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A walk on the wild side

Almost every person I’ve mentioned Belgrade to in the last few months has said the same thing: “they’ve dug up half the roads in the city” and “the public transport has got worse and worse.”

One of the roads being dug up is the so-called Green Boulevard, a 3 km stretch of road comprising the Kraljice Marije, 27. Marta, Dzordza Vasingtona (George Washington) and Cara Dusana streets. The project is taking place under the auspices of the EBRD’s Green Cities Framework, aimed at making urban areas more liveable in the bank’s region of operations. 

Now the Green Boulevard project has entered the construction phase and has become notorious among Belgrade residents due to its disruptive impacts, noise, dust pollution and poor construction practices. 

This has been particularly noticeable due to the extremely bad air pollution which has plagued Belgrade this autumn.

During a recent visit to Belgrade, we decided to take a look at this famous Green Boulevard to see what everyone is talking about. Sure enough, there was plenty to see.

Starting at the crossroads between George Washington Street and Despot Stefan Boulevard, we immediately encountered a safety hazard. There is no alternative routing for pedestrians set up, so they either have to walk in the road to cross George Washington Street, a busy road in the city centre, or cross the construction site through an open section of fence on the northern side.

Then, heading south, we encountered unfenced or inadequately fenced holes in the road, like the one in the gallery (click on the dots to scroll through).

Southern side – pedestrians have to walk in the road to cross George Washington Street

Northern side – pedestrians either walk in the road or cross the building site through a hole in the fence

Crossroads of Takovska and George Washington Street

In George Washington Street between Palmotićeva and Takovska there is hardly any pedestrian access to this section of the street at all, and certainly no disabled access

In some places it is hard even for two pedestrians to squeeze past one another. It looks like the emergency services can’t access this part of the road at all at the moment

The broken front step of a bakery which has closed temporarily due to the construction

Pedestrian walks on the sidewalk near the corner of Kraljica Marija and Karnegijev streets, next to the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy

Pedestrians cross Kraljica Marija’s construction site

In George Washington Street between Palmotićeva and Takovska there is hardly any pedestrian access to this section of the street at all, and certainly no disabled access. Going southwards on George Washington Street, by the junction with Palmotićeva, pedestrians have to cross over the building site to the western side of the road because the eastern pavement is inside the building site and has been dug up. We were lucky to be there on a sunny day, not after rain.

Further southwards, the only remaining pavement – bearing in mind that the other side of the street is off-limits to pedestrians, is narrow and uneven – down to around 60-70 cm in some places. Pushchairs can hardly pass through, and wheelchairs don’t stand a chance.

In some places it is hard even for two pedestrians to squeeze past one another. It looks like the emergency services can’t access this part of the road at all at the moment.

Continuing up the street, where George Washington becomes Kraljica Marija, walking conditions remain perilous on the sidewalk and exposed dust on the ground and in the air increases.

Even though construction on this portion of the street began earlier, during the summer, it was not completed before construction began further down on the street. This has contributed, perhaps unnecessarily, to the traffic. 

In addition, the construction site itself is open for pedestrians in some parts of Kraljica Marija. Pedestrians freely walk through the site in this location near the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – a reasonable action when the nearest pedestrian crossings and only safe way to get to the other side of the street are several blocks away in either direction.  

Streets for Cyclists have already attempted to secure improvements in this project through a problem-solving initiative at the EBRD’s Project Complaint Mechanism, which would have entailed mediation with the project promoter to reach agreement on how to proceed. But this was scuppered by the fact that the City of Belgrade didn’t even bother to answer the PCM’s letters.

This kind of negligent attitude is clearly reflected in the way the works have been set up. The EBRD’s Environmental and Social Policy is quite weak on issues connected to the environmental sustainability of transport projects, but it has several provisions on community health and safety, whose application is very hard to spot in this project.

The Green Boulevard is in danger of becoming a reputational headache for the EBRD. As the Bank ramps up its Green Cities programme, such visible urban projects will increase public scrutiny of its activities. It is therefore very much in the EBRD’s interest to take prompt action to improve this project, to put on hold the preparation of the Belgrade GCAP until the City shows preparedness to properly implement projects and to ensure it is able to properly enforce its standards in future projects.

Kenyan village burned down weeks after EIB withdraws from energy project planned at the same place

The 70MW energy project, envisaged as the first stage of a larger geothermal power plant is developed by the Akiira Geothermal Limited company and has been enjoying the backing of multiple European and American financiers.

