arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)
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Export Credit Agencies by guido Wednesday April 24, 2002 at 04:21 PM |
Export Credit Agencies and Investment Insurance Agencies, commonly known as ECAs, are public agencies that provide government-backed loans, guarantees, credits and insurance to private corporations from their home country to do business abroad, particularly in the financially and politically risky developing world. Most industrialized nations have at least one ECA, which is usually an official or quasi-official branch of their government.
Today, ECAs are collectively among the largest sources of public financial support for foreign corporate involvement in industrial projects in the developing world. For example, ECAs are estimated to support four times the amount of oil, gas and mining projects as do all Multilateral Development Banks such as the World Bank Group. Half of all new greenhouse gas-emitting industrial projects in developing countries have some form of ECA support. ECAs often back such projects even though the World Bank Group and other multilateral banks find them too risky and potentially harmful to support.
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What are the Impacts of these ECAs?
Now one of the biggest source of financing for harmful projects…
Undercutting progress, violating laws...
Fueling a race to the bottom…
No transparency and contempt for affected communities…
Corruption…
Crushing debt…
Arms transfers and human rights abuses…
Increasing risks they were designed to protect against…
Assuming no responsibility …
Isolating themselves…
Reason for hope…