On December 28 2015, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim announced the cancellation of funding to the deeply troubled Uganda Transport Sector Development Project (TSDP), a project BIC’s child rights program has long been raising concerns about. The project cancellation was due to concerns over labor issues, social and environmental concerns, poor project performance, and allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse by contractors.
In a press release on the Bank website, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim stated that:
The multiple failures we’ve seen in this project — on the part of the World Bank, the government of Uganda, and a government contractor – are unacceptable. It is our obligation to properly supervise all investment projects to ensure that the poor and vulnerable are protected in our work. In this case, we did not. I am committed to making sure we do everything in our power – working with other stakeholders – first to fully review the circumstances of this project and then to quickly learn from our and others’ failures so they do not happen again.
BIC’s child rights program had worked with the Ugandan Organization Joy for Children to support affected communities in filing a complaint with the World Bank Inspection Panel. BIC Child Rights Program Manager Elana Berger was quoted in a Financial Times article about the project cancellation:
While the World Bank on Monday sought to portray the move to cancel the project as a case of it trying to deal swiftly with allegations of misconduct, activists said this follows repeated missed warnings.When the bank was first told about the allegations in December last year, staff on the ground in Uganda responded by convening a large community meeting and asking anyone who had been the victim of sexual abuse to raise their hands, said Elana Berger, who worked on the case for the Bank Information Center, a campaign group. When no one raised their hands in the meeting the World Bank staff used that as evidence that the allegations were false, Ms Berger said.
“That is obviously not how you handle something like that, especially when underage girls are involved,” she said.
Read the full Financial Times article here.
View the full BIC and Joy for Children Uganda case study on the Kamwenge–Kabarole Road Construction Project here.