63837 FEBRUARY 2011 When it Rains, Use an Umbrella: Lessons in High-Risk Infrastructure Communications from ABOUT THE AUTHOR the Bujagali Hydropower Project CHRISTOPHER WALSH is the Communications Officer for the Water and Sanitation When Uganda’s Bujagali Hydropower Project was revived in preparation for Program (www.wsp.org), a global partnership adminis- a December 2007 Board approval, the World Bank, IFC, and the Multilateral tered by the World Bank. He was formerly the communica- Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) were faced with a new potential tions specialist for the energy wave of criticism from civil society, the media, and even member governments, unit in the Africa Regional Vice Presidency of the World Bank, in spite of the fact that the project had meticulously followed World Bank where he was the lead communications specialist for Group economic, environmental, and social safeguard policies. This the Bujagali hydropower Smartlesson describes how active communications, openness, inclusion, and project. confidence helped address critics of the project and spark the beginning of APPROVING MANAGERS the end of the East African country’s chronic blackouts. Jae So, Manager, Water and Sanitation Program (TWIWP) S. Vijay Iyer, Sector Manager, Background despite voices from Ugandans like Edith Energy (AFTEG) Ssempala, then-ambassador to the United Uganda has seen significant growth since States, who said, “Power is at the core of the early 1990s, with its gross domestic every aspect of development.… We product (GDP) increasing from 3.4 percent needed a big power project to really move in 1992 to 9 percent in 2008. With this our development forward.… Some people growth came new challenges, including think that for Africa it’s enough to simply rapidly increasing demand for electricity survive, and we are saying, no, we want to up against a dwindling supply. The develop. We want to move forward as far government took steps to generate more as we can go.”1 power, including approaching the World Bank Group in the late 1990s to support a The anti-Bujagali campaign succeeded in 250 megawatt hydropower project near a garnering significant negative media series of whitewater rapids called Bujagali attention and prompted a World Bank in the town of Jinja. The project would Inspection Panel review of the project. help stabilize Uganda’s energy supply, Meanwhile, AES pulled out because of making room for new household and financial troubles, causing the project to business connections, while also helping stall indefinitely just months after Board to prevent blackouts. The Bank, IFC, and approval. Uganda’s power deficit grew, MIGA gave their support for the run-of- and the country was forced to use river dam in December 2001, working with expensive diesel-fired power generators the project’s private sector sponsor, the to close the gap. Roughly six years later, U.S.-based AES Corporation. Bujagali had found a new private sponsor in Bujagali Energy Limited (BEL), a The project faced significant opposition partnership between Blackstone’s Sithe from two civil society organizations, which Global and the Aga Khan’s Kenya-based claimed that the multimillion-dollar Industrial Promotion Services. The project project would help large industries rather was revived, and the Bank Group showed than poor people and that it would its support for the project through a contribute significantly to climate change. proposed $360 million in loans and These organizations launched a campaign guarantees, which included $130 million pressuring the Bank Group and its in IFC loans to the private project company, executive directors to stop the project, BEL; a partial risk guarantee of up to 1 The Monitor (Uganda; 2001). SMARTLESSONS — FEBRUARY 2011 1 $115 million from the International Development Another major focus was on minimizing the political Association for the project’s commercial lenders; and pressure on the Board caused by the campaign to allow an investment guarantee of up to $115 million from executive directors to make informed and objective MIGA. decisions based on facts. Not only was strong communications about the project good business practice, it enabled the The project team took special care to ensure project team to turn challenges, such as potentially negative sustainability and thoroughly followed and tracked media articles, into opportunities, using that spotlight to adherence to the Bank Group’s economic, environmental, widely share messages about the project’s benefits and and social safeguard policies. development objectives. With the project’s resurrection, the team knew there was a 2) Know, recognize, and communicate a project’s high likelihood of similar action from the same civil society technical attributes to help manage risk. organizations. To manage the potential impact from a storm of negative campaigning, the project team decided a Bujagali was to be a run-of-river dam, which obtains energy comprehensive and active communications strategy would from available stream flow and some short-term storage, have to be developed and executed for the project to at compared to larger storage reservoir dams, which inundate least reach the Board approval stage. They were right. a much wider area and have a larger environmental impact. Following an intense several months of implementing the Also, the project incorporated an environmental offset site communications strategy and regular meetings of the downstream from Bujagali that would be preserved from respective managers of the three teams—IFC, MIGA, and development by the government to offset the Bujagali the World Bank—to ensure smooth coordination dam’s environmental footprint. Furthermore, hydropower throughout the process, the project was not only was a much more environmentally friendly, less carbon- unanimously approved but was also commended by the intensive solution than the diesel-fired power the country Board as a good-practice demonstration of the Bank Group’s was forced to use because it was so lacking in energy. added value and commitment to sound development practice. Here are some critical communications lessons With a high-risk project facing a negative campaign based acquired during the storm. on various development suppositions, it is important to know, recognize, and communicate that a project has Lessons Learned heeded principles of sustainability and demonstrated its compliance with Bank Group economic, environmental, 1) When a storm is coming, prepare to get a little wet. and social safeguard policies. These safeguards, based on Focus on managing rather than preventing attack the principle that Bank Group projects should “do no campaigns. harm,” are among the most sophisticated, according to the World Commission on Dams. The words “high-risk project” often conjure thoughts of negative campaigns, biting news headlines, pointing It was also important to know, recognize, and communicate fingers, and rolling heads, striking fear in the heart of the positively the project’s development objective. The biggest communications professional. High-risk projects are reason behind the need for the Bujagali project was that intended to benefit thousands or millions of people over the country desperately needed electricity: Only about 5 long periods, and they come with increased attention percent of people there had