory of the DRC” contributes to the conflict, including illegally-mined natural resources. Resolution 1856 also urged all countries to take appropriate steps to end the illicit trade in natural resources in the region.

The Congo Conflict Minerals Act is the most recent initiative out of Congress to break the link between natural resources and conflict. While the Act focuses on sourcing three minerals extracted from eastern DRC, another bill awaits action in Congress—the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act—which would have broader implications for the effective use of natural resource revenues around the world.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act was introduced by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) in the summer of 2008. It was co-sponsored by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tom Harkin (D-IA)and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). The bill was referred to the Committee on Urban, Banking, and Housing Affairs, but never discussed on the floor. It is, however, expected to be reintroduced shortly by the same sponsors.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act would require all SEC-listed companies to fully disclose the amount of money paid to foreign governments for oil, gas, and minerals—collectively called extractive resources—in their required financial statements. Around two-thirds of the people living below the poverty line reside in nations rich with extractive resources yet they rarely receive any meaningful benefits from their country’s resource wealth. This Act is an important step in ensuring sound revenue management, promoting effective reinvestments and fighting the corruption that contributes to the disjuncture between resource wealth and economic growth.

In July, President Obama traveled to Ghana for his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa because the country is an outpost of democracy—a model for good governance. Ghana, a bipartisan American favorite, is also one of our most trusted partners in Africa. In a speech to the parliament, President Obama highlighted the critical role that sound governance and civil society plays in promoting lasting development. While Ghana is well-known for its gold (the country is Africa’s second largest gold producer), significant quantities of oil have recently been found offshore. Tullow Oil, an Irish company list on the SEC, holds several of the most promising deep water blocks (Tullow also holds several proven blocks in Uganda, another major U.S. ally in Africa). The Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act would help ensure that some of our close allies in the continent—Africa’s new petro-states—use their oil riches in ways that promote development, not civil unrest and conflict.

The Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act enjoys broad support from U.S. development professionals. Critics, however, point out that full disclosure of payments made by extractive industries to foreign governments alone will not ensure extractive resource revenues are invested in ways that support poverty reduction. Other pundits argue that the most corrupt and non-democratic regimes—those which the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act is targeting—will simply partner with companies from China, India and elsewhere and would not be affected by the Act. In fact, nearly all internationally-competitive oil, gas and mining companies are registered with the SEC and subject to the same regulations as U.S. companies.

The Act would provide a powerful platform for U.S. development assistance to work with governments around the world to ensure revenues from natural resources contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction. Indeed, the passing of these two bills should be complemented by targeted investments by the Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge Corporation and other agencies delivering U.S. government development assistance. Based on recent research by WRI and our local partner organizations in Africa, such support should emphasize investments in two areas:

Help Governments Establish Fair Distribution Policies. The distribution of environmental benefits (and costs) is determined largely by public policies and government practices. U.S. development assistance can work with governments to develop extractive resource revenue management and distribution policies that create economic, political and other incentives in support of poverty reduction, a priority national policy objective in most developing countries. Too often, public policies favor affluent people and regions, enriching a few powerful political and economic elites while passing disproportionately large social and environmental costs on to the poor disenfranchised majority. Poverty reduction—especially for the poorest—can be greatly enhanced through policies that promote fair distribution of natural resource benefits. In high-inequity, high-poverty countries, equitable access and fair distribution can be more effective than economic growth alone in reducing poverty. Such reforms are most effective in poor countries, where natural resources dominate local economies and natural capital is particularly significant in determining the overall distribution of wealth. Even small changes in these policies can have a large effect on building the assets of the poor and reducing poverty.
Strengthen Democratic Institutions and Support Good Governance. While it is important to work with governments, especially government reformers, to establish fair environmental distribution policies, U.S. development assistance must also strengthen other centers of power which can press for such reforms and check the authority of the executive branch. Among these other power centers are the legislature, civil society organizations and citizens. In many countries, even in those that have embraced multi-party politics and hold regular elections, policy reform processes remain closed and tightly controlled by a small circle of political elites. Small wonder that many public policies do not reflect the interest of the electoral majority—the rural poor. Strengthening the legislature and civil society organizations supports the democratic principal of separation of power, and promotes oversight and accountability. Working with the popular media to educate the public on policy processes can engage citizens in government matters. Accountability requires information on institutional performance, and the power to sanction poor decisions and discipline behavior. U.S. assistance can support performance monitoring and help these actors exercise their constitutional authorities and informal powers to press government on matters regarding the management of extractive resource revenues.

