Friends of the Earth Uganda/NAPE is determined to ensure that the findings and recommendations of the World Bank’s Inspection Panel and the African Development Bank’s independent review mechanism are effectively addressed. 

what happened In 2009

Friends of the Earth Uganda held meetings with the Bujagali dam developers, dam affected communities, civil society organizations, and the World Bank and the AfDB, to agree on mitigation, monitoring and evaluation measures. The group also analyzed international financial institution (IFI) and government policies and procedures relating to energy, and published a booklet on the subject, which was widely disseminated. 

Together with other European NGOs, including Counter Balance and Bankwatch, Friends of the Earth Uganda submitted a complaint to the European Investment Bank (EIB). 

The group also supported litigation cases for communities affected by the Bujagali Electricity Transmission Line, challenging the inadequate compensation offered by both the government and developers. As a result, Bujagali Electricity Limited (BEL) and the Ugandan government revised their compensation policies and procedures, and are now providing water tanks to affected communities. In addition, the Transmission Line (T-Line) affected communities have been promised power lines connecting electricity to their homes. BEL also held a meeting to update civil society and other stakeholders on progress in August 2009.

The government, the World Bank and the developer (Italian company Salini) promised to take note of their policies and procedures, including by involving civil society in the monitoring and evaluation of development projects. A disclosure policy was agreed by the World Bank and civil society in a consultative meeting held in June 2009 in Nairobi. 

The government also agreed to protect the Karagala and Itanda falls to reduce the overall environmental damage caused by the Bujagali dam, and to compensate for the cultural loss that will be brought about by the submergence of the Bujagali falls.

In September 2009, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Eng.Hilary Onek, acknowledged that the Bujagali dam project is one of the most expensive dam projects in the developing world. 

Friends of the Earth Uganda is also pushing for the use of alternative energy options in Uganda. The group met with members of parliament, government technocrats and civil society organizations to advocate for the development of alternative renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and geothermal. The World Bank (WB) and other donors have agreed to set aside funds to support geothermal exploration and solar energy development in Uganda.

what was learned

Government interests in large development projects can lead to a lack of objectivity, secrecy, intervention and even intimidation.

The Multi-stakeholder Environmental Monitoring Committee for Bujagali Hydro-power Project has been used to shield the Bujagali project from public scrutiny. Friends of the Earth Uganda experienced continual difficulty accessing relevant information including minutes of meetings. (In 2010, after the group had already decided to withdraw from this committee, they were deselected. Friends of the Earth Uganda understands that this is because of its continued critique of the Bujagali Dam project.)

There is an urgent need to build civil society capacity and that of affected communities to ensure meaningful engagement. Most communities miss out on adequate compensation, because they are not aware of their property rights and entitlements. Litigation cases against developers can be successful, but are expensive and bureaucratic.

What next

Friends of the Earth Uganda will focus on building dam and transmission-line affected communities’ knowledge about their property rights and entitlements. They will also support further litigation cases.

The group also plans to form a coalition or group able to challenge and engage government, developers and financiers involved in the Bujagali Dam on an on-going basis.

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs (dgis)

Photo: International Rivers

Additionally, we challenged false publicity about the potential of jatropha, and other plants that might be used for agrofuel production. In particular, FoE Africa groups and others set out to research the extent to which agrofuels are expanding across Africa, through a literature review, on-the-ground observation, and interviews with government officials, community leaders, local authorities, farmers and farmers’ organizations, civil society groups and academics. The resulting report considers the state of agrofuels production in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It records details, where available, on incoming investment, key companies, case studies, issues relating to land and legal rights, and environmental impact assessments. It also delves into government and state policies on agrofuels promotion and energy self-sufficiency.

The FoE Europe campaign on agrofuels was selected by the European Parliament Magazine as the most effective NGO campaign, specifically because of our high-visibility creative actions organized in collaboration with groups from all our regions. Improvements to our web site, and investments in communications in FoE Europe, allowed us to mobilize 47,000 people in May to participate in a poll by EC President Barroso, which changed the poll from 95% in favor of the EU's biofuels target to 89% against, in just three days.

