KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — The United Nations released a report last Thursday calling for more environmentally-friendly development in Africa, while Uganda’s president used the occasion to promote a hydroelectric project denounced by environmental groups.

The African Environmental Outlook was released by the UN Environment Programme after a four-day conference in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Government ministers and environmentalists from 50 African countries took part, detailing the continent’s multitude of environmental problems caused by pollution or overuse of natural resources.

President Yoweri Museveni used his address Thursday to defend a hydroelectric dam project that environmentalists have fought to stop. The environmentalists say it is economically unsound and would flood a unique part of the Nile River.

“I have a problem with illiterate, uninformed non-governmental groups from Europe. They have stopped us from building a dam across the river Nile, yet we are going to build the dam whatever the NGOs say,” Museveni said. “Even if l don’t get the money from the World Bank, l will get it from Ugandans.”

Museveni argued that the only way to slow deforestation in Africa, where forests are being cleared faster than anywhere else in the word, was to build more hydroelectric and solar projects. Between 1980 and 1995, Africa lost 10.5 per cent of its forests, the report said.

“If you are talking about conserving the environment, use electricity and if you do not want electricity then shut up,” Museveni said.

The World Bank has already delivered US$125 million toward the US$550-million dam set be constructed on the Nile 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of Kampala. The bank has not released another $250 million it has promised pending further review. AES Nile Power, a subsidiary of US-based AES Corporation, won the contract to build the dam and will invest the balance of the project’s cost.

Last month, the World Bank’s internal watchdog panel has found that the project violates policies that require prior assessment of a project’s economic viability and impact on the environment. The bank’s managers have until August to reply.

Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said the world’s poorest continent has the doubly difficult task of trying to fight poverty and protect the environment at the same time.

The report found that Africa suffers from worsening air and water pollution, rapid deforestation, foreign species damaging ecosystems and urban sprawl.

To fight these problems, the report’s authors recommended cutting down foreign debt, boosting foreign aid, empowering communities, enforcing environmental agreements and using more environmentally-friendly technologies on development projects.