Africa's Huge Oil Project a Boondoggle?

Posted: 24-Jun-2002; Updated: 24-Jun-2003

The World Bank touted the vast oil project and pipeline cutting through Chad and Cameroon as an "unprecedented framework to transform oil wealth into direct benefits for the poor" when it gave the green light to funding in June 2000. Financed by the World Bank and a consortium of private oil firms led by ExxonMobil, the venture was to be a model for public/private partnership that would help develop one of the poorest regions of Africa, while holding out a promise of little or no environmental damage or social upheaval.

Two years later, a new report from Environmental Defense and our African partner organizations takes stock -- and finds that the huge project has a dismal record of living up to its promises. Even though construction is proceeding apace, regional development plans and social and environmental protections are lagging far behind.

Among the many problems the report cites are that scores of local peoples have become severely impoverished after their land was taken over by the oil project. Others have not been adequately compensated for lost livelihoods. An influx of those seeking work has overwhelmed health-care systems along the pipeline route and brought increased risks of malaria, AIDS and other diseases. Polluted water and the disappearance of forests and wildlife are just some of the environmental problems.

The authors call on the World Bank to take immediate action to remedy these serious failings and live up to its promise last year that it has "radically transformed the way we do business."

• Read the report The Chad-Cameroon Oil and Pipeline Project: A Call for Accountability
  
• View a gallery of scenes and get more facts on the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project
  
• Find out more about the World Bank and other multilateral development banks