FoEI also organized two speakers’ tours (in May and December 2008) for leaders from the South, in order to raise awareness in Europe about the devastating impacts of growing crops to produce agrofuels. We also organized an action in front of the Brazilian embassy in Brussels to protest against their agrofuels policies, in collaboration with La Via Campesina and FIAN (Face It Act Now – for the right to food). The speakers took part in lobby meetings to demand an end to the EU 10% biofuels target, with Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the European Commission. Similar meetings were organized with national parliaments in France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. The visiting speakers also lectured at universities in Brussels, Grenoble, Leuven, Montpellier, and the UNDP University in Namur. They received good media coverage, including through outlets such as Télé Grenoble, Midi Libre, France 3 TV, Planète Libre Magazine, national TV RFO, Radio Campus in Belgium, Panoramica magazine, ANP Netherlands, Agrarisch Dagblad, and Agripress Belgium.

When the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) met in Buenos Aires, FoEI helped  gathering civil society from producer countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) as well as importing countries in the EU, to protest against the use of ‘sustainable soy’ certification schemes, which are bound to fail because they do not address the overall expansion of monoculture plantations to produce increasing quantities of agrofuels. Similar round-table approaches around the world have completely failed to address the major social and environmental impacts of industrial-scale soy cultivation and actually serve to frustrate real solutions.

Photo credits: FoE Brazil

To do this more effectively, we focused on the use of innovative and mass means of communication, to disclose our research findings to a much wider audience than ever before, and to mobilize people to fight for environmental justice.

We have developed new ideas to convey our campaign messages in more innovative and creative ways; and used creative campaign tools so that people can understand and support our messages more easily. These included a series of video clips (community testimonies) and using YouTube to broadcast them to the public. We have also started to work with artists in designing strong visuals with a clear message.

‘Lost in Palm Oil’ is a documentary about the impacts of oil palm plantations on local communities in Indonesia, and the production, trade and consumption of palm oil. The documentary was screened (sometimes fully, sometimes partially) on TV and at film festivals. Many of these broadcasts reached out to audiences of more than 100,000 viewers. A list of TV broadcasts and slots in 2008 includes: Eenvandaag (Netherlands); ORF Weltjournal (Austria); TV Eco (Switzerland); French TV channel France 2; YLE (Finland); SWR Auslandsreporter, Phönix and NDR ARD (Germany); RTP (Portugal); TVN27 (Poland); TV2 (Finland); SVT (Sweden); Green Film Festival-Seoul (Korea); NHK (Japan); and the Berlin Film Festival (Germany). ‘Lost in palm oil’ was also screened at an alternative summit in Bali, Indonesia, during the United Nations climate talks (UNFCCC) in December 2007; and about 500 DVD copies of the film were circulated to communities in Indonesia (in Bahasa Indonesia). The DVD version is available in English, French, German and Bahasa.

For ‘Poison Fire’ FoEI contracted Lars Johansson to make a documentary about the impacts of oil in Nigeria, using a 'participatory approach' to film-making and at the same time training local community members in Nigeria to use video tools in their campaign activities. Poison Fire shows how increasing people’s capacity to advocate on their own behalf with video tools and skills led to exposing oil giant Shell’s violations of Nigerian law and the fact that it was ignoring court judgments in Nigeria.

Footage of the documentary was even aired by the Dutch investigative program 'Netwerk' and mainstream news program 'RTL news' in the years previous to the film’s formal launch.  A short film based on footage from Lars Johansson was produced with Element TV (a project focused on the UN millennium development goals) and broadcast on other MTV channels in 2007. Element was initially broadcast on three European MTV 'feeds' and in Israel, and was picked up for 'Switch', a global campaign for MTV which reached a potential audience of 1.5 billion viewers in 62 countries. Guardian films also used footage from Poison Fire (and took on board information exposed in the film) in a video report by The Guardian's George Monbiot (a renowned environmental writer and author of a number of bestselling books). The report focused on an interview with Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, and generated substantial debate on The Guardian newspaper’s website. A short version of the documentary was also aired on MTV and at the March 2008 Amnesty ‘Movies that Matter’ film festival in Amsterdam.

