Dateline Dispatches: Around the World in Ten Days
DAY TEN Thursday, 30 November 2000

Oslo

OSLO, NORWAY: Developing the Details

The WCD held a series of meetings in Norway's capital city, with NGO's, industry, foreign affairs, government officials, and, finally, several of them all together.

Commissioner Joji Carino arrived from Switzerland where she had briefed an international meeting of Indigenous Peoples, which looked at the implications of the "watershed" WCD Report.

But in Norway 40 people from NGOs, various government departments, basin authorities, consultants and industry associations attended the main meeting in NORAD's auditorium.

There, the reaction ranged from:

• surprise that the WCD had actually completed intact and on time;
• mixed response to the Global Review but more consensus on the way forward;
• Chapter 9 was considered to be too general by some and difficult to understand by others.
• Criticism from ICOLD representatives (seconded by the government regulator) as appearing to potentially bog down decision making and thus adding to - rather than clearing up - the problem of paralysis.

But all agreed that they needed to see the details in the report before offering more comment or taking the next step forward.