Being the largest sources of international development financing and knowledge, MDBs reassert their regional influence through trans-boundary economic integration and country strategies. They have expanded, shifted or renewed their priorities to critical sectors of development programming such as infrastructure, energy and mining, water, agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
MDBs’ self-assigned mandate of reducing poverty and mantra of promoting sustainable development remain as come-on rhetoric. The Banks have generated more adverse conditions to the national economies, environment and livelihood security of vulnerable sectors. Indigenous people are being evicted from their ancestral domain while farmers are losing their lands for Bank-financed industrial plantations and cross-border superhighways. Actions speak louder than words; social safeguards are being thinned to do away with the costs of environmental impact assessments, compensation of oustees and correcting their wrong. In short, their development packages made more drawbacks than incentives to DMCs in terms of further stress to the ecosystems, increased poverty rate, swelling debts, and therefore, wider social disparities.
MDBs’ dynamics continues to shape CSO movement. They provided a backdrop for the emergence and transformation of resistance that goes beyond borders. Yet, CSOs’ multiple ideological orientations and strategies, limited organizational capacity, geographic and cultural boundaries, among others, challenge CSOs’ leverage to sustain and expand their campaigns.
CSOs in Mekong/SEA have a rich history of resistance. Their eclectic mélange of knowledge challenge MDBs’ hegemony. Their initiatives can certainly inform future campaigns; however, it appears there is patchy documentation about their strengths, weaknesses, and potential.