The film, which can be viewed online on various websites including its own, at www.poisonfire.org, also caused intense debate in Nigeria, where it has been screened to many local communities and policy makers. Nigerian lawmakers have watched it in special screenings and commented on it. A high policy committee annexed it to its report on the Niger Delta sent to the Nigerian President. It also had an impact on Shell; the company made direct references to the film in a Shell video online on www.shell.com. In 2008, the film-maker entered a co-production agreement with Danish production company Everest Pictures (Anders Ostergaard, the director of the highly successful documentary 'Burma VJ') which decided to finance a longer, more ambitious version of Poison Fire.

In February 2008, following up on a project which started in 2006, a map with details of 50 environmentally damaging and economically dubious infrastructure projects in Central and Eastern Europe was launched by CEE Bankwatch Network and FoE Europe. The projects are either already financed, or in preparation and likely to be financed by EU structural and cohesion funds and/or the European Investment Bank (EIB). FoE Europe continues to monitor the developments of these projects, raise public awareness and campaign to stop them.

To respond to various destructive projects in Southern and Eastern Africa, FoE South Africa and FoE Mozambique, together with the International Working Group on Oil, hosted the East and Southern African workshop in September 2008. Participation was from a variety of sectors that had close links to the daily reality on the ground: fishermen from Mauritius, Islamic clerics from rural Mozambique, community members from Lake Albert in Uganda, and rural community folk from Ethiopia, together with other representatives of social organizations and local communities from Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda, A number of participants also came from West African countries including Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Mali and Nigeria. Critically, community people shared the experience of their present struggles and considered how these struggles could provide a platform for articulating their efforts in the future.

FoEI continued, along with others around the world, to denounce the abuse by companies aiming to put Latin American governments under pressure. ATALC is monitoring the cases with ETI Telecom in Bolivia, RDC in Guatemala, Harken and other oil companies in Costa Rica, and Katoen Natie in Uruguay.

FoE groups in Europe and Latin America also worked together to address the impacts of European (mostly Scandinavian) pulp and paper producers in Latin America. At the European Social Forum, an exhibition exposing these impacts was displayed. Groups also worked together on a specific project relating to the Finnish company Botnia, and its activities in Uruguay. Several European investors, such as ING, decided not to finance the project as it has been highly controversial in Uruguay and Argentina and did not adhere to World Bank’s environmental standards.

In 2008, we also exposed the myth that fossil fuels are central to development. FoEI believes this assumption is misguided on both climate and development grounds, and subsidies to the fossil fuel sector must be ended. We challenged the Asian Development Bank during at its annual meeting in Madrid in May 2008. The ADB issues calls for clean energy investments to fight global warming, while providing massive financial support to dirty coal projects in Asia. Together with WEED, Oil Change International and APMDD Jubilee South, we produced a concise argument about the link between oil and poverty, which was distributed at the 2008 ADB annual meeting, the Netherlands conference in July 2008 on ‘The Future of the World Bank,’ and at the national level.

FoEI had a strong presence at several international events in 2008. We also supported the participation of community representatives and civil society organizations from the South in many international events, giving them an opportunity to publicize their experiences and struggles.

Some of the events in 2008 included:

• the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank
• the spring and annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank
• UN Framework Convention for Climate Change meetings
• UN Convention for Biological Diversity meetings
• MOVIAC’s meetings
• Via Campesina´s 5th International Conference
• the EU-Latin American Summit and the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Corporations
• the III Americas Social Forum
• the European Social Forum 2008
• meetings of the Latin American Network on Dams

To respond to this and various other such developments in Southern and Eastern Africa, FoE South Africa and FoE Mozambique, together with the the International Working Group on Oil, hosted the East and Southern African workshop on Oil and Gas in September 2008. 

