The future of hydropower in Africa

What I write here is controversial. And risk to have my head chopped off quite viciously. But I test the waters again given the 10th anniversary of the World Commission on Dams (WCD).

The comments are a result that the debate needs to be revisited and the frustration for being held hostage to the dominance of selective views on the above subject.

Ever since the World Commission on Dams report there has been some reluctance to reopen the canvass on hydropower as a source of clean and cheap energy.

It has sort of become a taboo topic. It has all the feeling of high church stuff where you can’t really say anything because it would be construed as blasphemy.

Vocal voices have had a tight grip over public opinion and how to view and even make moral choices. Their concerns are legitimate but often abstraction of issues from their complex realities that can have serious consequences for other peoples’ lives.

Africans often find themselves without the ability to influence these public debates because they rarely get the opportunity to be aired in developed economies’ media and halls of power.

The argument being proffered is that hydro-projects should never be built because of the environmental harm they cause and their negative social impacts. The emphasis on ‘never’ suppresses the prospects for debate and pragmatic options where other options would be costly.

There are some truths in what is being said but often the arguments are pitched mercilessly for a specific interest and agenda without contextualising these options against other challenges and options that need to be taken into account.

There are always difficult choices that must be made if progress is to be had in tackling Africa’s developmental backlog.

Their portrayal of issues has real life consequences – they affect the future options for Africans and – dare I say – also standards of living, livelihood choices and lives. They delay development and these delays can increase susceptibility to disease and improvements in income.

In the bigger picture of things, what may seem harmful may actually be the better cure where other options are either very constrained or simply unfathomable.

Some of these things have to be weighed up against other unpalatable options like nuclear and coal – at least for South Africa.

Non-hydro renewables are often not the cheapest options and high cost of electricity may benefit only a few – usually the elite. They in turn enhance their economic privileges and often their political and economic grip over the general populace which is poorer.

In a rather obscene twist, the heavy lobbying against hydro seems only to play into the hands of coal, nuclear lobbyist and even the commercial interest of developed economies seeking to milk new markets for non-hydro renewables.

Certain parts of Africa are well endowed with good perennial water resources. Some of this availability offers better solutions in the longer-term and yes they will have some social and environmental costs.

Small and large hydro projects have to be weighed against what it would cost to build alternatives. Regional hydro development, for instance, may be a much better option for South African and Southern African needs than building more nuclear and coal-fired power stations.

The Congo Basin and the Grand Inga project come to mind. There are also others of much smaller scale dotted across the eastern and western parts of Africa also holding great potential.

Grand Inga for instance can easily provide for almost all of Africa’s immediate needs supplemented by other renewables – estimated capacity is between 40-60GW.

Grand Inga is still a dream and has never gotten off the ground because of political insecurity in the DRC, and there have been problems with the mobilisation of finance, but other hydro-projects are taking place like Bujagali in Uganda.

Hydropower requires dams to be built. Dams involve the displacement and resettlement of people. Displacement itself is not unique to dams. They happen with every large public or private investment.

Think of roads, new mines, large trans-frontier protected areas, bridges, new cities, large agricultural projects and rail-transport. You don’t see protestors pitching tents on so many numerous infrastructure projects happening in Africa at present or anywhere else.

This uprooting can be traumatic and devastate livelihoods. But countries also depend on energy for their prosperity and the greater the urbanisation of the African populace – which is witnessing the fastest unplanned rate of urbanisation. So the demand for affordable and reliable energy will grow, especially electricity.

Africa needs to resolve its power problems cheaply if she is to meet the growing needs of its populace. Affordable energy will also save lives, bring higher standards of living and enhance economic opportunity.

These collective benefits have to be weighed against the displacement of some. Those who are displaced should be compensated properly and at least not be left off worse than they are at present. The debate is fundamentally about public interests and the larger good that can be accomplished.

Rather make these unpalatable choices now than later where the losses could be graver or costlier.

But, of course there is the philosophical flipside: we could have a more happier world, only if, and only if the genie of developmentalism could be placed back in its bottle.

Say what you may about Edison’s invention of the light-bulb and the grid, it has led to a universal desire to emulate what other developed economies have done to bring about better living standards and welfare for their economies.

There is that stark reality when you look at a map of Africa from a satellite’s view in the night sky what you see is total darkness with only few areas of Africa showing a criss-cross of yellow specks of light in very specific and select geographic areas in the north and south of the African continent.

