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