48 people, including both community representatives and NGOs from South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Mauritius, Uganda, Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and west Africans from Nigeria, Chad, Mali and Congo Brazzaville, attended a five day workshop where information was shared on oil and gas.

Critically, community people shared the experience of their present struggles and considered how these present struggles could be the platform for articulating the struggles in future. Participation was from a variety of sectors that had close links to the daily reality on the ground: fishermen in suits from Mauritius, Islamic clerics from rural Mozambique, community members from Lake Albert in Uganda and rural community folk from Ethiopia.

what changed?

It was exciting to see how at the end of the day, people opted for a focus on cross- border community work between people who are in close proximity to each other to develop nodes of action rather than just a network. As the local action develops, a broader network will be the inevitable result.

What was learned

Finally, through the intense debate of five days, it was clear that people were considering the very real campaign of ‘keeping the oil in the soil’, ‘blocking the block’ and ‘keeping the coal in the hole’. As one of the Mauritian fisherman said in relation to oil drilling, “You do not want to disturb the devil’s fire.”

However, there is little awareness of the negative implications of agrofuel production amongst NGOs and community-based organizations in affected countries in southern Africa. This limits communities’ and Indigenous Peoples’ ability to make informed decisions about the appropriation of community land for agrofuel crops.

what happened?

The Timberwatch Coalition in South Africa, in association with Friends of the Earth Africa (FoEA), including FoE Swaziland / Yonge Nawe, FoE South Africa / groundWork and FoE Mauritius / Maudesco co-ordinated a two day regional agrofuels workshop in August, in Johannesburg. Participants included representatives from Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

This regional workshop was linked to a national meeting the previous day attended by over 70 participants including those representatives from South Africa, Swaziland, Mauritius and Mozambique that were in Johannesburg for the regional workshop. By linking these two events, it was possible to create a broader awareness of how the issue of agrofuels is affecting the region as a whole.

what changed?

The events successfully brought together participants from all eight identified southern African countries, allowing participants to establish an informal network, which will be critical to further collaboration.

All the available information on agrofuels production was collected together, to establish a new and important web-based resource. Country specific status reports and maps, fact sheets about the different types of agrofuel crops, photos, and a comprehensive list of relevant publications, reports and articles will soon be available online. To link to them go to www.timberwatch.org

The ultimate beneficiaries of this project will be the communities and Indigenous Peoples whose
land rights, livelihoods, cultures, traditional knowledge, and access to natural resources including water and
biodiversity, would have been threatened by the establishment of agrofuel crop production in their countries. Increased awareness about the risks associated with agrofuels production will empower people to counter poorly conceived and potentially harmful agrofuel projects. However, the workshops were held relatively recently and it will take time for these benefits to manifest themselves.

what was learned?

A great deal of information about the growing presence of agrofuels in Southern Africa was gathered together, and many new relationships forged. Common problems were identified. ‘Land grabbing’, for example, is
taking place through the forced displacement of communities, contract farming, land leasing and out-grower agreements, and tactics employed include promising:

• quick cash to impoverished communities without providing any audit of the value of their land and the diverse resources derived from it;
• multinational partnerships to fund and train government agricultural extension workers who then provide a ‘neutral’ point of sale for companies’ products; and
• subsidies or free gifts of start-up agribusiness inputs and seeds, which destroy indigenous seed and agricultural systems.

However, it was found to be more difficult and time-consuming than anticipated to identify, contact and facilitate the participation of individuals from all eight countries. The fact that this has now been achieved is thus an excellent first step.

what next?

The co-hosting groups will continue to engage with the agrofuel issue at a regional level, and try to ensure that the informal NGO agrofuels network established will grow stronger in the medium term. They also intend to focus on the problem of so-called ‘second-generation’ agrofuels, which would largely be derived from biomass produced in monoculture tree plantations that are likely to be of genetically engineered varieties.

A video of the regional meeting has been posted in you tube.

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs

what happened?

