This 1070 kilometre pipeline project was promoted with claims of eventual poverty reduction and millions of dollars in revenues for Chad from oil exports.

However since the project’s completion in 2003 and the commencement of oil flows, the project has fuelled violence, impoverished people in the oil fields and along the pipeline route exacerbated pressures on indigenous peoples and created new environmental problems.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project's troubled existence and the impacts on local people make the EIB's views on the project – where it "considers that the Highland people's quality of life will be enhanced – even if they have to resettle – as a result of much improved infrastructure created by the project, re-training and other social welfare and employment creation measures, as well as compensation, on all of which they have been consulted and to which they are party" – unfortunately read like something from fantasy land.

The EIB loaned the oppressive Lao government EUR 45 million for NT2 in 2005, relying largely on the World Bank’s social and environmental assessments of the project. And the EIB has justified its involvement on the basis of some highly ambitious claims, such as the project’s “high development impact”, its generation of “net environmental benefit for the region, improved living standards and economic development for the local population”, and that it will tackle “climate change and promote sustainable use of renewable natural resources.”