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Esso Chad, at the request of IFC (International Finance Corporation), has commissioned an independent review of its land acquisition and compensation program in Chad’s oilfield development area to assess the impact that oil production is having on local communities. The review finds that, although the project has had several positive impacts on the local communities, the operation has taken up more land than originally anticipated. This has adversely affected some households that support themselves through subsistence agriculture.
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, believes that the livelihoods of people affected by the operations need to be restored by finding alternative land and developing feasible opportunities for employment other than farming. Following discussions with IFC, Esso Chad has completed a corrective action plan based on the independent review’s recommendations. Esso Chad is an affiliate of ExxonMobil and operator of the Chad-Cameroon Oil Development Project.
The independent review is part of IFC's monitoring of the social and environmental protections that were established as conditions for its loan to the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline and Oilfield Development Project. The review was conducted by two internationally recognized experts and was disclosed March 14, 2007, on the World Bank Group's Oil, Gas, Mining, and Chemicals and Chad-Cameroon Project Web sites. The corrective action plan was disclosed April 6, 2007, on Esso Chad’s website.
The review shows that compensation paid for the land has preserved near- and mid-term livelihoods, but that some land-users may not be able to sustain their long-term livelihoods without either mitigation measures that will help them regain enough farmland to support their subsistence farming or opportunities for viable alternative employment. Esso Chad’s action plan, written with input from IFC, addresses these issues. If implemented as planned, it will minimize project impacts, help strengthen the restoration of livelihoods, and improve the way cumulative impacts are predicted and monitored. Much progress has already been made in mitigating some short- and medium-term impacts. IFC and other independent monitoring groups will track the implementation of the action plan.
Please click here for the independent review. Please click here for Esso Chad’s action plan and point your browser to the “Reports & News” section on the right-hand side.
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