West Bank water extraction project to sacrifice long-term environmental sustainability in the region for short-term political gains

According to an independent study to be released next Monday in Brussels, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending 30 Million Euro to co-finance a water extraction scheme in the West Bank that will further contribute to the irreversible drawdown of an Aquifer situated exclusively under the Palestine Authority territory.

Although the EIB claims that the investment will provide adequate drinking water for up to 350.000 Palestinians in the southern part of the West Bank, in fact the longer-term consequences have not been taken properly into account. The study warns against the EIB and other western donor agencies using scarce Palestinian water resources in the interest of delivering political results to support the faltering peace process in the Middle East. Given the importance of sustainable water extraction and distribution for a lasting peace in the region, it calls upon the EIB to halt drilling production wells and calls for a review of the project.

According to the study’s co-author, Gert de Bruijne of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, the EIB and the Palestinian Water Authority were aware of the scarce resources in the so-called West Bank Eastern Aquifer but have not done enough to monitor the aquifer’s capacity and the consequences of increased water exploitation:

"An adequate number of wells to monitor the capacity of the aquifer should be constructed before rushing ahead with additional pumping. Sewage systems to deal with the increased flows of waste water should be constructed in parallel and not at some undefined later stage as the EIB currently presumes. We are also faced with a situation where the local communities impacted by the project have not been informed and consulted about their opinion. None of this crucial work has been done." Said De Bruijne.

"We are now confronted with the prospect of having exhausted the aquifer’s water resources even before the loan to the EIB is repaid, there is the additional serious risk of a contamination of the aquifer"

"We urgently need investment in the water sector, but the lending rush of western donors is an obstacle rather than a help. You do not help the peace process but create disillusion by promising things that you know you cannot deliver sustainably over time", de Bruijne concludes.

For Magda Stoczkiewicz of CEE Bankwatch Network, an NGO involved in an on-going international campaign to reform the EIB, the case of the Bank’s Palestine water investment is symptomatic for a deep rooted problem in EIB operations: 

"The EIB might have the best intentions in their lending projects which support development, but the secretive behaviour of the Bank prevents its staff from tapping into the immense knowledge of locally impacted communities and the experience of NGOs operating in these fields. If the Bank would adopt a participatory information policy such disasters as the one looming in the Palestine water project could be prevented and projects corrected at an early stage of the project cycle."

Even the European Parliament, in its statement approved this week on the EIB Annual Report 1999, complains of not being informed sufficiently in order to guarantee that the EIB is performing in accordance with the Unions policy goals and social and environmental standards.

The study on the EIB Palestine water project will be released Monday, 5. February, 11-13 h, in a conference taking place in the European Parliament, Room A1E201. For further information please contact Friends of the Earth Europe, tel: (02) 5420188.

The co-author of the study, Gert de Bruijne will be present and available for interviews on Monday, 5. February, 14:30 – 16:00 h, under the number in Brussels: (02) 5420188