WASHINGTON, D.C. – The World Bank is being urged to drop a $50 million loan to Pronaca, Ecuador’s biggest livestock producer, because of its harmful impact on the environment and rural and indigenous communities and violations of the Bank’s own policies. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) board is expected to make a decision on the loan at a meeting on Friday 22 May.
The loan from the International Finance Corporation, the private lending arm of the World Bank, would finance the expansion of Pronaca’s pork and chicken operations in Ecuador. The company, which has an annual turnover of almost $1 billion, manages over 115 industrial pig and poultry operations in Ecuador and has received at least $120 million worth of loans from the World Bank since 2004.