Preface : The Spirit Lives On: From Gland to Spier

by Professor Tony Dorcey^[1]

I have had a remarkable opportunity to participate in a novel and ambitious experiment in multistakeholder processes for resolving conflicts surrounding dams, a critical development issue world-wide. As the facilitator of the jointly hosted IUCN-World Bank workshop in Gland in April 1997, I was involved in the unique multistakeholder dialogue that resulted in the agreement to establish a World Commission on Dams (WCD) and the creation of the Interim Working Group which was mandated to make it a reality. For the subsequent Interim Working Group meeting in Stockholm in August 1997, I prepared a paper that reviewed experience with previous world commissions and recommended how the Gland vision, in particular its utilisation of multistakeholder processes, might be put into practice. Afterwards, in January 1998, I facilitated the final discussions of the Interim Working Group in Cape Town that led to the agreements on the establishment of the Commission and its launch in May 1998.

After two years of work, during which I was only a distant observer, the WCD issued its final report, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making (November, 2000). Three months after the release, I returned to facilitate the final meeting of the WCD Forum, the multistakeholder group that had been formed out of participants in the Gland workshop and who had been advising the Commission throughout its work. Convened at the Spier Village outside of Cape Town, the goal was to review the Commission’s report and agree on follow-up actions. This facilitator’s report summarises my perspective on the Spier meeting and the exciting agreements reached on the next generation of initiatives. Further details are provided in the sections following this summary report.

Over the last half-century dams has been the cause of some of the most bitter and intransigent development disputes. Coming into the Gland workshop in April 1997, most of the 39 participating stakeholders, representing governments, the private sector, civil society organisations, international financial institutions and affected people, were not optimistic about a positive outcome. But all were most pleasantly surprised to discover that each felt the time was right to try something different. This newfound willingness to work together in a search for solutions came to be called “the Gland Spirit”.

Encouraged by the progress made through this multistakeholder dialogue, it became a key and distinctive ingredient of the strategy crafted for moving forward. The idea that the Commissioners should reflect the diversity of stakeholder interests and that the Commission should carry out its mandate through multistakeholder processes was seen to be fundamental. The success of the IUCN-World Bank partnership in convening the high risk Gland workshop, gave the participants the confidence to entrust the next steps to a small Interim Working Group built around their co-chairmanship and including other key stakeholders as necessary. This trust proved to be well founded as the IWG sustained the Gland Spirit during the difficult negotiations that ultimately resulted in the Commission coming to life.

Since then the Spirit and the commitment to multistakeholder processes has been clearly evident in the work of the WCD over its 30-month life. The 12 Commission members were chosen through a global search process to reflect regional diversity, expertise, and stakeholder perspectives and for their commitment to the Gland vision. The members served in their individual capacities, not as representatives of institutions or countries. The diversity of stakeholders was involved throughout the Commissions work programme. Capitalising on the newly emerging opportunities for distributing information and involving stakeholder’s world-wide, the WCD built a web site (http://www.dams.org) that has facilitated unprecedented access and transparency in its proceedings in terms of depth, breadth and timeliness. It has established a standard that reflects at once all that the WCD espouses and that other institutions will be challenged to meet.

While making clear that the WCD mandate ended with release of its report in London, the Chair, Commissioners and Secretariat were actively involved in disseminating its conclusions and recommendations in the three months following its release. Secretariat staff and Commissioners have attended over 30 launch and discussion events around the world since November. Even as it concluded the Commission continued to involve the multiplicity of stakeholders.

And the Commission has also been responsive to the Forum’s request in April 2000 to hold a third and final meeting once the report was published, bringing stakeholders together to reflect on the report and discuss any next steps. The Chair and Commissioners having formally stepped down, the Forum took on a new role, more like the formative role in Gland and no longer advisory to the Commission. The WCD Secretariat invited a small group of 6 Forum members, drawn from across the spectrum to assist it in planning and running the meeting through a “Forum Liaison Group”. The task of this group was to ensure that the meeting content and structure reflected the needs and wishes of the Forum, not of the Commission which disbanded. In the absence of a Chairman for the meeting the group proposed to bring in an independent facilitator, hence returning to the successful Gland model.

Of the 50 members of the WCD Forum who came to Spier, 10 had been among the 39 participants in Gland. From another perspective, 18 of the 27 organisations that were involved in the Gland workshop were at Spier. Clearly, the Commission succeeded in not only sustaining but also expanding stakeholder interest in conducting its work and disseminating its final report.

On reflection, to judge the process from Gland to Spier by only focusing on the convergence reached or to assess it solely in terms of the acceptance of the WCD report would be to miss the key point. Both of these are obviously important yardsticks. But, in my view, the most significant indicator is the productivity of the multistakeholder process. Initiating and building an ongoing process of dialogue among all the stakeholders in water and energy resource development is the most fundamentally important achievement. Given the nature of the issues underlying the disputes around dams, it would have been naïve to expect their swift and complete resolution. Gland was the crucial initial step. The WCD process was the essential follow through and the resultant report provides a basis for everyone to work with and reflect on in moving forward. There were significant disagreements at Spier but stakeholders were notably able to address them in ways that would not have been possible in Gland, as the space for constructive dialogue had not yet been developed. This bodes well for the continuing multistakeholder commitment that emerged at Spier. The immense potential of this process is "the promise of Spier".

In the next section I summarise the sense of the meeting as I felt it emerge during the discussions. This has been circulated to the Forum Liaison group for comment before being finalised and included in this document.