Western Banks Sell Lao Villagers Down the River

The Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project, currently under construction in Central Laos, is displacing thousands of people from their homes and land, and depriving thousands more of access to fertile rice fields, riverbank vegetable gardens, grazing lands, forests and fisheries. International Rivers and BankTrack have published a report which documents how three private banks that are financing the project – Australia’s ANZ Bank, Belgium’s KBC Bank, and France’s BNP Paribas – are violating their own guidelines and Lao law in supporting the project. 

The banks funding the project have promised that people’s lives will be restored. They must take this responsibility seriously and put people before profits.

The project is an expansion of the existing Theun-Hinboun project, which has dramatically changed water levels downstream, causing massive erosion and flooding which has led to the loss of fertile agricultural land, fruit trees, riverbank gardens, livestock and boats in more than 55 villages. The new project will result in additional flooding and displacement, making life unbearable for many people. One of the villagers in Tha village told International Rivers, “The project company did not appropriately compensate for the existing project and we are already poor. With the expansion project, the company will make us poorer!”

• Read the report, Expanding Failure: An assessment of the Theun-Hinboun Expansion Project’s compliance with Equator Principles and Lao law
• Read the press release that accompanies the report.
• Read a 2007 report, Ruined Rivers, Damaged Lives, which exposes the mounting social and environmental toll of the Theun-Hinboun Hydropower Project in the decade since it was completed.
• Read the reviews of the project’s Resettlement Action Plan and Environmental Impact Assessment conducted in 2008.

More information

• Visit International Rivers’ Theun-Hinboun campaign page.
• Read International Rivers’ report  Power Surge: The Impacts of Rapid Dam Development in Laos (2008).