Nevertheless, Bankwatch, the Narasha Community Development Group, independent researcher and scholar Dr Lotte Hughes as well as the International Accountability Project have been voicing concerns about the project and its environmental and social impacts.

Not least, it was the 47 families that make up the Lorropil community who would be directly affected by the Akiira project planned on the very same land they have been living on. And yet, the company has failed to engage the community in any meaningful way beyond ordering them to vacate the land.

In June, following a site visit and meetings with members of the local community, Bankwatch urged the EIB to look into the matter and ensure its client, Akiira Geothermal Limite, meets the bank’s requirements on stakeholder engagement.

On October 10th, the EIB informed Bankwatch it had decided to stop the appraisal of the project, “due to the fact that the EIB has seen no progress on the Akiira Geothermal Expansion project over the past 3 years”.

“The EIB has taken all the allegations extremely seriously and will make every effort to ensure that the EIB’s Environmental and Social Standards are respected throughout all of its projects,” the message from the bank stated. “The EIB informed the Akiira project sponsors that should any unlawful evictions have taken place, the project would have become ineligible for EIB financing.”

In a statement posted on Centrum’s website two weeks later, Akiira argued “no social nor environmental concerns have been brought to our attention as a result of our exploratory drilling activity.” The statement stands in contrast to the fact that concerns had been raised with the company by the International Accountability Project.

Local community brutally displaced

Despite the grave concerns over the adverse impacts on the Lorropil community, Akiira Geothermal remains intent to go ahead with the controversial project at any cost.

On October 30th, the Kenya News Agency reported that “the Nakuru County Commissioner Erastus Mbui Mwenda has ordered the arrest of bogus squatters who prey on land set aside for [the Akiira project].”

For Commissioner Mewnda, the village of Lorropil was simply part of “a trend where individuals erect temporary structures on land meant for mega projects and wait for compensation.”

It is unclear how long exactly the community has resided in this site, but in no way does it justify the violent and ongoing attack on them.

Moreover, the Commissioner’s order itself is in breach of Kenya’s Land Act which stipulates such order should be publicly announced in writing at least three months in advance. It was also in violation of the EIB’s social standards, which require resettlement assistance is provided in such cases, even for informal occupants of the land.

The families have already been threatened in June, when representatives of the company told residents they have just days to move away.

On the morning of November 3rd these threats materialized when the residents’ houses were set on fire, displacing the community in its entirety.

The day after the village was burnt to the ground, Bankwatch received reports that police arrived to the site to chase the residents away. The violent police action continued over the following days. The families were chased away, and their clothes and food were burnt.

The villagers, who claim to be descendants of the workers on the former colonial Kedong ranch at the same site, have already been living in abject conditions, in makeshift houses and without access to water.

Now, with nowhere to go, the community, and especially children, were left with no shelter and food. On request of local activists, Red Cross later came to provide emergency assistance.

International enablers urged to act

Akiira Geothermal Limited, domiciled in Mauritius, is owned by the Danish firm Frontier Energy, the American companies Ram Energy and Marine Power and the Nairobi-based Centum Investment Company..

The project is financially supported by the US government’s Power Africa programme as well as with European public money through the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund of Funds (GEEREF), which is managed by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB was also considering a EUR 155 million loan for the project.

The EIB has a long history financing geothermal energy in Kenya. The controversial Olkaria project, co-financed by the EIB, involved the uprooting of an indigenous Maasai community.

In its October 10 message to Bankwatch, the bank said it had decided to examine the situation in Lorropil “with a view to determine whether they should be considered project affected people under the Olkaria project currently being financed by the EIB.”

The situation on the ground has been fast deteriorating and Bankwatch has been reaching out to all of Akiira’s shareholders and financial backers to intervene immediately. They need to make clear that displacing communities is not acceptable, and help the villagers restore their livelihoods.

Calls for climate action grow louder throughout central eastern Europe

At larger protests, such as those in Poland, turnout amounted to around 30,000 protestors while protests like those in Kosovo had a turnout of approximately 200.

Bankwatchers and Bankwatch member groups attended many of the events across the region – in Ukraine, Latvia, Czechia, Poland, North Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, Estonia and Slovakia – (check out our Twitter dispatches) and ahead of the global strike, Bankwatch has called on staff at the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to join this historical mobilization to call for a transformation of these financial institutions.

 

Many of the protests in central and eastern Europe had highlighted the local perspectives about the urgent need for an energy transition.

