The Final Forum
After the WCD: Setting Priorities for Implementation

On 25 February 2001, something new will take place at a historic WCD meeting: Commissioners hand back the agenda, microphone and floor to others.

Requested by the 68 member WCD Forum to be held during the first quarter of 2001, the 3 day event will again take place in Cape Town, South Africa.

The faces will be familiar, as these events are becoming a kind of reunion of all parties with interests in dams and development. And everyone will be looking to see whether the Forum can act in a concerted fashion to ensure the WCD Report becomes more than a document on a shelf.

But for the first time, as stipulated by the twelve Commissioners, this meeting won't be run by or for the Commission, but by and for the Forum. This takes into account the fact that the World Commission on Dams completed its work with the launch of the final report on 16 November, in London at which the Chair, Professor Kader Asmal, announced its `decommissioning'.

The report is now firmly back in the hands of the stakeholders that created the Commission in the first place.

The need for a third Forum meeting final report was proposed at the April 2000 gathering of Forum members in Cape Town.

Essential to the World Commission on Dams as a `sounding board' for its work, the Forum is one of the principal mechanisms for guiding and supporting the dissemination and application of the WCD recommendations and final report.

The Secretariat has already begun consulting with Forum members whether any structured international or regional follow-up is considered necessary. And if so, how they wish to organise the discussions, prioritise issues for follow-up, and develop collaborative initiatives.

The meeting is also an opportunity for Forum members to respond to the WCD report, and to share their own individual plans for specific activities.