On 25 February 2010, the EIB invited Brussels-based civil society organisations (CSOs) to its Annual Briefing on the Bank's 2009 results and its prospects for 2010. EIB's Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive, responsible for the Bank's relations with civil society organisations, chaired the briefing, which was held on the same day as the Bank's Annual News Conference.

Author: mrsite
Keywords: News
Added: February 9, 2010

On the 20th of November 2009 the Dutch NGO Both ENDS organised a Political Cafe in The Hague. In the debate a diverse panel gave their opinion on investments made by the European Investment Bank. This bank invested in a hydro-power dam in Uganda and a paper pulp mill in Brazil. In Both cases the local population and the environment were severely damaged.

In the Committee of the Regions side event, Blogactiv spoke to Simon Brooks, Vice President of the European Investment Bank about the role of cities and local authorities in countering climate change.

How is it that an institution with an explicit mandate to promote development in the global South is financing companies who purposefully weasel out of paying revenues to the world's poorest governments, while extracting their natural resources and disrupting the livelihoods of local communities?

Lilian Ikal Angelei from friends of the lake turkana is talking about Gilgel Gibe III, a hydropower project in Ethiopia financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB).

How does the mining sector work in Africa? Our friends at Counter Balance (http://counterbalance-eib.org) have produced another cartoon in their series on the EIB in the Global South, this time about the impacts of resource extraction in developing countries.

Chima Williams of Environmental Rights Action - Friends of the Earth Nigeria uses the opportunity of the Speaker's Tour on the European Investment Bank and extractive industries to highlight environmental problems - specifically gas flaring - associated with the West African gas pipeline.

he EIB is the largest public lending institution expected to foster development within and outside the European Union. Yet this noble ambition is accompanied by less noble deeds.