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The Power 4 People campaign calls for a fundamental shift in global energy lending to ensure universal access to modern energy for all people in a sustainable and climate-resilient way by 2030. This platform includes the demands for governments and international finance institutions.

Primer Llamada para comunidades amenazadas y afectadas por represas, movimientos sociales, organizaciones civiles, ambientalistas y de derechos humanos para compartir experiencias y construir estrategias conjuntas para la defensa de la vida y nuestros ríos, pueblos, cultura y territorios.

In April of 2013, we sent a letter to the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury signed by 24 international civil society organizations expressing concern over the directions of the World Bank's revision of its Operational Policies (social and environmental safeguards). The letter expressed a need for the World Bank to modernize its risk assessment and management policies to include improved language on cumulative impacts, environmental flows, climate change, downstream impacts, integrated resources management, human rights, and dam safety in its revised safeguards policies. You can read the letter

Official Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) assessments must be posted publicly on the HSAP website, and a 60-day period must be opened to receive public comments. Comments must be posted at this webpage. These are sent to the International Hydropower Association, the managing entity of the HSAP, and are shared with the project developer. However, neither the IHA nor the developer are required to respond to the comments in any way. Below we track public comments made on Official HSAP Assessments, to our knowledge. You can see a list of which Official HSAP Assessments have bee

Summaries of all the decisions made on dam-threatened World Heritage Sites that were discussed at the 37th Session of the World Heritage Committee.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is a public development bank that lends money to African governments and private companies investing in Africa. While the AfDB is a relatively small player compared to the World Bank, its lack of citizen participation and poor system of safeguards has led to projects and policies that harm communities and the environment, waste public funds, or serve the interests of political and economic elites rather than those of the poor. It publicly supported the conclusions of the World Commission on Dams when the WCD report came out in 2000, but has since done little

This four part series of Environmental Dispatches from Patagonia created by film-maker James Q Martin and Rios Libres examines the different aspects of the struggle to protect Patagonia from the destructive HidroAysén project and the potential that exists for a truly sustainable energy future in Chile.

Indigenous communities protest outside the IHA congress on May 22. As leaders of the global hydropower industry gather in Sarawak, Malaysia to promote large dams as a responsible energy solution, local indigenous people have gathered outside to protest the Sarawak government's decision to build 12 large dams on their traditional lands. On May 21-24, the International Hydropower Association (IHA) is holding its biennial world congress in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. The congress showcases the Sarawak state government’s dam-building scheme, which will submerge 2,300 km2 of forests that are hom

Dr. Hu Tao Photo: WRI The Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Environmental Protection's “Guidelines for Environmental Protection in Foreign Investment and Cooperation” provide civil society groups with a new source of leverage when it comes to holding Chinese companies responsible for their environmental and social impacts overseas. International Rivers spoke with Dr. Hu Tao, senior associate at the World Resources Institute and former Senior Environmental Economist at the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Environmental Protection's “Guidelines for Environmental Protection in Foreign Investment and Cooperation” were based on recommendations by the Chinese NGO, Global Environmental Institute (GEI). International Rivers spoke with Mr. Ren Peng, program coordinator for GEI's environmental governance program, on what led to the development of the Guidelines and how NGOs in host countries can use them.