1.0 BACKGROUND

1. Planning activities are directed towards achieving broader long term development goals by effectively meeting more specific short term objectives. Planning is clearly a complex process involving technical, economic, environmental, social and cultural dimensions. Environmental, social and cultural issues have increasingly been integrated into planning for the sustainable development and management of water and energy resources, particularly over the last decade. As a result, most dams-related planning is currently, either formally or informally, multi-objective in nature. Yet to date multi-criteria planning -- especially for the efficient, comprehensive, transparent, and participatory assessment and selection of options for the sustainable development and management of water and energy resources -- remains under-executed and weakly institutionalized in most parts of the world.

1.2 Main issues:

2. The process of planning in each country depends on a number of factors such as the existing development model, constitutional framework, size of the country and its resource endowment, capacity of institutions, as well as the division of authority among central, provincial and local levels of government. Distinctions drawn between central and line ministry functions, interactions between political and administrative bodies, and the designated roles of the private sector and civil society are also important factors in planning. Despite these variations in overall governance systems, there are nevertheless many common aspects of planning that influence the manner and process by which societies approach dams-related decision-making.

3. There are no simple solutions to addressing the many tradeoffs that invariably confront various stakeholders involved in dams-related decision-making. But it is generally accepted that planning for infrastructure development and services, whether these are delivered directly by government, through the private sector and/or by nongovernmental organisations, should be coordinated and mutually reinforcing with respect to its contribution to national/regional and local goals of development. Other themes such as flexibility in planning, the full inclusion and equal treatment of all options at early stages in the planning process, and the involvement of civil society stakeholders at key stages are recognized as increasingly important today.

4. National development planning and coordination of sectoral planning activities are essential in decision-making regarding large dams, as dams are intrinsically multi-sectoral in terms of their range of benefits, costs and impacts. A clear understanding of the elements of national and sector planning processes where dam decisions are centered and the linkages to planning in other sectors where the benefits, costs and impacts might also accrue is an important prerequisite for assessing and improving dam and non-dam options assessment. It is both within sector planning processes and during the project cycle where multi-criteria economic, financial, environmental, and social assessments can be applied. This is because multi-criteria planning can facilitate the identification, ranking, screening and selection of feasible options that meet technical, economic, social and environmental objectives with maximised acceptance in a transparent and participatory manner.

5. This thematic review seeks to clarify the key issues and decision-points that are likely to arise during planning processes involving options for water resources and energy development and management. The focus of this review will thus include the following components:

• assessment of the comparative experience with dams-related planning, particularly on examples of successful examples of multi-objective planning as well as the conditions that have contributed to sub-optimal multi-criteria planning (such as the sometimes contradictory objectives of different agencies or levels of government);
• identification and explication of the possible roles that government, the private sector and civil society can play in dams-related planning;
• identification and explication of the policy, legal, and institutional frameworks which increase the likelihood that options assessment and selection will be conducted in an efficient, comprehensive, transparent and participatory manner during the planning process;
• identification and explication of good practices in terms of methods and tools to increase the likelihood that options assessment and selection will be conducted in an efficient, comprehensive, transparent and participatory manner in the context of a multi-criteria planning process;
• identification and explication of the linkages between dams-related national, sectoral, river basin, and project planning;
• recommendations of criteria and guidelines on the planning of options including dams for the sustainable development and management of water and energy resources.

6. Examination of the planning and options-assessment process is a central component of the methodology that has been developed for the WCD case studies. After the initial review paper is completed, it may be possible to extend the thematic review on planning by incorporating the analysis and lessons learned on these issues from the case studies. Several questions pertinent to changing patterns and trends in planning and options assessment have also been included in the cross-check survey data-collection sheets.

7. There are strong linkages between this thematic review and virtually all of the other thematic reviews. The funding and changing role of the private sector aspects of dams-related planning will be evaluated in the thematic review on international trends in project financing while methods and tools for making the planning process more inclusive will be addressed in the thematic review on consultative and participatory decision-making. The types of economic, financial and distributional analysis required during the planning phase will be covered in the review on those subjects.

8. The thematic review on environmental and social impact assessment will examine national and sectoral plans, strategies and assessments in these areas. The thematic review on river basin management will assess the linkages between river basin, sectoral and national planning from a river basin perspective. The thematic review on regulation, compliance and implementation will compile an overview of criteria and guidelines for dams-related planning in various countries and in different institutions around the world. Finally, the relationships between planning and replanning/reoperation will be examined in the thematic review on operation, monitoring and decommissioning.

9. This thematic review will contribute to all three outputs of the World Commission on Dams. It will add knowledge about the past experience and lessons learned with planning of options for water and energy resources development and management to the Global Review. It will identify good practices, policy and institutional frameworks for dams-relaing planning to the Framework for Options Assessment and Decision-Making Processes. Finally, recommendations to be included in the Criteria, Guidelines and Standards output will be derived from this review.