Environmental groups release new "non-completion" report on Chad-Cameroon pipeline

16 April 2007

Report highlights disrepancies between conclusions of the World Bank and the official project monitors.

Civil society groups released a report last week in advance of the Spring Meetings of the World Bank entitled "The Chad-Cameroon Oil & Pipeline Project: A Project Non-Completion Report." The document provides a critical analysis of the Bank's Project Implementation Completion Report (ICR) and its role in supporting the controversial pipeline.

The report contests the ICR's conclusion that the project's outcome was "satisfactory," particularly in light of a recent World Bank Group report which admitted that the project's harmful impacts on local communities were worse than anticipated. The report's authors also bring into question the Bank's producing an ICR for the project, citing several outstanding concerns identified by the project's independent monitors. ICRs typically signal that the Bank's role in a project has ended.

Among the concerns raised in the report were the continuing health problems stemming from dust pollution and hazardous waste; the issue of compensation and restoration of livelihoods for communities in Chad displaced by the project; and the survival of indigenous communities in Cameroon, whose precarious situation has worsened since the pipeline was introduced.

These and many other issues were raised during a roundtable discussion between civil society groups and the World Bank this past Saturday. At the meeting, Marie Françoise Marie-Nelly, the Bank's Acting Country Director for both Chad and Cameroon, reiterated that she was happy with the Bank's performance in the project. She stressed that it is too early to assess the poverty reduction impacts of the project, and was optimistic that oil revenues would lead to poverty reduction in the long term.

The report was authored by Korinna Horta of Environmental Defense, Delphine Djiraibe of the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (ATPDH), and Samuel Nguiffo of the Center for Environment and Development (CED) in Cameroon.

Resources

• The Chad-Cameroon Oil & Pipeline Project: A Project Non-Completion Report, Environmental Defense, ATPDH, CED, April 2007 (ED website) (Acrobat PDF 1.05 MB)
• Implementation Completion Report - Chad-Cameroon pipeline, World Bank, December 15, 2006 (BIC website) (Acrobat PDF 352 KB)
• Impact of Chad-Cameroon pipeline on local population worse than expected, Bank Information Center, April 13, 2007 (BIC website)