In Romania, attitudes towards the climate crisis are changing fast. According to Bankwatch’s energy coordinator Ioana Ciuta who attended the Bucharest rally, youth leaders said that at their first strike, back in March, there had been only five of them. Half a year later, this number grew to around 1,000 protestors, and participants didn’t just come from the capital Bucharest, but from major cities throughout Romania such as Bacau, Cosntanta, and Brasov.  “The Ministry of Environment, nobody’s ministry!” was the participants’ chant of choice as they were fenced in outside of the National Library of Romania.

An unexpectedly large crowd gathered in Bratislava, Slovakia, as nearly 5,000 people showed up. This comes after the Slovak President had come out in support of the climate strikes and the Prime Minister declared that Slovakia was ready to take action emphasizing the importance of youth demands for climate justice. Since the strike, Slovakia has become the newest member of the Power Past Coal Alliance, pledging to phase out coal by the year 2023.

The Hungarian government also announced plans to be coal-free by the year 2030. In Hungary, climate strikes boasted an attendance of about 6,000 – with solid representation from MTVSZ, Bankwatch’s member group in the country – and protesters in Budapest staged a “die-in” to stress that there is “no future on a dead planet”.

Poland, where coal makes up around 80% of the energy supply, saw some of the largest protests in central Europe, with events in over 60 cities. In Warsaw, participants demanding an end to fossil fuels, and coal in particular, simultaneously called for solidarity with miners. Outside the famous Palace of Science and Culture, protestors chanted “solidarity with miners, but never with mines!”

 

Yet, Polish decision makers have turned a deaf ear to the strikers’ demands, and even climate policy pundits have been quick to dismiss the young protestors; they believe climate policy is too complex for youth and should be left to the experts.

Bankwatch’s national coordinator for Poland Izabela Zygmunt has a different opinion, though: “My takeaway is that we must not let those young people down and put our campaigning expertise and expert knowledge behind them to show to policy makers that they are not making unrealistic or irresponsible demands, but that indeed, what they are asking for is both feasible and necessary,” she says.

“From the point of view of our campaigning, this has actually been an impulse to rethink our asks and check if perhaps we, as the expert climate organisations, are not making too modest demands and being too compromising.”

Living on the edge: waste collection at Mongolia’s landfill rehabilitation project

It is impossible to visit the city and not notice the burgeoning ger districts (areas with round, traditional dwellings) mushrooming on the city’s outskirts, where migrants are relocating to fenced plots oftentimes with extended families.

As the pace of development quickens, so too does the need to provide adequate services to the city’s residents, and to do so in a way that is sustainable for future generations. For these reasons, Ulaanbaatar is one of several Green Cities across the world, an initiative launched by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development together with other international donors and funds. 

The Green Cities programme aims to address the most urgent infrastructure challenges facing growing urban areas in developing countries in a way that does not jeopardise a country’s ability to meet sustainability targets and fight against climate change.

One such project launched by the bank aims to bring an outdated landfill up to EU standards. While the goals of the project are laudable, many challenges persist. Because of the dire situation with Ulaanbaatar’s municipal waste infrastructure, the project received an exemption from adhering to EBRD policies and thus EU standards. In addition, safeguards are needed for the rights of the nearly one hundred or so informal waste collectors who make a living by recycling garbage at the landfill and reselling it to traders.

In the field

In September we visited the Moringin Davaa landfill on the western outskirts of the capital to speak with these collectors and find out more about what they know of the city’s plans and how such plans might impact their already precarious living arrangements.

According to Dolgor of the local NGO ‘Development circle’ – which safeguards the rights of waste collectors across the city’s various landfills – collectors are usually picking a variety of plastic and metals, burning the materials (though no one is concerned or aware about how this might affect a person’s health or air quality) and then selling to intermediary buyers.

Estimates from the approximately twenty collectors we spoke with suggest that they earn between 60 000 and 80 000 MNT per day, or roughly 25 euros. Most have tried some other form of employment but find themselves returning to collecting, which they do together often times with other family members.

Most interviews were held with men, as women at the site felt especially vulnerable and afraid to talk, and in case not wanting to have their photographs taken.

Since he was seven years old, Byambabataar has for the last thirteen years been collecting waste with his mother.

One collector we met is Byambabataar. After he finished school, Byambabataar joined his family in collecting waste. While he tried other jobs, he found that the pay was better in the landfill. As with a common refrain heard elsewhere, he is concerned about the impacts on workers like his mother and the other older collectors. When he learned of the new project, his first thought was of her: 

“There are women 60 years old working here. We are afraid that not everyone will be able to get a job, only a few of the younger people. All of them should be employed, there could be some training programmes or other assistance.”