It is time for the U.S. to advance its national interests and support development around the world by passing both the Congo Conflict Minerals Act and the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act.

Representing Rural Voices in Africa

Arisha Ashraf — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:44:46 -0400

A new WRI report presents new research on the importance of working with African legislatures for long-term social and environmental improvements. It finds lawmakers face enormous challenges when representing their constituents, and that the rural majority is often poorly represented. The report, found here, presents options for improving representation.

In development circles, public participation is often viewed as a “cure-all” for building local democracy. If the local people are present, permitted to pose questions to officials, and, in rare instances, make suggestions during government meetings, it is assumed that the development project is successful.

However, creating meaningful participation in large, complex societies is neither feasible for the limited time-frame of development projects nor sufficient for the development of local democracy. For example, in Africa, where over 400 million people live in poverty, participation can be too time-consuming and expensive for the populace.

Representative democracy is arguably a better means for addressing the concerns of the rural populace in Africa, in particular the rural poor. In representative democracy, voters elect leaders and delegate the authority to govern on their behalf. This removes the high-costs (e.g., time lost from work, transport costs) of direct participation from low-income households. Since each representative ideally supports the priorities of her entire constituency, representative democracy also reduces bias favoring the most powerful groups, particularly if they are in the minority.

Focusing on reforms to this system, rather than singularly relying on direct participation, would ensure that rural priorities are addressed over the long term.

A new WRI report, On Whose Behalf? Legislative Representation and the Environment in Africa, provides recommendations for reforming representative democracy in Africa.

Based upon five years of research and outreach, this report discusses critical incentives and disincentives to legislative representation and the implications for addressing constituency matters.

As the report states, development projects that “discount the influence of the broader political context in which parliaments are embedded…are unlikely to have much effect on the deeper incentive patterns, informal rules, and power principles that guide political life.”

The findings of the report suggest that effective representation can be extremely difficult to attain. It is both challenging for legislators, yet critical to the interests of the rural majority. In Africa, rural households are the majority, comprising 65 percent of the continent’s population. On average, over 60 percent of total rural family income is derived from nature. Their priorities tend to be strongly linked to environmental sustainability (e.g., safeguarding environmental assets, ensuring sustainable use, and protecting critical ecosystem services from degradation).

Advocacy on local environmental issues can be especially problematic for legislators for several reasons. Legislators who risk supporting environmental conservation are likely to be marginalized by senior officials in the executive branch who consider these to be luxuries rather than policy priorities. Other environmental issues, such as security of land, access to natural resources, and benefit-sharing, tend to be politically charged and divisive.

At the same time, legislative representation is critical to the interests of the rural majority and thus the strengthening of local democracy. Case studies from Cameroon, Tanzania, and Uganda show that the environment can be an important entry point for citizens to engage with local and national interests.

The environment can provide a platform for rural citizens to organize around, a catalyst for the development of civil society, and an impetus for grassroots political participation.

The report outlines four critical areas of reform for strengthening representative democracy:

Accountability of legislators to their constituents (e.g., freedom of information acts, providing citizens with recall)
Autonomy from political bosses and politics (e.g., restrict president’s authority to appoint legislators to parliament)
Authority and capacity to perform representation roles (e.g., empower legislatures with authority to impose sanctions on government officials and institutions for poor performance)
Personal Attributes of legislators (e.g., establish minimum standards and qualifications of legislators)

If development practitioners work with policy-makers on empowering legislatures in these areas, then the public will have a louder, though perhaps more nuanced, voice and participatory interventions (for those who choose and are able to participate) will be strengthened.