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WCD Forum:

	About the WCD Forum

Forum Meetings:

	Prague, March 1999

	Cape Town, February 2000

	Cape Town, March 2001

Proposal for a Film and Multi-Media Documentary Series

Mapping Uncharted Waters

and

Negotiating Seven Turbulent Rapids

A two-part documentary series, based on the Report of the World Commission on Dams, that reveals and delineates for a broad audience:

Series 1 - The seven strategic priorities of Dams and Development: A New Framework

For Decision-Making.

Series 2 - Fresh ecological insights that shape the pivotal nexus of rivers, dams and human development and shatter conventional assumptions about our relationship with nature.

February 2001

Proposer: Christopher Clarke for

NEW LEAF MEDIA

a non-profit organisation

Tel: + 27 21 789-2258

Fax: + 27 21 789-2259

Email: chris@xnet.co.za

Executive Summary:

On 16 November 2000, with Nelson Mandela presiding, the World Commission on Dams (WCD) launched its Report "Dams and Development: A Framework for Decision-making." Both the product and the process of the WCD broke new grounds in the struggle over water and energy resources. Not only did the Commission illuminate why there have been messy controversies in the past, it showed how we can forge clear consensus in the future. The WCD success story is manifested in its inclusive, diverse, transparent and participatory approach as well as in the positive responses from international organisations, industry groups, NGOs, governments and international media.

That process is over. The product is complete. The Commission has been "decommissioned." Yet stakeholders from every constituency are starting to ask: Now what? Where do we go from here? How do we absorb the lesson, build capacity, drive home the messages, and continue to raise the level of debate now that the WCD no longer exists?

NEW LEAF MEDIA presents a way forward! In this hard-nosed proposal to target and penetrate a broader but vital constituency. This constituency is not the WCD's 68 Forum members. It is not even the several thousand decision-makers and management teams who have read the Report. It is the tens and hundreds of thousands in the resource development world who have only heard or read in passing of a "Dams Report," but haven't grasped what it means to them. Without the informed understanding of this larger, vital masses, those top decision-makers will lack the space to reform institutional decision-making from within. And without an educated public knowing what is at stake is in these decisions, there can be no acceptance as to whether a development option is sustainable or not.

NEW LEAF MEDIA calls for your attention and support in further assisting the global dissemination of the key WCD messages. We propose to transform the core messages into the effective and far-reaching media of digital video film and multi-media formats. We do not intend to reinvent or even try to improve on the WCD wheel. It rolls smoothly on its own, and was created by the experts in a unique forge. Rather we now seek to augment the WCD's momentum through visual demonstrations of its use, significance and applications for the water resources and energy development agenda.

Building momentum requires fuel. This proposal seeks support from many of the same potential sponsor who feel their investment in the self contained product and process of the WCD is worth to a broader audience. There would be no delay by the production team. If endorsed and funded, the documentary series would be filmed and produced by a small, organised, tightly-focused team of already established, well versed and trained in the debate over rivers, dams and development. All it needs to begin work immediately is a statement of intent from potential sponsors willing to underwrite the series.

Goal:

To enhance the penetration, understanding and thus effectiveness of core WCD messages among all stakeholders. In addition to emphasise and shed new light on select environmental themes at the forefront of global sustainable development relating to rivers, dams and development. The WCD process set the message, the Report put it into place. This documentary seeks to drive it home.

Objectives:

This documentary series has a dual objective:

(1) to inform, educate and build capacity within key institutions, governments, industry, NGOs, grass roots movements and affected masses in the water resources and energy sectors regarding the key findings, lessons learned and messages of the WCD strategic priorities;

(2) to build general awareness amongst the public through commercial television channel distribution of the series, presenting the key issues and principles emerging from the Global Review findings of the WCD Final Report. Care has been taken to harmonise selected themes with current pressing global environmental issues (ie. climate change, women and water, fisheries and livelihoods, ecosystem enhancement…).

This will be achieved through the optimal use of video image messaging in with stakeholder perspective, the highlighting of underlying issues and illustrations of successes, failures and 'best practice' from around the world. The series will be produced on media formats for ease of intra-institutional and organisational distribution. In addition, suitable formats will be produced for commercial television channel distribution.