Look at Europe and you only see yellow dominate with specks of black. There is no more visible symbol of development and underdevelopment than the contrast between the bright lights that shine in Europe and the darkness that covers over a great spread on the continent of Africa.

The link between the lack of power and under-development all revolves around access to energy.

Development is a pandora’s box – once you have opened it you can’t really stop it and the right to morally exclude others is not an option anymore. The genie is already out of the bottle.

What should not be accepted is rapacious developmentalism like the developed economies in general have pursued.

These have had both seen and unseen consequences. This developmentalism is driven by the world’s insatiable appetite for more and more consumption. Rapacious consumption also drives demand for resources in Africa.

We should all work to challenge the prevailing growth without constraint paradigm because it would somewhat obviate the need for more power and only ensure the development of power driven by real needs of the populace not needs imported because of consumption demand outside of Africa.

This seemingly never-ending treadmill is the alter-face of the current model of development spreading mimetically around the world as poorer countries seek to creep out of the doldrums of their poverty.

Here, we all have the moral responsibility to guard against this excess.
The demand for energy is followed by the demand for resources. Consumption does costs lives, if you didn’t, think hard again. All of this involves the displacement of people and ravaging of nature.

Think of all the indigenous people either wiped out or displaced in the name of development and civilization. This hasn’t stopped. Think of Aceh in Indonesia, the years of terror imposed on the East Timorese for the oil and gas to feed the needs of developed economies, what about the indigenous people of the Americas, Australia and so the list goes on.

This is all the consequence of modern developmentalism.

The main point here is that critiquing hydropower on one spectrum does not absolve us from the larger moral challenge of how we deal with the current paradigm of developmentalism gorging on the earth and also impoverishing the most marginalised of communities.

It would seem that the northern world, and now the emerging economies, want to enjoy their consumptive lifestyles which only entrenches this vicious cycle of developmentalism and disgorging of the earth but selectively procuring sustainability benefits where it costs them little but costs others more.

If, there is to be a critique it is our very way of living. Our crass materialism is at the heart of it all.

But even within this developmentalist paradigm there are basic needs to be met besides the supra-ordinary needs driven by classes who bathe in excess and the exploits of privilege that new wealth confers upon them.

These have to be met in some way and have to be done in the most affordable manner. If, hydropower is crucial to drive down overall longer term electricity costs its social and economic merits must be given a serious consideration compared to the environmental and selective social impacts.

There is no doubt dams have an impact but the World Commission on Dams did not suggest we stop building them except that we must take greater precaution on how we account for the environmental, economic and social impacts. The report’s recommendations and guidelines ought to lead to situations where there should be an improvement in things.

Just because Dams are prone to corruption does not obviate their need. All large infrastructure projects are prone to corruption – bridges, roads, coal-fired power stations nuclear, and even non-hydro renewables.

We must be careful in lumping extenuating factors together as the reasons why some things cannot be done. The failure of governance in general makes all large infrastructure projects prone to corruption but these things can be mitigated.

The question is whether they are the best solution compared to other options and that is what matters? It may be true that in some cases large hydro projects have too high a cost that they should be a no-go, but in saying that is that true for all hydro-projects? If, large hydro-projects are a no-go does it mean we must also say no to less damaging small-hydro initiatives?

Are the arguments being made not too generalised? Is, it really true, one may retort, that all hydro projects are equally damaging and will be viewed negatively by communities even if they didn’t relocate and if the relocation actually enhanced opportunities they would not say yes?

Are the opponents really saying they have done the thorough job having looked at every hydro opportunity and have done the no-go test or the yes-go test of every case? Or are they taking the worst case and saying it is true for all? Would this not be somewhat dishonest by taking the particular and making it into the general?

Do we really have to say no to everything – coal, nuclear, gas, oil and now hydro? Can we not pick the lesser of the evils? Saying no for everything itself can be moral hazard - are we sure we are not endangering lives by having faith in the word ‘never’ shall be never?

Are we not really stuck that we may have to choose some evils over others until we get the world to behave better by changing the root cause rather than the symptom?

The challenge lies not in preaching blue-sky morals but in recognising the tough choices ahead and be willing to accept every trade-off has moral consequences. What is required is practical reason not just abstract reasoning.

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* Saliem Fakir is an independent writer based in Cape Town.
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