Our Planet
Dam under close watch
Uganda’s third dam on the Nile (positioned where the river flows out of Lake Victoria), should enable it to generate the energy it crucially lacks without any negative environmental effects. This is at least the conclusion of the impact study commissioned by the World Bank. In the wake of the study, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has decided to co-fund the project.
On 7 January, the EIB agreed a US$136M (€92M) loan to the Ugandan company, Bujagali Energy Limited (BEL). BEL is responsible for the construction and operation of a dam and hydroelectric plant of 250-megawatt capacity in Bujagali, on the Upper Nile, downstream from Lake Victoria. In addition to the EIB, other co-funders will be the International Finance Corporation (the World Bank subsidiary that grants loans to the private sector), the African Development Bank (ADB) and a group of European financial institutions. In all, the loan comes to the equivalent of €462M. This decision puts an end to the delays surrounding this project, which has been condemned by a coalition of local organisations, both international and Ugandan, and some riverside dwellers, due to its impact on the environment.
The project promoters argue that the hydroelectricity produced on the Nile will be the cheapest energy option for a country like Uganda, which has no access to the sea and is one of the poorest African nations. Bujagali will in fact provide support for two other dams: the Nalubaale Dam, built by the British in the late 1950s, and the Kiira Dam, built by Kampala authorities in the 1990s. The EIB has stressed that these two dams do not have enough capacity to meet a growing demand for electricity and acknowledges that power outages during periods of low water flow cause serious disruption to the country’s economic activity. Building a third dam downstream will make it possible to increase electricity production and, better still, Bujagali will be reusing the water already used to produce electricity at the upstream dams.
A threat to the health of Lake Victoria?
The Ugandan Dam Development Forum, a group of 10 NGOs, has worries about the project’s long-term viability. Drawing on a report by the American NGO International River Networks (IRN), the Forum believes that the dams are partly responsible for falling water levels in Lake Victoria. It is also concerned that no study has yet been carried out to assess the impact of climate change on the lake’s hydrological health. A number of studies have subsequently been carried out to determine the project’s environmental and social fall-out.
For its part, the EIB says any environmental impact will be relatively limited. A study by Canadian consultants Burnside, commissioned by the World Bank, suggests that the Bujagaly project will not ‘significantly’ impair the lake, nor the river’s hydrology. It says that the only aspect of the project that requires continual monitoring is changes to downstream water levels. The consultancy recommends the introduction of a management plan for this. Whatever the case, the EIB has promised that the project is – and will continue to be – monitored with measures taken, if necessary, in line with stringent international standards which stipulate close consultation with the local population, local authorities and all other associations affected.
