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NGOs raise human rights, environmental issues

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EBRD NGO liaison manager Doina Caloianu and EBRD President Jean Lemierre

Veronika Szente Goldston of Human Rights Watch

Uzbekistan, Sakhalin Island, nuclear power in Ukraine and renewable energy were all on the agenda when President Jean Lemierre met with representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for lively, constructive discussion Tuesday morning.

The meeting capped off NGO participation in the EBRD’s 13th Annual Meeting. About 80 people, representing a total of 70 NGOs, took part in the NGO programme organised by Outreach and NGO liaison unit manager Doina Caloianu as part of the yearly Board of Governors gathering. The NGOs met with Board members, bankers, political counsellors and economists.

“We pay a lot of attention to the dialogue we have together,” Mr Lemierre told the NGO gathering Tuesday. “We’re talking about important things: democracy, human rights, the environment, economic progress, social questions. It’s clear you bring a lot to us.”

Ongoing dialogue with Uzbekistan

Representatives of Central Asian NGOs voiced their support for the Board’s recent announcement regarding investments in Uzbekistan.

Following on last year’s Annual Meeting in Tashkent and as a result of concerns about the political and economic situation in the country, in 2003 the EBRD set seven benchmarks for progress in Uzbekistan. Earlier this month the Board concluded there had been very limited progress and the Bank could no longer conduct business as usual.  The Bank will stay engaged in Uzbekistan. But it can only focus its activities on the private sector and those public sector projects that finance cross-border activities or clearly benefit the Uzbek people.

 “We have given a signal about our concerns, that it couldn’t be ‘business as usual’, but we’ve also given a strong signal of commitment and engagement,” Mr Lemierre told the NGOs.

The Uzbek government chose not to follow through with its planned presentation at the 2004 Annual Meeting. “We regret that,” said Mr Lemierre. “We will do our best to restart that dialogue with Uzbek authorities.”

Benchmarks used effectively

The recent announcement regarding investment in Uzbekistan “was a milestone in the European Bank’s development,” said Veronika Szente Goldston of Human Rights Watch. She said the benchmarks should be maintained as a way of monitoring progress in Uzbekistan. She also advocated establishing benchmarks for other EBRD countries of operation. “Even though the Bank was not set up to promote human rights and democracy per se,” she said, wider use of benchmarking would “promote these values”.

“We will keep the benchmarks alive” with regard to Uzbekistan, said Mr Lemierre, adding that other international organisations and individual embassies in Uzbekistan could also use the benchmarks as their standard for progress in that country. However, he did not commit to applying benchmarking to other countries, saying “country by country we need to take the most appropriate steps to make progress”. He noted, all the same, that the EBRD bi-annual strategies for three countries with the most difficult investment climates – Uzbekistan, Belarus and Turkmenistan – would be up for review this year. Public comment on those strategies is now part of the drafting process.

Renewables: promising, difficult

Peter Hlobil of the NGO CEE Bankwatch Network, insisted the Bank should increase its investment in renewable energy projects. This was in light of the World Bank’s Extractive Industries Review, an independent report arguing that the World Bank should invest more on renewables and less on petroleum and mining. Mr Hlobil applauded the Bank’s investments in improving energy efficiency in the region, and its decision to review its energy policy.

Mr Lemierre said the EBRD’s investment in renewables has been limited “not because we don’t want it”. The problem is that renewables are not economic, at this stage, without subsidies, which are not available from the EBRD. That said, the Bank is seeking ways of funding renewables such as creating particular investment funds and seeking investment partners experienced in the field.

Mr Lemierre noted that improving energy efficiency in the region, which is grossly energy inefficient vis-à-vis western Europe, is a profitable venture in which the Bank already invests.

Mr Lemierre reminded Mr Hlobil that “we are not an energy bank. Rather, we need to pay a lot of attention to diversification” of economies that are overly dependent on natural resource income. “In the region there is a huge focus on cheap energy which has huge social, environmental and economic impact. It’s a very complicated question…Energy is an asset for some countries and an issue for others.”

Concern over Sakhalin Island energy

In various meetings with Bank officials, a number of NGOs raised the issue of the Bank’s possible investment in a new phase of energy development around Russia’s Sakhalin Island. A pipeline from offshore platforms would pass through the mating and calving grounds of the endangered Northern Great whales. The NGOs feel no level of risk to that whale population is acceptable. Other concerns include offshore dumping, seismic activity on land and the pipeline crossing salmon rivers – all of which the NGOs fear could disrupt fisheries on which the islanders depend.

Said Mr Lemierre: “This is a very important project for Russia, for the region, for Japan” which will buy much of the resulting natural gas. “You have raised most of the issues. The answers we have received (from sponsors) are not appropriate. We are not going to take a decision quickly because we are not satisfied.”

Yuri Urbanski of the National Ecological Centre of Ukraine questioned possible Bank loans to complete Ukraine’s K2R4 nuclear reactors. Mr Lemierre said the loans under discussion would fund the government to upgrade safety features to the highest international standards. “We have no doubt the two nuclear units will be commissioned whatever we do,” said Mr Lemierre, arguing that it would be better to have the Bank fund top-notch safety aspects than for it to desist. “This is a very practical issue, not a philosophical one.”

23 April 2004