Another collector Tsendsuren, who had previously worked in a sewing shop, but found that she could earn more money as a waste collector. Tsendsuren too did not know what she would do for a living without waste collection, but said she would hope to have some compensation to move back towards owning her own sewing shop.

Tsendsuren is a retired woman in her fifties who has been working at the landfill for seven years. 

By the policy 

Byambabataar, Tsendsuren and ‘Ujangabaatar’ were hopeful to hear about the participation of the EBRD in the landfill restoration project, because the bank requires its clients to adhere to certain principles and standards for livelihood restoration in the case of economic displacement. This would mean that the city of Ulaanbataar, as a recipient of the loan, would be required to ensure a proper resettlement and compensation for those workers who could no longer carry on their business as usual. From our interviews, It is unclear whether such a framework exists – whilst collectors spoke recently of participating recently in a survey with foreigners, it was not clear who these people were or for what the survey was intended.

The reality is however that this will be a tall task for a city lacking the institutional capacity and ill-equipped to deal with implementing EU standards or even approximation. The local coordinator of the Green Cities programme in Mongolia lamented the fact that although the city had held a series of consultations with a variety of stakeholders about what should be the priorities for the city’s development, officials were seen as too concerned with shifting political winds to implement a programme that would span further than an election cycle (How inclusive the consultations actually were is another point of contention altogether, as several NGOs described not being invited to participate).

The bank has an important role to play in ensuring that its loans are living up to its stated potential. For the livelihoods of these collectors depends on it.

NGOs challenge decision to approve Belgrade incinerator operating subsidies

In a surprising move, last week an article announced that operating subsidies for the planned Belgrade incinerator had been approved. 

Only a week had passed since the Ministry of Environment’s decision to approve the incinerator’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), and the project was supposed to obtain a construction permit and a confirmation on the start of works before applying for subsidies. 

It’s not often that a state institution works with such lightning speed as to issue so many approvals within less than a week, so we started digging to see what had happened.

Construction permit prejudices environmental assessment outcome

It turned out that the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Infrastructure had approved a construction permit for the project back on 16 August, without waiting for the decision on whether the EIA had been approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. This permit was then used to apply for approval for operating subsidies under Serbia’s renewable energy support scheme, which were then approved on 27 September, before the EIA decision was even made. 

Not only did this process seriously prejudice the outcome of the EIA process, but it also meant that Beo Čista Energija’s application for subsidies should not have been approved, as it was incomplete.

Why is an incinerator getting renewable energy subsidies anyway?

As the world becomes more sensitive to the damage caused by plastics and the EU ramps up its efforts to reduce waste, it is baffling to see Serbia approving feed-in tariffs for a waste incinerator, under the guise of renewable energy subsidies. This is clearly destimulating waste prevention and recycling and encouraging Belgrade to burn its trash.

The planned scheme is also, in our opinion, illegal under the Energy Community Treaty, in which Serbia committed to implement the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive by the beginning of 2014. The Directive does allow the incentivisation of energy produced from biomass, and defines biomass as including the biodegradable fraction of industrial and household waste, but it does not allow subsidies for non-biodegradable waste like plastics, let alone the diesel auxiliary fuel that will be used in the incinerator to help with ignition.

However, in the Ministry of Energy and Mining’s decision to approve the incentives, there is no information to suggest that anything less than the entire output of the plant will be supported. Serbian law also allows incentives for “waste-fired power plants”, which are defined very vaguely, but clearly include more than biodegradable waste, which is included separately under “biomass power plants”.

The EU starts learning from its mistakes… and Serbia?  

Within the EU, steps have been taken to try to prevent incentives for burning biodegradable waste crowding out waste prevention and recycling. The new Renewable Energy Directive II, which entered force in 2018, prohibits states from granting support for renewable energy produced from the incineration of waste if the EU’s increasingly strict separate waste collection obligations have not been complied with. 

The whole model of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy has also been replaced with a more cost-efficient model based on auctions and premiums across the EU, and the European Commission has advised Member States to phase out financial support for energy recovery from mixed waste.

Frustratingly, Serbia is once again out of step with EU moves to become a more efficient and sustainable economy, delaying inevitable changes in its renewables subsidies system and supporting a waste management system that is in some ways less progressive than the one it had 30 years ago. 

