Dams

ECA and IFI -funded projects

This page links to information concerning a number of projects on which we have worked, in solidarity with local communities. In some cases, the projects rely on World Bank funding. In others they involve Canadian companies that may be seeking, or have secured, financial support from Export Development Canada (EDC). Sometimes they involve both. Regardless of the source of funding, in all cases, communities have contacted us because they are concerned about the significant adverse environmental, social and human rights impacts of the projects.

International CSOs Comment on Draft IFC Policies

COMMENTS ON IFC’S CONSULTATION DRAFTS OF THE IFC SUSTAINABILITY POLICY AND PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND DISCLOSURE POLICY

AUGUST 27, 2010

General Observations

The undersigned civil society organizations believe the latest drafts of the Sustainability Policy, Performance Standards, and Disclosure Policy respond usefully to some issues raised previously by many civil society organizations, including, for example, several issues related to gender, resettlement, and climate change.  Many of our most significant concerns, however, remain unaddressed, including centrally important issues related to due diligence, transparency, and accountability, and other issues related to substantive concerns.

Monthly Issue Update - February 28, 2010

Government accountability bill returns to the House
On March 3, the Governor General will open a new session of Parliament, ending the recess created when the Harper government prorogued the previous session in December. All legislation that was under consideration at that time was extinguished, with the exception of private members’ bills, which return to the House, unscathed. These bills begin anew at whichever stage of the legislative process they had reached before the plug was pulled on Parliament.

Export Development Canada Environmental Policy Review Submission - August 26, 2009

The Halifax Initiative is a coalition of human rights, environmental, faith-based, development and labour organizations. Our objective is to transform the international financial institutions to achieve poverty eradication, environmental sustainability and the full realization of universal human rights.

The Halifax Initiative supports the review of Export Development Canada’s Environmental Policy and disclosure practices, and is grateful for the opportunity to provide input to the review process.

1. Project environmental and social standards
a. Compliance

FAQs - ECAs and EDC

Monthly Issue Update: May 29, 2009

Tensions build as UN conference on crisis postponed
June 24-26 now mark the new dates for the UN Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impacts on Development, postponed from the beginning of the month as many European heads of state had said they could not participate because of European Parliamentary elections. The postponement is welcome relief to a process that began last October and has been tense ever since, exposing clear lines between those who favour a truly global response to the current crisis with a real rethink of how the global economy is governed vs. the newly crowned G-20 and their proposal for a status quo plus approach.

Action Alert Archives : August 21, 2003

The World Bank and other donors have vowed to fight corruption, which undermines development and democracy. Yet their focus is consistently only on corrupt acts perpetrated by poor country governments, when it actually takes two to tango.

"There is always somebody who pays, and international business is generally the main source of corruption", said none other than the billionaire financier, George Soros.

Canada's Export Development Corporation - Financing Disaster

In 1999, Amnesty International raised alarms about the killing of four indigenous people protesting a hydroelectric dam in Colombia that has devastated their food source and, if completed, would flood most of their land.

In 1998, an accident at a mine in Kyrgystan resulted in two tons of cyanide entering a river. A lack of an emergency response plan worsened the disaster, leaving two people dead and over 600 hospitalized.

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