As World Bank Holds Annual Meetings, 84,000 Tanzanians Call for Justice

Oakland, CA – As the World Bank convenes its Annual Meetings in Thailand this week, the accountability of the institution is entirely omitted from the agenda. Yet, its lack of accountability to the millions of people displaced or harmed by its programs around the world has never been more appalling.

The Bank claims that recent 2026 reforms would strengthen its accountability mechanism, but the facts show a total disregard for the devastation it has caused. In Tanzania, it has failed to act on damning findings from its own Inspection Panel – whose investigation detailed systemic violations of its own Operating Procedures and a “critical failure” in project planning and supervision, leaving local villagers to continue bearing the brunt of harsh, unmitigated serious harms.

Between 2017-2024, the World Bank poured over US$100 million into REGROW, doubling the size of Ruaha National Park in Southern Tanzania and funding the paramilitary park rangers (TANAPA) implicated in egregious human rights abuses – including killings and forced disappearances. Following an independent investigation, the project was officially cancelled.

“The park expansion effectively criminalized over 84,000 people on their own land, stripping them of their livelihoods by barring essential farming and grazing. The Bank’s REGROW initiative turned poor villagers into targets for park rangers. Despite clear evidence that the devastation it unleashed continues today, the Bank has completely failed to provide redress, compensate or support the communities whose lives it upended,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute, who represented villagers in their complaint to the Inspection panel.

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In April 2025, ignoring community demands for reparations and the return of land, the Board approved a largely insufficient and inadequate Management Action Plan (MAP). On September 4, 2026, the Bank officially “closed” the REGROW case after deeming all actions in the MAP had been completed.

“The World Bank has destroyed our lives. Since the project started, rangers have killed or disappeared 18 of us. We are banned from farming our lands and grazing our livestock. Thousands of our cattle were confiscated. We are still waiting for justice and reparations for our losses. How can the World Bank walk away after being found responsible for this catastrophe?” said a local villager who filed the initial complaint.

Today, despite the Bank’s assertions that livelihoods could resume, many farmers remain barred from their fields, and pastoralists face continuous threats and fines for grazing cattle. The international spotlight that the Institute put on the dire situation has brought a halt to fatal shootings by TANAPA rangers since May 2025 – a grim baseline for “progress” from a paramilitary force that has terrorized communities since the Bank bolstered their capacity. The families of those murdered by TANAPA, including 27-year-old Hamprey Mhaki and 20-year-old Kulwa Igembe, continue to be denied justice.

“The Inspection Panel presented undeniable evidence of the Bank’s wrongdoings, yet the Bank’s Board and senior management refused to take responsibility. Affected communities took monumental personal and collective risks to expose these abuses, offering the Bank every opportunity to correct course. Instead, management turned its back on the very people it harmed – leaving a permanent stain on the institution’s credibility. The Oakland Institute will continue to stand with communities in their fight for justice,” concluded Mittal.

The World Bank’s expanding accountability crisis is further deepened by its decision to join the Trump-established Board of Peace (BoP) for Gaza, proactively enabling impunity for crimes against humanity and genocide. By joining the BoP, the Bank directly violates its own mandate and policies, international humanitarian law and decades of UN General Assembly Resolutions. Furthermore, the move defies provisional orders and advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and rulings from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Source: oaklandinstitute.org