But unlike some outside media reports, which jumped on a catchy, simplistic storyline (i.e. "Damning Report on Dams,") NEW LEAF MEDIA will develop a more complex, and empowering story. True, the Report reveals impacts and shortcoming of dams, which lead some to passively shrug or grow sad. But its comprehensive story is, in fact, triumphant: How, by examining the past, humans have somehow found a new way out of the downward spiral and misery of controversy and paralysis.

In summary, the series will be an effective for enhancing the dissemination of key messages of the WCD Final Report, strengthening stakeholder penetration and catalysing implementation. Building general public awareness to improve informed public participation is central to the motivation for the series.

Key Target Audience/Market:

The target audiences/markets for this video and multi-media series comprise:

(1) bilateral, multilateral and intergovernmental institutions: World Bank; IFC; OECD; export credit agencies; UNEP; UNDP…

(2) governments and government organisations

(3) international organisations in the water and energy resource development: ICOLD; IHA; ICID…

(4) key industry players: Harza; ABB; Lahmeyer; Acres Int.; Skanska; HydroQuebec; Voith-Seimens…

(5) tertiary education institutions

(6) commercial television markets - channel viewers of Discovery, BBC, National Geographic and other regional and country-specific environmental TV channels.

The series will target upcoming key conferences and events covering water and energy-related and environment issues. This will allow the opportunity for financial contributors to gain high-profile exposure. Below is a short list of a few forthcoming events:

Second World Water Congress of the International Water Association (IWA) - Germany, 2001

9th International Conference on the Conservation and Management of Lakes - Japan, 2001

International Conference on Freshwater - Germany, 2001

Dublin + 10, 2001

Environmental flows for River Systems - South Africa, 2002

ICID 18th Congress and 53rd IEC Meeting - Canada, 2002

Water Security for the 21st century - Stockholm, 2002

3rd World Water Forum - Japan, 2002

Rio + 10 - South Africa, 2002

World Water Forum Japan, 2003

The series will acknowledge all financial contributors. These sponsors will gain publicity and international credit among their constituency, competition, customers and peers for taking a co-operative, proactive approach to addressing a real problem for them and others.

Scope and Messaging:

The scope of the proposal covers issues that are most pertinent and relevant to the energy resources development sectors. The documentaries will aim to cover the scale, temporal and regional diversity of each thing whilst focusing on the 'softer' issues and links between aspects of the strategic priorities and different value systems, governance structures, industrialised and developing contexts. The issues that underlie the strategic priorities will be researched further for identification of key to be learned that stem from success stories, failures and ‘practice'.

The team intends to stress synergies in the messaging contained in the documentaries that harmonise with key pressing issues currently at the forefront of the global development agenda (accountability, responsibility, efficiency, sustainable, equity…). This objective will form the key messaging components of each documentary.

Geographical Coverage:

The filming of the series will cover five major regions of the world where themes under investigation are most prominent to capture successes, failures and good practice on film.

The regions earmarked for filming are:

Southern Africa

North America

Latin America

Europe

Asia

Products/Deliverables:

The production of a seven-part investigative documentary (approx. 3 minute each) based on each of the seven strategic priorities as set out in the Final Report of the World Commission on Dams.

The production of a four-part environmental documentary series along selected environment and development themes for generating public awareness and distributed on high-profile commercial television channels such as TVE, BBC, Discovery, and National Geographic, as well as regional/local TV channels in local languages.

Both series will explore positive and negative aspect highlighting not only where is/was wrong and why, but how to fix it with concrete – and sometimes not so concrete – examples of good practice from around the world.

(1) 1^st SERIES - Seven-Part Series: Key Messages of the seven WCD Strategic Priorities

This seven-part series is based on the seven strategic priorities of the WCD Final Report. These are listed overleaf, each accompanied by a short explanatory paragraph:

Part 1: Gaining Public Acceptance for equitable and sustainable water resource development. This strategic priority stresses the imperative of using decision-making processes and mechanisms that enable informed participation by all groups of people and result in the demonstrable acceptance of key decisions.

Part 2: Comprehensive Options Assessment of alternatives to meeting the same development goals. This priority recognises that alternatives to dams do often exist. This priority involves the exploration of various options that exist for water, food and energy requirements and is a continuous process through the stages of planning cycles, project development and operation.

