Full Title: Hydropower: Unveiling the Socioeconomic Benefits
Author(s): ESMAP
Publisher(s): The World Bank
Publication Date: May 23, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Among hydropower’s myriad benefits (e.g., greater energy security, reduced greenhouse gas emissions), this report focuses specifically on its socioeconomic benefits—and how governments can maximize them through policy and planning. The report also considers outcomes that can be controlled and maximized at the project level, beyond the risk mitigation requirements of environmental and social safeguard frameworks. Notably, benefits can be felt at both national and local levels throughout a hydropower project’s planning, development, and operation.
While hydropower projects carry undeniable overall benefits, they also bring challenges. Construction and operation alter the natural environment and change the ways people interact with and utilize natural resources. The journey to operational status can disrupt local communities, generating noise, waste, and an influx of workers that may change the social fabric. Such disruptions may impact livelihoods and challenge cultural traditions.
In the face of change, maximizing the socioeconomic benefits of hydropower projects—new business opportunities, new jobs, and new skill development—is critical. Every opportunity must be nurtured to bring the greatest benefit to the project country and its people, particularly local communities.