More frustrating still, it is being supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, and apparently also Austria’s OeEB to do so. Is it really so much to ask that international banks stop supporting projects based on illegal and discredited income models and instead help Serbia move towards a circular economy?

European Commission criticises the EIB’s role as a development bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has for years dedicated around 10% of its lending to operations outside the EU, in particular under its so-called External Lending Mandate (ELM). The ELM is a system under which the EIB benefits from a budgetary guarantee from the EU to support its development operations – set at a level of EUR 32.3 billion for the 2014-2020 period. As such, the European Commission is responsible for ensuring that the EU guarantees are wisely used by the Bank, and that reports are made annually to the European Parliament and Council on the EIB’s performance.

Despite the Commission’s recent evaluation of the EIB gives an overall positive assessment of the soundness of EIB operations, for the first time clear critical lines have emerged on the need to better align the Bank’s activities to the EU development policy objectives. Let’s take a look at the few most important ones:

The EIB needs to raise the bar on Human Rights due diligence

The European Parliament flagged this issue in its latest report on the EIB, just as we did in our Going Abroad report back in 2016 and in a recent briefing: the EIB is responsible for conducting serious due diligence on the Human Rights impacts of the projects it finances. The European Commission has now taken its turn to flag the same weakness in the operations of the EIB, mentioning that “Human Rights due diligence should be an integral part of ELM project preparation“.

In particular, the EC recommends the EIB to integrate in its contracts with clients “clauses enabling to suspend disbursements in case of serious breaches of human rights or environmental and social standards” – something the Bank should have been doing for a long time.

The EIB has begun to acknowledge these calls for improvements on human rights due diligence by starting the work on a guidance note for project promoters regarding stakeholder engagement. Although the Bank consulted civil society organisations on a draft in February – March 2019, there has not been any information on the note since then. Even when it is published, this guidance note doesn’t fulfil the urgent need of proper human rights due diligence on the policy and project level.

The Commission wants to better control EIB operations

Under the procedure set out in Article 19 of the EIB Statute, the Commission issues an opinion on every project in the EIB pipeline, based on a short note produced by the EIB services. Under this procedure, a negative opinion of the Commission is tantamount to a veto for the EIB. A positive opinion means that the project can move ahead and be submitted to the EIB Directors for their approval.

But the Commission’s evaluation demonstrates the current limits of this procedure: the level of information shared by the EIB under the Article 19 procedure is often insufficient and should be enhanced. Hence, the Commission’s efforts to ensure coherence of the EIB activities with EU policies – including on Human Rights – face limitations due to a lack of available information.

In addition, the Commission notes that its monitoring and evaluation on EIB projects is also delicate, as “it is difficult for Commission services to gain insight into their performance other than via external stakeholders, given that reporting on actual results is provided only after project completion and there is no obligation for the EIB to signal implementation problems.” A blunt conclusion drawn by the EC is that the “actual results and impacts of the EU intervention remain largely unknown“.

In this context, we welcome the Commission’s willingness to exert a “stronger policy steer from the EU“, including via the Article 19 procedure and to require more information to the EIB about how it assesses, implements and monitors its projects. Furthermore, we call on the EC to make this whole process more transparent by making its opinions under the Article 19 procedure available to the public, which is not currently the case.

Coherence with EU policies and values is at risk

The Commission acknowledged concerns raised by civil society organisations about the negative impacts of several projects supported under the ELM which lacked compliance with EU wider policies. These concerns related to environmental matters, as well as to human rights issues, including the intimidation of whistle-blowers or citizens expressing critical views (as in the case of the EIB’s highly problematic support for Ukrainian agri-giant MHP), the rights of local landholders or forced resettlements (see the Nepal Power System Expansion Project), inadequate information and consultation of local communities (problems with indigenous peoples status in Nenskra dam in Georgia), and fundamental reservations about EIB financing of infrastructure projects or credit lines in countries with poor human rights track record such as Azerbaijan.

At a time where the design of the post-2020 European financial architecture for development is under heated discussion, this evaluation sends a signal to the EIB: when supported by EU guarantees, financial institutions must adopt a serious do-no-harm policy.

If the EIB is to be serious on its external mandate, it has to deliver on human rights due diligence, better align with the development policy objectives of the EU such as poverty reduction, and act in a more transparent and accountable manner.

As it currently stands, however, the EC’s new report confirms the words of Thomas Wieser, Chair of the High-level Group of Wise Persons on the European financial architecture for development, quoted in Financial Times, when he said that the EIB “lacks the necessary knowledge on development projects.”