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Communities Under Siege: New Report Reveals World Bank Failures in Safeguard Compliance and Human Rights Oversight in Tanzania

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1 year ago

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Villagers living in the shadow of Ruaha National Park (RUNAPA) are under siege from a rogue –World Bank-funded paramilitary ranger force. Accountability Now – Tanzanian Communities Shattered by World Bank-funded Tourism Project, a new Oakland Institute report, shines a spotlight on the human toll of the Bank’s ongoing failure to correct the dire crisis it has created.

As previously exposed by the Institute, the Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth (REGROW) project enabled the violent expansion of RUNAPA in Tanzania, resulting in grave human rights abuses, devastation of livelihoods, and planned widespread evictions. These damning findings were confirmed by the Bank’s own Inspection Panel in its September 2024 investigation report. Accountability Now details the severely delayed and deficient action taken by the Bank in response to the blatant violation of its safeguards, which has allowed the cycle of violence and suffering to persist.

“This report is not only a scathing indictment of the Bank’s irresponsible financing and mishandling of the case, but also of the institution’s absence of accountability given its failure to correct its wrongs at every step. The Bank’s management admitted its responsibility for enabling this crisis – and yet, it has turned its back on villagers as human rights abuses and crippling livelihood restrictions continue unabated,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute.

The report documents how the Bank’s funding allowed the government to double the size of RUNAPA by over one million hectares through Government Notice 754 in October 2023 without the consent of those living on this land. This placed over 84,000 people from at least 28 villages at the risk of imminent eviction and resulted in over US$70 million of economic losses for farmers and pastoralists – suffering compounded by killings and violence at the hands of rangers funded by the Bank.

Between 2017-2024, the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) rangers were equipped and emboldened by the World Bank, enabling the agency to carry out a brutal campaign against local residents. Communities have endured extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and sustained economic hardship – made possible by the Bank’s lack of oversight.

The World Bank-financed REGROW project was officially cancelled on November 6, 2024. On April 1, 2025, the Bank’s Board of Directors approved an Action Plan (MAP) to address the findings of the Inspection Panel’s investigation into the project. Instead of remedying the harms identified by the Panel and responding to the demands of the impacted communities, the MAP chose to narrowly focus on alternative livelihoods and accepted the government’s dubious promise that villages consumed by the park would not be resettled and residents could continue grazing, fishing, and farming.

Barely a month later, on April 26, 2025, 27-year-old fisherman Hamprey Mhaki disappeared after being shot by rangers in the Ihefu Basin. On May 7, rangers opened fire on herders in Iyala village, killing 20-year-old Kulwa Igembe, and seizing over 1,000 cattle in another devastating economic blow to herders.

The World Bank made a commitment to work with the Tanzanian government to “support communities in and around RUNAPA in an effort to balance conservation and development, including reducing incidences of conflict and violence in the Park and providing alternative livelihoods.” The latest killings, cattle seizures, and farming restrictions, expose the hollowness of the Bank’s commitment. Several villages have been instructed to relocate – directly contradicting the government’s prior assurances. Though it claims to be supervising the implementation of the MAP, the Bank’s management has entrusted the very government responsible for the violence to investigate it.

“If the core promise to allow daily life to resume for the villagers is not honored, their very survival is at risk. Impacted communities expected the Bank to supervise the MAP. They are appalled by the Bank’s response that the perpetrators of violence will provide them with justice. Given the Tanzanian government’s horrific record of human rights abuses, this is akin to letting the fox guard the henhouse,” Mittal concluded.

The time to deliver redress is long overdue. One impacted villager said, “We are crying for our lands…let us be free. We don’t want to leave and the World Bank should stop the government from taking our lands. Our suffering is directly because of the Bank. Let us be free.”

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

Related posts:

Campaign Victory: World Bank Suspends Funding for REGROW, a Conservation Project Responsible for Evictions & Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania World Bank Fails to Remedy Harms it Caused in Tanzania, Despite a Scathing Investigation by its Inspection Panel The World Bank Must Be Held Accountable for Harm Inflicted on Tanzanian Communities by Tourism Project World Bank Project Cancelled in a Landmark Victory for Tanzanian Villagers World Bank-Funded TANAPA Rangers Murder Two Villagers in Ruaha National Park

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The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South

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7 days ago

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August 4, 2026

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By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.

We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.

Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.

Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.

And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.

Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com

Source: oaklandinstitute.org/

Related posts:

Rush: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet Experts warn that without Africa’s control over resources and climate financing, the continent faces the risk of entering a new era of “green colonialism”. 30 civil society organizations have written to the World Bank Group demanding to publicly disclose the Africa Energy Approach paper. Africa Climate Summit 2023 Set to Surrender the Continent to Green Colonialism The mothers and daughters of the global south cannot celebrate the World Bank’s 80-year legacy of harm.
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NGO WORK

EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

2 weeks ago

on

July 27, 2026

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EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

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NGO WORK

No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

3 weeks ago

on

July 20, 2026

By

The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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