Part 3: Addressing Existing Dams to optimise benefits, address outstanding social issues and strengthen environmental mitigation and restoration measures. This priority looks at opportunities that exist for enhancing the environmental and economic performance of the legacy of 45,000 existing large dams world-wide and how management and operational practices must adapt to changing circumstances.

Part 4: Sustaining Rivers and Livelihoods: rivers, watersheds and aquatic ecosystems are the biological engines of the planet. They are the basis for life and the livelihoods of local communities. Dams transform landscapes and create risks of irreversible impacts. This priority centres around the release of environmental flows to help maintain downstream ecosystems and communities dependent on them as well as explores the issues of site selection, avoidance, minimisation and mitigation of impacts to river system health.

Part 5: Recognising Entitlements and Sharing Benefits through joint negotiations with affected people resulting in legally enforceable mitigation and development provisions. This priority explores these provisions that recognise entitlements that improve livelihoods and quality of life of affected people. Accountability of responsible parties to agreed mitigation, resettlement and development provisions is ensured through legal means and recourse mechanisms.

Part 6: Ensuring Compliance through fulfilment of all commitments by development role players to gain public trust and confidence. This priority explores a set of mutually agreeable incentives and mechanisms for social, environmental and technical measures. Flexibility of regulatory and compliance frameworks are investigated to ensure the accommodation of changing circumstances.

Part 7: Sharing Rivers for Peace, Development and Security to minimise tensions over transboundary issues of water storage or diversion. Dams require constructive co-operation where land-use in catchment areas and the utilisation of resources becomes the subject of agreements between States to promote mutual self-interest, regional co-operation and peaceful collaboration.

The intention is to investigate the key issues centred on these seven strategic priorities and to present the core themes, diversity, opportunities and constraints. These issues are to be gleaned from an investigative journalistic approach where different stakeholders in various regions of the world will be interviewed. This footage will be merged with powerful imaging capturing the scale of infrastructure, impacts on natural resources and affects on community livelihoods. The most creative and informative methods will be utilised to best advocate the key messages to the target audience.

(2) 2^nd SERIES - A Four-Part Series for TV Channel Distribution on Key Environmental Themes

The four themes are hard-hitting issues at the forefront of the global sustainability agenda. The themes are outlined below.

Part 1: Dams: contributions to development and catastrophic events.

Part 2: World ecosystem impacts: ecosystem transformations, fisheries, water birds and riparian livelihoods.

Part 3: Dams and climate change.

Part 4: People at Risk: indigenous groups, tribal peoples, women and other vulnerable communities.

Script and Narration:

The script is to be solidly based on the content of the WCD's findings. But as the visual audience is less versed in, bound to, or captivated by what is essentially a policy document, the script shall be written in a punchy, terse, concise style. The content will be augmented with contributing views, interviews and relevant opportunities and constraints emerging from investigations of the underlying issues. A voice over narrative will be mixed in with the interviews. A suitable celebrity/narrator will be chosen for this role with clear and emphatic diction.

Project Outline and Schedule:

Time is of the essence to capitalise on momentum and debate. The project duration is estimated to be 15 months.

February, 2001 - present proposal to WCD Forum members and disseminate to potential sponsors.

March, 2001: continue dialogue with interested sponsors.

April, 2001: continue dialogue with interested sponsors. Procurement of funding requirements and donor co-ordination.

May, 2001: complete script writing of 1^st SERIES. Begin pre-production planning and co-ordination of travel arrangements; formalisation of regional interviews, meetings and guided trips to dams and rivers.

June, 2001: continuation of script for 2^nd SERIES and pre-production planning, co-ordination of travel arrangements; formalisation of regional interviews, meetings and guided trips to dams and rivers. Begin filming with local crew in Southern Africa.

August, 2001: film crew 1 to North America; film crew 2 to Latin America; complete filming with local crew in Southern Africa.

September, 2001: film crew 1 to Europe; film crew 2 to Asia. Digital library film search for supplementation of series.

October, 2001: film crew 1 to Asia. Digital library film search for supplementation of series. 1^st SERIES post-production.

November, 2001: 1^st SERIES post-production.

December, 2001: launch of 1^st SERIES at key international water conferences.

