Assessing, mitigating and monitoring environmental risks of large infrastructure projects in foreign financing decisions: the case of OECD-country public financing for large dams in developing countries

Abstract

This article assesses the progress — or otherwise — that has been made in recent years by public financing institutions (PFIs) in the application of environmental impact assessment mitigation and monitoring to large dam projects they finance. The article argues that the key type of PFI for dam finance over the past decades (multilateral development banks) has made more progress in this respect than the second key type of PFI (OECD-country bilateral PFIs). The article concludes that the most important explanations for this finding are differences in co-ordination mechanisms among different PFIs; and diverging interest group pressure on different PFIs.