This article was first published in the Global Policy Journal

Back in 2017, the World Bank began an ambitious effort to improve the management of natural resources and tourism in southern Tanzania, while creating jobs and protecting the environment. While sounding like a fantastic way to support development in one of the poorest parts of the world – the Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth (REGROW) Project, as it was known – soon ran into difficulties. Villagers claimed they were forcibly evicted from their land, cattle were seized from pastoralists by national park rangers, and those who protested were killed or “disappeared” in order to make way for the project.

Devastated community members took their grievances to an independent complaints mechanism called the World Bank Inspection Panel- and won. It was clear that the World Bank had failed for years to listen and address the concerns of people living in southern Tanzania – and earlier this year the Bank’s senior management admitted as much in a technically phrased but entirely insufficient mea culpa: “We regret that the REGROW project preparation and supervision did not sufficiently account for project risks, resulting in inadequate mitigation measures to address adverse impacts.”

Blair Glencorse and Vinay Bhargava