January, 2002: complete script for 2^nd SERIES. Post-production editing and digital library film search, editing and narration for 2^nd SERIES.

February, 2002: 2^nd SERIES post-production editing and digital library film search, editing and narration.

March, 2002: 2^nd SERIES post-production editing and digital library film search, editing and narration.

April, 2002: Multi-media formatting and packaging for distribution.

May, 2002: Formal launch of 1^st and 2^nd SERIES - locations and venues to be finalised - targeting key international water conferences and events.

Budget Requirements:

The budget will be split into two phases:

Phase 1: Budget to initiate, film and complete 1^st SERIES: US$ 375,000.

Phase 2: Budget to initiate, film and complete 2^nd SERIES: US$ 396,000.

The budget for the entire series 1 & 2 over 14 months is US$ 771,000.

Script, donor liaison and funding procurement	$15,000
Travel, accommodation and communications	$122,750
Pre-production	$15,345
Production	$102,302
Post-production - SERIES 1	$34,527
Post-production - SERIES 2	$47,315
Graphics	$19,182
Digital library video footage purchasing costs	$237,852
Multi-media formatting, packaging and dissemination	$30,000
Project Management	$35,000
Overheads	$112,500
TOTAL	$771,972

Resources:

It is envisaged that filming will require additional resources, props and special transport arrangements in each region to best capture the subject matter for optimal messaging. Seasonal variations will also play an important role in the timing of filming various issues in different regions of the world. Careful consideration of this will be integrated into the detailed planning of the filming schedule.

The team has immediate and familiar access to extensive archives of video footage and interviews at a local depot for supplementing the series and enhancing messaging. In addition, the documentary series will rely on material sought from digital libraries to supplement the imagery and strengthen the messaging.

Documentary Team Profile:

The TEAM has had the privilege of experiencing and grappling with the issues at hand with two principle members being key programme staff of the WCD. The film and production team proposed to shoot this documentary series has extensive experience in the production of documentaries similar in nature commissioned by USAID, governments and other sponsors. The film and production team was also commissioned by the WCD in 2000 to produce a short video summarising the key responsibilities of the WCD mandate and the structure of the Commission, whilst highlighting some of the key work areas covered in the global collaboration of stakeholders. Thus, our combined 'crack' team has an excellent grasp of the subject matter, the players involved, and is equipped with the skills and a comprehensive knowledge base for the transformation to visual media. The team members are:

Christopher Clarke

Core Responsibilities: Executive Producer - donor liaison, business development strategy, core messaging, and final post-production oversear.

Background: programme co-ordinator for the WCD, specialist in environment; among other responsibilities, carried out the WCD Cross-Check Survey of 150 dams world-wide.

James Workman

Core Responsibilities: Script writer, content editor and key messaging.

Background: award winning business and political journalist, speechwriter for Cabinet ministers and former presidents in South Africa and the USA, WCD Senior Advisor for Media and Communications / travel write, documentary producer, political correspondent.

Nick Chevallier Productions

Core Responsibilities: Co-producers and Production Co-ordinators - primary camera and film co-ordinators, investigative journalism, film production and post-production editing.

Background: extensive experience in environmental documentary and commercial film-making. Commissioned to film, edit and produce several documentaries for governments, international aid agencies as well as promotional video material for the WCD, 2000.

Neil Webster

Core Responsibilities: Assistant Producer and Field Film Director - primary camera and film co-ordinator, investigative journalism, film production and post-production editing.

Background: journalist withexperience in commercial film production and documentaries. Specialist in ocean, underwater and extreme video footage.

Call for support:

We would appreciate the opportunity to enter into further discussion regarding this proposal at your earliest convenience. In order to accommodate various international events relevant to the objectives of this proposal and to capitalise on the momentum of the post-WCD launch and dissemination, we urge potential sponsors, investors and interested parties to expedite a decision regarding the funding of this proposal.

We request interested parties to indicate their intent in supporting the concept of this initiative by specifying the amount of any potential contribution to be sponsored in a formal letter of intent. In addition, we request potential sponsors to explicitly state any terms and conditions (if any) pertaining to the funding hereof. We look forward to your response.

Christopher Clarke for NEW LEAF MEDIA

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