Dams and Development Project

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The World Commission On Dams

Dams and Development Forum

The Dams and Development Forum was established during Phase 1 and included representatives from government, private sector and civil society organized in the same thirteen stakeholder categories structure as the Steering Committee. The membership is limited to ten organizations per category of stakeholder group except the case of government categories (policy, project/river basin and bilateral export/credit) which remained unlimited in order to promote their more active participation in UNEP DDP. The DD Forum membership was enlarged up to 120 member organizations during the project Phase 1 and 2.

The governance structure played a fundamental role in the implementation of DDP. It functioned as a global vehicle to carry the discussion on dams and development forward in a constructive manner ensuring that all perspectives were brought to the table towards the aim of finding common ground about what were often very controversial issues.

The specific role of the Forum was to:

to act as a platform for global multi-stakeholder dialogue on dams-related issues including follow-up to the WCD report.
to exchange experiences and lessons learnt on operationalizing and implementing WCD core values and strategic priorities.
to act as a consultative body on key outputs of UNEP DDP.

The Forum was a mechanism that strived to be neutral and draws on the experiences of its member organizations. The consultative stakeholder Forum had its roots in the Third WCD Forum meeting that proposed the establishment of the DDP in February 2001. The DD Forum supported the DDP's Steering Committee and UNEP in directing this process and provided an opportunity for members to consider possible follow-up activities in their own countries or organizations.