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foe campaigner aldrin
calixte reports from the annual meeting of
the inter-american development bank in
lima
The
Inter-American
Development Bank
is the principal
source of multilateral financing for
economic, social and institutional
development projects in Latin America and the
Caribbean .
This year its annual meeting is taking
place in Lima from March 29th to 31st.
Calendar of events
around IDB 2004 annual
meeting.
background
information about idb
IDB on the defensive
Lima March 25 2004
Today, before the official ceremony,
participants from non-governmental
organizations met to discuss their
action strategy for the week. The meeting was
in the office of FENTAP, a coalition of
Peruvian potable water workers, and about 30
people participated. After a round of
presentations, we discussed themes that
included the bank's
new environmental
policy
and indigenous peoples'
policy, the
Camisea project
and
the regional integration schemes
including
Regional Infrastructure Integration in South
America
and
Plan
Puebla Panama
.
In December 2003 the Inter-American
Development Bank approved financing of the
controversial Camisea gas project in Peru 's
Amazon rainforest. The US$2.6 billion project
will involve building wells, a processing
plant and two pipelines in preparation for
drilling for fossil fuels in the forest
basin.
The Regional Infrastructure Integration in
South America seeks to improve physical
infrastructure in 12 South American countries
for the purpose of promoting trade,
competitiveness and economic development in
the region. The initiative has three core
components: transport, energy and
telecommunications.
Plan Puebla Panama envisages a road,
telecommunications and energy network linking
Mexico and Central America as far south as
Panama. PPP has been criticised by a large
coalition of central american civil society
groups in the
Declaration of Xelajú
for its potential
economic, social and environmental impacts,
as well as for the undemocratic way it has
been imposed.
At the same time as this strategy
conference, three members of the FoE team
attended a meeting with Michaela Zintl, the
German
executive director
, who represents
Belgium, Germany, Israel, Italy, The
Netherlands and Switzerland. It was revealed
that she was very unclear about the progress
of the Regional Infrastructure Integration in
South America program. Indeed she hid behind
the defense that some directors from Southern
countries hold very conservative positions
with respect to environmental issues.
Later we participated in another meeting
about the bank's
new environmental
policy
. This event had rather undefined
objectives. In the meeting we had discussions
with the bank's
executive vice-president
Dennis
Flannery. As an evaluation, I do
not think the meeting was very
well organised.
The FoEI team is composed of 6 people, to
whom the representatives of Labor-FoE Peru
can be added.
The official meeting is on Monday and
Tuesday, but there will be various activities
in the coming days.
Calendar of events
around IDB 2004 annual
meeting
background
information about idb
read the diary from:
monday march
29
saturday march
27
friday march
26
Read more about the Inter-american
Development Bank:
CENSAT Agua Viva- FoE Colombia:
www.censat.org
(in
spanish)
Rios Vivos Coalition:
www.riosvivos.org.br
(english,
spanish and portuguese)
Bank Information Center, United States:
www.bicusa.org
ACERCA on Plan Puebla Panama:
www.asej.org
IDB website:
www.iadb.org
(english and
spanish)
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