Words and Ideas: Commitment, Continuity and Irreversibility 149protests and adverse publicity have increasingly combined to discourage lenders
and donors from supporting big projects that displace many people.
The Sardar Sarovar Dam in India, and the Narmada River project of which it
was a part, is a case in point. It developed into a high-profile saga with dramatic
civil disobedience. The Indian Central and State Governments failed to meet
World Bank requirements for compensation and resettlement of the people who
were to be displaced. When a distinguished international panel laid bare misinfor-
mation and abuse (Morse and Berger, 1992), the World Bank withdrew its sup-
port. The Indian Government pressed ahead on its own, facing a long and
high-profile campaign of protest led by Medha Patkar and supported by the novel-
ist and activist Arundhati Roy (Roy, 2002).
Other withdrawals of international aid followed for other dams. The UK gov-
ernment backed off from supporting the Pergau Dam in Malaysia when the World
Development Movement brought a case against it and a UK court ruled that it was
illegal. In 2001, in the face of strong criticism, it also withdrew support from the
Ilisu Dam in Turkey, which would have displaced a large Kurdish population and
inundated historical sites. Meanwhile, the World Commission on Dams (WCD,
2000; Imhof et al, 2002) set new standards for inclusiveness and consultation, hav-
ing among its members both Medha Patkar, who as an activist had been on hunger
strikes in protest against the Narmada project, and Goran Lindahl, the chief exec-
utive of one of the world’s largest engineering firms (Dubash et al, 2001, p1). The
WCD’s remarkable consensus report presents a new policy framework that gives
prominence to the rights of people adversely affected by dams (WCD, 2000,
p240ff ).
In this new climate, international funders, though less so governments (as
India’s Narmada and China’s Three Gorges projects illustrate) have become more
circumspect in keeping open options for exit from such projects. With the earlier
settlement schemes in Africa, irreversibility of commitment was linked to political
and moral responsibility to those who had been settled. After a phase of neglect,
such obligations are now again more extensively recognized and accepted. Com-
mitments have become more public and open to scrutiny, more frequently debated
and less firm. High-profile opposition has made it easier for funders to withdraw
support. The irreversibility found in earlier projects is now less common because
of greater awareness of the consequences of displacement and the opposition that
new projects provoke.
Commitment, continuity and creativity
Changes in commitment can be understood in the context of the well-recognized
changes in development policies and practices of both national governments and
aid agencies.
To summarize these in broad brush terms, during the 1950s and 1960s, infra-
structure projects were prominent – for example, industrial plants, harbours, roads,
railways, telecommunications, airports and irrigation projects. The 1970s became