4. Third Session: Moving Forward on Key Issues and Initiatives

In view of the results of the four parallel working groups in the second session, the Facilitator constituted working groups for the afternoon each to discuss a different aspect of the follow-up challenge. Forum members were free to join the groups of their choice. These working groups reported the results of their discussion to plenary towards the end of the afternoon. One group was organised on each of the following topics: Dissemination; Working with the Report; Further Work; and the Follow-up Structure.

4.1 Dissemination

The WCD report is an important contribution to the debate on water and energy development, and the role of large dams in meeting urgent development needs. If the report is to have an optimal impact, it is essential that it be made readily available wherever dam issues are debated, in the appropriate language and format. While the Secretariat has focused on dissemination to a very large extent since the launch of the report in November 2000, the Forum felt there is a great deal more to do to ensure that the report, its recommendations and related material are readily available, particularly in developing countries.

The working group focused on dissemination of existing and possible future information products to provide recipients with a comprehensive view of the information available and points of clarification that emerged as being important as people worked with the report (e.g. clarifying the misunderstandings about the guidelines and stressing the expectation that countries would customise the decision-making framework to their own context).

Given the state of discussion on follow-up at the time of the working group’s meeting, the debate on dissemination was organised around three follow-up scenarios: no organised follow-up; minimum follow-up; and active follow-up. The report of this working group is attached at Annex 6.

4.2 Working with the Report

The second working group focused on the need to use the report to inform the dams debate and to bring about improvements in the planning and implementation of water and energy development projects. They focused on the key tasks for the different stakeholder groups: governments, multi- and bi-lateral organisations, private companies, grassroots organisations and affected peoples, NGO networks, and professional associations.

The group emphasised the need to move forward on areas where there are high levels of acceptance (e.g. core values and strategic principles) and to avoid their re-negotiation. All governmental and non-governmental organisations should be involved in doing this but there is an urgent need to engage national governments giving attention to the differing interests of their various water, energy and environment departments, and fostering discussion and capacity building at national, regional and local levels. Through application of the WCD recommendations to existing and proposed dams they can be customised to fit differing contexts, tested, refined and operationalised. This can include assessing consistency of existing guidelines and policies with WCD recommendations and emphasising the “upstreaming” of the planning processes (e.g. building in options assessment).

The assessment of the main tasks to be undertaken rested on the recognition that the lack of total agreement on all aspects of the report and its recommendation should not be an impediment to moving forward with them. It also recognised that follow-up work should start from the acceptance that the report is final and stands on its own – there is no intention to renegotiate any of its provision. The working group report also suggests the sort of process that can be followed in working with the report, with particular focus on national and regional dialogues. The report of this working group is attached at Annex 7.

4.3 Further Work

The third working group dealt with the sensitive topic of further work beyond the report itself. While it is entirely appropriate for different stakeholders or stakeholder groups to undertake initiatives that take the report as a starting point, the notion of collective action that goes beyond dissemination and dialogue is more controversial. Nonetheless, this working group achieved a broad consensus on a range of tasks that would be important to develop, while listing others that enjoyed the support of some groups but that didn’t convince others.

The group focused on the further work that was required to build on the Commission’s studies. Among the specific topics identified by various participants as requiring further work were benefits of dams, options assessment methods, environmental flows, reparations guidelines, benefit sharing, compliance models, and costs and benefits of implementing the WCD recommendations. Suggestions were made for employing case studies for testing and refining the WCD recommendations. Criteria and a process for adding to the WCD Knowledge Base were identified as a critical necessity.

The report of the working group, attached at Annex 8, identifies immediate follow-up tasks to be undertaken in the coming few months. It suggests how a follow-up unit might serve as a clearing-house for information on a range of topics, and how it might provide liaison, monitoring and co-ordinations services on a range of activities led by one or other stakeholder group. The group felt that the unit should not be the lead implementing agency for the topics identified, but should assist and support relevant stakeholders in carrying them out, providing seed funds where appropriate. Finally, it identifies ideas that received varying levels of support short of full consensus.

4.4 Follow-up Structure

The working group on the follow-up structure started from a consideration of the paper tabled by the German government. A copy of that paper is included at Annex 9. It began with the assumption, justified by the debate at the Forum at that point, that there would be some need for co-ordinated follow-up, but that any structure put in place should have largely a co-ordinating and catalysing function, and should be set in place for a limited period of time.

With those provisos, the group sought to identify the various options that could be considered and the areas where a decision or strong, shared sense of the meeting would have to be found. The key issues appeared to be: hosting arrangements for the unit, governance of the unit, future of the Forum, and the breadth of the mandate to be given the unit. Since the latter was subject to the outcome of discussion in the other working groups, little time was devoted to it.

While positions narrowed, it was not possible to achieve or even approach a consensus on the shape and structure of the follow-up unit. Nevertheless, there was a shared sense that the unit should be small, that it should be independent from any one institution or stakeholder group, that it should preserve in its governance structures the multi-stakeholder character of the WCD process, and that its mandate should be limited in time.

Following the conclusion of the working group meetings, two informal presentations took place, outside the formal agenda of the Forum meeting. Both were based on experience in working with the WCD guidelines in connection with a specific ongoing dam project. One examined the case of the Skuifraam dam near the site of the meeting in South Africa; the other examined the experience in the Nam Theun 2 project in Laos. An informal presentation by the World Resources Institute on their assessment of the WCD process followed in the evening.