Briefing from ROAPE Volume 26 Number 79
European Union Aid Scandal

With £1.4 billion in its coffers, the EU has become the world's second largest development aid agency after the World Bank. But the projects it is funding are doing more harm than good, reveals a report by the Rainforest Foundation.&break; In Nigeria, for example, £48 million has been spent on an oil palm project in the River Niger delta. 29,000 hectares of forest, farmland, fishponds and cemeteries were forcibly expropriated and then destroyed. No environmental assessment was carried out and local people's objections were ignored. Landowners were paid as little as £7 a hectare in compensation ...