The World Bank should reconsider its mega dam project in Tajikistan
Al JazeeraProviding funding to a repressive regime to construct the ‘highest dam in the world’ is a recipe for disaster. On December 17 the World Bank is set to vote on financing the Rogun mega dam project in Tajikistan. As highlighted in the recent report “Financing Repression”, co-published by the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, the Early Warning System and International Accountability Project, in Tajikistan’s context, the concerns of the affected communities risk remaining unheard because people fear protesting. Within Tajikistan, the dam project would affect critically endangered endemic sturgeons and unique floodplain ecosystems downstream, including “Tugay Forests of the Tigrovaya Balka”, a World Heritage Site in the Vakhsh River floodplain. Decreasing the height of the dam could massively reduce the number of people that risk being displaced, and the funds saved by downscaling the project could be used to build more efficient solar farms, thus diversifying the Tajik energy sector and avoiding overreliance on hydropower in a region prone to droughts worsened by climate change.
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