Global Policy Forum

In agreeing to manage the welfare projects of ChevronTexaco in Nigeria and Angola, the UNDP has enabled the U.S. majors to step back from the local competition for benefits generated by the oil industry In agreeing to manage the welfare projects of ChevronTexaco in Nigeria and Angola, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has enabled the U.S. majors to step back from the local competition for benefits generated by the oil industry and positioned itself for further sub-contracting work that had previously been a World Bank monopoly.

The UNDP as Sub-Contractor. In the space of a month the United Nations agency has signed two significant agreements with ChevronTexaco. Last week UNDP set up an Angola Enterprise Fund to finance micro welfare projects in the country. ChevronTexaco contributed $ 4 million while the U.N. kicked in $ 1 million. The establishment of the fund, which will be managed by UNDP came on the heels of an agreement between ChevronTexaco and the U.N. in Nigeria early in November. Under the latter pact, all of the welfare projects financed by the American group in the Niger Delta will be supervised by UNDP for a two year period. Contracts for loans and the welfare programs themselves will be signed by the two sides. The partnership ought to help smooth over ChevronTexaco's relations with ethnic communities in the Delta which attacked its rigs on three occasions this summer. In Angola, the Enterprise Fund should allow the firm to bypass the presidential social funds (Fundanga, Fundacao Eduardo dos Santos and Fundo de Solidariedade Social Lwini) to which oil companies are expected to contribute, but which Luanda has a tendency to use for its own purposes.

Competing with the World Bank. The two agreements between the U.N. and ChevronTexaco were brokered by Sirra Korpela, head of UNDP projects with the private sector, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September. Since she started working at UNDP headquarters in June, 2000, Korpela has forged a series of partnerships with oil companies, particularly with ChevronTexaco in Kazakhstan (micro credits) and RoyalDutch/Shell in China (a social and environmental impact study on a pipeline running across the country).

Africa Energy Intelligence understands she is presently negotiating joint projects in Africa with other majors, specially RoyalDutch/Shell and BP. In doing so, UNDP has emerged as a rival to the World Bank which, up to now, was the main subcontractor for social development programs involving oil companies. This was notably the case in Chad, on behalf of ExxonMobil, and in Nigeria for RoyalDutch/Shell (the International Finance Corp., private investment arm of the Bank, is financing Nigerian firms that work with the Anglo-Dutch giant, thus getting RoyalDutch/Shell largely off the hook).

But the Bank's tribulations in Chad and recent efforts by the International Monetary Fund to monitor oil revenue in Nigeria, Congo-B and above all Angola have made the Bank a less attractive partner for oil companies.

NGOs Keeping Close Watch. The flurry of partnerships between oil companies and the United Nations could open the door to cooperation between the majors and NGOs. Already, UNDP and Amnesty Norway are working with Statoil in Venezuela on a program to train magistrates and prosecutors. Norsk Hydro contributed one million Norwegian crowns to Amnesty Norway in March in exchange for lessons to its executives on problems relating to human rights.

For its part, Amnesty International has joined the United Nation's Global Compact initiative, a forum bringing together non-governmental organizations and business groups to promote measures in the private sector that forward the cause of human rights, labor laws and protection of the environment.