access to electricity. Children because they often pose significant economic, environmental, and social risks. Many civil society organizations have as their mandate to question and investigate such projects on behalf of various interests. An important component of the project’s successful communications strategy was that the team accepted at the outset that certain organizations would launch a communications campaign against the project. Trying to avoid, prevent, or negotiate away such a campaign was unrealistic. It made more sense to concentrate on strategies that would help mitigate the campaign’s impact. The storm was coming, whether we liked it or not. So the team prepared to get wet. Early in project identification, the team collaboratively developed a communications strategy focusing on exhaustive and active transparency and messaging that underscored the country’s need for, and potential benefits The relatively balanced news coverage of the project leading up from, the project. The government and other stakeholders to and following Board approval indicated the communications of the project were sensitized to the need for the strategy strategy was effective. and fully involved in its formulation. 2 SMARTLESSONS — FEBRUARY 2011 couldn’t do homework after dark, clinics and hospitals of opaqueness. Everything from the Project Concept couldn’t refrigerate vaccines, and businesses could not Note, to the project’s economic analysis and grow. In fact, without the Bujagali dam, the country ended Environmental Impact Assessments, to the strategic up suffering significant power shortages, which in 2006 assessment of power development options served as contributed to a 5 percent decline in GDP. evidence in the court of public opinion, since these documents were publicly available for review. Even the These are shocking as stand-alone facts and thus were Power Purchase Agreement, which is usually a powerful communications messages to counter those from confidential document, was shared by BEL through the campaign opposing the project. Uganda’s Electricity Regulatory Agency. Vocalizing these messages in all project communications, A related lesson on transparency was for the task team including print and online materials, as well as by not only to identify a select few project spokespeople, members of the task team during interviews with the but to budget time for them to answer incoming queries. news media, and supporting them with economic, By budgeting around 5 percent of their time for that environmental, and social impact assessments and purpose, they were able to regularly and thoroughly project documentation enervated much of the potency address difficult questions about the project from news of the negative campaign, which was based on weaker media and other sources, thereby demonstrating arguments about negative environmental and social openness and willingness to engage. impacts. A media analysis following the Board approval in 2007 showed that over 90 percent of news articles 4) Require that communications efforts be guided by were neutral or positive about the project and carried at staff based in the project country to significantly least one of the positive elements or factoids put out reduce risk. about the project. Because the Bank Group is headquartered in Washington, 3) Use active transparency to manage risk; it removes with that come many activities and plans that are barriers, builds credibility, and fosters dialogue. developed and led outside of the project country. Even many of Bujagali’s global communications activities In high-risk, high-profile projects, it is important to identify were directed from Washington, although the Bujagali and use available project information to its maximum team developed and implemented its communications potential, to develop technological tools that help provide strategy in regular collaboration with country office that information to the public in real time, and to use that staff. openness in achieving communications objectives. Openness is not only Bank Group policy and good business practice; in Having country presence throughout the process is this instance it also helped the project team overcome false especially critical in a high-risk, high-profile project. For perceptions created by critics. Bujagali, this meant identification of, and two-way information flow to, project decision makers and other The team captured, organized, and shared as much project stakeholders, including parliamentarians and other information and related documentation as possible via an officials. That communication was vital in ensuring that easy-to-find Web site (www.worldbank.org/bujagali) and messages about the Bujagali dam reached intended other multimedia,2 both for the sake of transparency and audiences. dialogue and to preemptively disarm critics’ accusations An in-country presence also facilitated rapid response to actions by project critics. For example, with only 24 hours’ notice, local Bank Group staff were able to attend a surprise public event hosted by anti-Bujagali project campaigners. This allowed the team to present public evidence in support of the project, thereby disarming an event originally intended by its hosts to thwart it. Conclusion In April 2007, the Board showed solid support in its approval of the Bujagali dam project. The anti-Bujagali campaign continued, and in December 2008, the Board welcomed an Inspection Panel report and approved the range of actions set forth in the management response. The Board noted that the Bank Group should remain The Bujagali Hydropower project in Uganda will help reduce the engaged in Uganda’s energy sector. Some Board need for the more polluting, diesel-fired power plants, such as members expressed the view that the Bujagali project this one in Jinja. was an example of an improved World Bank Group approach to infrastructure projects and its commitment to address associated economic, environmental, and 2 Although not widely used at that time, social media such as Facebook and Twitter social dimensions of development projects. could now be used to actively provide new information and foster ongoing dialogue. SMARTLESSONS — FEBRUARY 2011 3 Although the project continues to evolve, the storm seems to have passed for now. Some lessons from Bujagali were and continue to be applied to other projects in the Africa energy sector, such as the Bumbuna hydroelectric plant in Sierra Leone. As for Bujagali, the project won Euromoney’s Power Deal of the Year in 2007. Construction began in June 2007, and is set to start producing electricity in late 2011. For now, the country is still forced to rely on diesel-fired power generators to meet the energy gap. The author wishes to acknowledge the Bujagali project team, whose work formed the basis of this Smartlesson. DISCLAIMER IFC SmartLessons is an awards program to share lessons learned in development-oriented advisory services and investment operations. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of IFC or its partner organizations, the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent. IFC does not assume any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the information contained in this document. Please see the terms and conditions at www.ifc.org/ smartlessons or contact the program at smartlessons@ifc.org. 4 SMARTLESSONS — FEBRUARY 2011