EBRD overdue reforms: case studies

This week we are travelling to the EBRD annual meeting to present several cases from the ground where the bank’s lending is harming people and nature.

The Bank’s policies, meant to safeguard environment, climate change commitments, democracy and the rule of law, will be in the spotlight this week, as the bank discusses reviews to its energy, public information and environmental and social policies.

In the Balkans, the bank’s energy portfolio is jeopardising both the environment and the climate. A recent Bankwatch study finds that the EBRD is the biggest known hydropower financier in the region, having supported a total of 61 plants with EUR 126 million, 29 of them inside protected areasor internationally recognised biodiversity hotspots.

What’s more, a loan to Serbia’s state energy company, which was intended to help it improve its environmental and social performance, is being used instead to fund ambitious plans for burning more coal and expanding its coal mining. We filed a complaint this week with the bank’s grievance mechanism to bring attention to this policy breach.

In the EU’s neighbourhood, the bank is funding rights abuses in both Georgia and Ukraine. The billion dollar Nenskra dam is a flashpoint of conflict for indigenous communities resisting the project in the country’s Caucasus mountains.

Industrial agriculture in Ukraine is pushing small landholders to the brink, while the monolith behind the plans continues its tactics of repression and intimidation.

Follow the conversation about the meetings on the bank’s official hashtag #EBRDam