Members of FoE Africa from Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Tunisia and Swaziland met in July in Accra, Ghana, to review issues that confront the African environment. A particular focus was placed on the current food crisis and agrofuels. The groups released a statement deploring the characterisation of Africa as a chronically hungry continent; and rejected the projection of the continent as an emblem of poverty and stagnation and thus as a continent dependent on food aid.

Matching these concerns, FoE Africa groups and others set out to research the extent of agrofuels expansion across Africa, through a literature review, on-the-ground observation, and interviews with government officials, community leaders, local authorities, farmers and farmers’ organizations, civil society groups and academics.

The report considers the state of agrofuels production in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It records details, where available, on incoming investment, key companies, case studies, issues relating to land and legal rights, and environmental impact assessments. It also delves into government and state policies on agrofuels promotion and energy self-sufficiency.

what was learned?

Although data was sometimes hard to acquire, this first report, ‘Corporate Push of Agrofuels in Africa’, clearly corroborates that there is a very real agrofuels ‘boom’ in Africa. To take just one example, in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and other countries, staple food crops such as cassava, corn, groundnuts, sorghum and sweet potatoes, are being used or are being proposed to be used to produce bio ethanol.

The report provides clear evidence that when it comes to agrofuels most African governments are intent on promoting the industry, and attracting foreign investment to do so, even though on-the-ground evidence shows that:

• there is little public understanding of the issue;
• farmers are often tied to monopolies;
• forced resettlement, land grabbing and displacement from traditional lands are common;
• food importing nations tend to increase their reliance on food imports;
• ethanol production affects food prices; and
• agrofuels production leads to deforestation and biodiversity losses.

what changed?

With this more detailed picture of what is really happening in Africa, concerned organizations are now able to make a much clearer assessment of the risks associated with the agrofuels ‘boom’. Local communities and Indigneous Peoples are also in a better position to engage in the debate on agrofuels, and make informed decisions about the use of their lands and territories.

what next?

This information will be used by FoE Africa groups and others to develop positions and campaigns relating to agrofuels production at the national level. Agrofuels activities are already underway, for example, in Nigeria, Togo, Swaziland and South Africa.  It will also be shared with other civil society organizations and local communities.

Additional information can be found at http://www.eraction.org/publications/presentations/The-Agrofuels-debate-in-Africa.pdf

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs (dgis)

As a result of regional outreach efforts to new groups, eight new groups were admitted as associate members at the BGM. The new member groups are:

• Sustainable Development Initiatives (SDI) - Liberia
• Citizens for Justice (CFJ) - Malawi
• Otros Mundos - Mexico
• Justiça Ambiental (JA!) - Mozambique
• Centre for Environmental Justice (CFJ) - Sri Lanka
• Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team (LEAT) - Tanzania
• The Haburas Foundation - Timor Leste
• National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) - Uganda

new chair

Nnimmo Bassey, the Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Nigeria, was elected as the Chairperson. In his acceptance speech to the members present in Honduras he highlighted the unique period in history we are in:

"We stand at the crossroads of history with the scaffoldings erected by capitalism and neo-liberalism collapsing like a pack of cards. No matter how many people live a lie, the lie remains a lie. People may decide to live in the imaginations of their minds, but the truth is that sooner than later the reality knocks us back to concrete challenges. We stand at a crossroads, but we must take the right turn and FoEI is well positioned to take the lead in that march."

new excom

Several new members joined the existing Executive Committee, which will guide the federation in the right direction over the next two years. The ExCom composition is the following:

• Karin Nansen - FoE Uruguay, Vice-Chairperson
• Jagoda Munic - FoE Croatia, Treasurer
• Meena Raman - FoE Malaysia
• Mario Godinez - FoE Guatemala
• Rizwana Hasan - FoE Bangladesh
• Bobby Peek - FoE South Africa
• Sarah Jayne Clifton - FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Elizabeth Bast - FoE United States
  

with thanks to our funders: the sigrid rausing trust
 

photo credit: pureza c. ekid