Updates on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Boom Time Blues: Big oil’s gender impacts in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Sakhalin

This new study, based on a field research in April 2006 by Bankwatch and Gender Action, examines the gender impacts of the BTC pipeline project in Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the Sakhalin II oil and gas project on Sakhalin Island.

Bankwatch Mail 29

In this issue: Cohesion or Collision? EU funding and biodiversity * Shell’s Sakhalin project no friend of people or nature * People’s right to know not fully reflected in EIB’s new plans to show * Will the neighbouring countries’ biodiversity be bulldozed by TEN-T extension? * EIB 1996-2006; Evolution of an invisible giant * New Citizen’s Guide for better use of internationally recognised complaint mechanisms * Saaremaa bridge- a crazy Estonian dream * EU waste strategy and public funds must not go up in smoke

Bankwatch Mail 28

In this issue: Forging the future, without faking it * Prostitution, trafficking, and STDs on the rise in EBRD oil projects * The EBRD’s PIP show * Azerbaijan’s oil boom showing troubling signs * Georgia’s economic situation less than rosy * New energy targets don’t tell the whole story * EBRD’s kiss and tell reinvents transition * The memory hole * New Zagreb waste strategy fails to justify incineration

Bankwatch Mail 27

In this issue: Sakhalin fishermen’s struggle for justice * Can the EIB deliver on development? * The memory hole * Scraping the bottom of the end-of-pipe barrel * Social issues SOS from EBRD Environmental Department * Time to wake up from South-East Europe’s pipeline dreams * Nukes and cronies in the Balkans * Two or three Americans: Wolfowitz and his Republican appointees * World Bank helping to tarnish jewels of Polish nature * EIB in the South. In whose interest? * We will not be moved * EU funds in central and eastern Europe: cohesion or collision?

BTC Pipeline – An IFI Recipe for Increasing Poverty

Report reveals the real impacts of BP’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline and catalogues the Georgian people’s unfulfilled hopes of increased welfare and development arising from BP’s billion dollar project, hopes which have been fuelled by project backers the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Bankwatch Mail 24

In this EBRD monothematic issue: EBRD coughs up for labour rights abuser * Winds of change at the EBRD? * Energy cross roads – it´s make up your mind time for the EBRD * Are the IFIs responsible for the Tulip Revolution? * Sustainable transport: DELAYS AHEAD * Baku Ceyhan documentary wins audience prize at international human rights film festival * Rosia Montana campaigner wins 2005 ‘Environmental Nobel’ * Clean energy bankable home and away

Bankwatch mail 23

In this issue: Sakhalin II hots up * EBRD: It´s time to combat climate change * Extracting benefits: moving beyond voluntary revenue transparency * EU funds: Quantity and quality must go together * Kresna victory: Sofia rapped over Bern Convention breaches * New Bulgarian coalition formed to optimise Structural funds for 2007-2013 * DOE-no! Another pointless mega-project * EBRD transport policy: How the transition countries can escape the “transit” ghetto * It´s a funny old game! * Banca Intesa pulls out of BTC * The Memory Hole

Bankwatch Mail 20

In this EBRD monothematic issue: Energy but not for Sakhalin * EBRD takes action on Uzbek human rights* EBRD must make “publish what you pay” stick * K2R4: the never-ending story * The EBRD and Smithfield Foods: Polish pig farmers stuck in the middle * Filling the EBRD’s natural resources and energy policies void * European Parliament boosts the MDBs renewables debate * The green alternative for Georgia: an interview with Manana Kochladze

Georgians demand action to save their homes from oil pipeline. Official complaint to IFC reveals shocking BTC negligence

Residents of Rustavi, Georgia’s third city, have today submitted an official complaint to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) concerning the potentially disastrous construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline only 250 metres from a settlement of high-rise buildings. [1] The residents are taking this step following a prolonged period of uncertainty for them and their homes, a lack of information and response from officials in Georgia and violent intimidation from the regional police force.

Official complaint to the IFC’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman of Rustavi residents concerning the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Main Oil Export pipeline project