Second WCD Forum Meeting
Sharing the Knowledge - Charting the Future
April 6-8, 2000 - Cape Town, South Africa

On Saturday 8th April 2000 participants at the Cape Town Forum Meeting formed breakaway working groups to discuss specific issues relating to the work of the Commission. Each session was facilitated by members of the WCD secretariat who also provided short presentations on the issues.

The following points summarise the ideas generated by each of these working groups.

Working Group W:
How can compliance and good practice be promoted?

Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities (Governments, export credit agencies, owners, contractors, civil society, etc)

• Less external and more internal dynamic processes - Capacity Building
• Broad agreement on principles of transparency, participation and accountability
Guidelines
• Availability of clear technical guidelines (most difficult in monitoring and operations phase; lack or ../funding and capacity)
• More specific and better guidelines needed for social and environmental issues
• Importance of licensing processes and contractual agreements to specify technical, social and environmental requirements.
• Broad agreement on need for a better monitoring, safety, environmental and social aspects (performance) - independent, third party, civil society, multi-stakeholder involvement.
Mechanisms
• Rationalisation of guidelines
• Harmonisation of guidelines in particular cases (export credit agencies, aid agencies)
• Other mechanisms for implementation: codes of conduct; integrity pacts; ISO 14000 Incentives
• Performance reviews across the full cycles; access to credit; performance bonds, more work needed
• Dispute resolution and appeals mechanisms - some exist but more needed at national and project levels; need more discussion Sanctions
• Stopping disbursement for companies, restricted finance for governments, debarment for companies, liability for damages, accountability of top management.

Working Group X
Options Assessment - the need for a level playing field

• Different process at different levels appropriate to local situations
• Mechanisms required so all options are on the table and open to scrutiny - divergence on whether this is done or not
• Examples of participatory options assessment given - need for capacity building for effective participation
• Options assessment can increase up front costs - divergence on whether this leads to more expensive or more effective projects
• Policy can be a major factor in facilitating or constraining options assessment
• If people are placed at the centre of development, then the range of options will be increased
• Private sector expressed its responsiveness to changing environment
• Creative experiments to finance options assessment are emerging

Working Group Y
Management of existing dams

Decommissioning

• Include in knowledge base
• Explore conditions under which decommissioning take place
• Where in project phase
• Full participation including riverine communities
• EIA for decommissioning
• Time span issues: economic life
• Decommissioning fund

Environmental Restoration

• Threats and opportunities
• Process
• Special issues

Reparation The WCD must address: Who is responsible?

• Government
• Owner
• Beneficiaries
• Financial institutions

• Worst off/visibly better off

• Negotiation
• Written agreement
• Independent arbitration

• Promises not kept
• Other criteria

Working Group Z
Negotiating Competing Rights and Interests

The discussion focused on the issue of the right to development and the concept of informed consent.

• The differences in political contexts need to be taken into consideration in addressing these issues.
• Schematically, the contexts may vary from the extremes of countries with no political space to countries with fully elaborated political space with the necessary legal and institutional framework for decision-making regarding infrastructure projects.
• Ideally no dam should be built in countries with no political space. In those contexts, governments simply take decisions they believe are suitable. In countries where the legal framework is fully elaborated, clear legal processes govern decisions about dams (the eminent domain as well as private rights). This category mainly concerns developed countries.
• Most countries where dams will be built (if they have to be built) are in between, i.e. between countries with fully elaborate legal frameworks and open political space on the one hand, and countries with no political space on the other. With the recent democratic openness worldwide, many countries have moved from dictatorships to increasingly democratic societies. In these countries, settlements have to be negotiated.
• Therefore, two approaches: follow existing legal processes (where they are fully elaborated), and use negotiated settlements in countries with relatively open political systems.
• Issues to consider in negotiating settlements:
  1. Give priority to a rights-based approach (some participants think that moral approaches to equity based on voluntary guidelines did not work in the past)
  2. Principle of minimal invasion of existing rights
  3. Demonstrate that the project is in the public interest before using the eminent domain clause
  4. Demonstrate that the project is the only available option or the best available one
  5. Ensure that necessary information is available to affected groups for a truly informed consent
  6. Participatory and negotiation approaches need to be adapted to existing contexts
  7. NGOs can play a key role in information-sharing and in serving as intermediaries between governments and communities
  8. Negotiated settlements need to be enforced
  9. Appeal mechanisms should be in place

Private sector feels crucial need for predictability of processes to be used. There need to be key guidelines across countries on issues such as :

• Define project-affected peoples - who are they?
• Prior Informed Consent - what does it mean?
• Appeal mechanisms - what is done in the case of dispute?

• Delays in implementation processes
• Delays in negotiation processes
• Delays in making compensations available