United Nations Environment Programme

1 Preamble

Whereas, the World Commission on Dams published its report in November 2000; and

Whereas, the report expressed the hope that all interested parties would:

• Review carefully and actively disseminate the report;
• Issue public statements of support for the approach taken;
• Review dams currently under development with the WCD criteria and guidelines in mind; and
• Support investments in building capacity particularly in developing countries, for options assessment and improved decision making; and

Whereas, specific proposals were included in the report for national governments and line ministries, civil society groups, the private sector, bilateral aid agencies, multilateral development banks, export credit agencies, international organisations, and academic and research bodies; and

Whereas, the Commission maintained that engaging through these entry points would initiate permanent changes to advance the principles, criteria and guidelines in the report; and

Whereas, the Commission stated that the trust required to enable different sectors and players to work together must still be consolidated but that early and resolute action to address some of the issues arising from the past and an assurance to countries still at an early stage of economic development that the dams option will not be foreclosed before they have had a chance to examine their water and energy development choices within the context of their own development process, will go a long way towards building that trust in the future; and

Whereas the Commission stated that the experience of the Commission demonstrates that common ground can be found without compromising individual values or losing a sense of purpose and that it also demonstrates that all concerned parties must enter into the process in good faith if we are to resolve the issues surrounding water and energy resources development; and

Whereas, the Commission concluded that this is a process with multiple heirs and no clear arbiter and that we must move forward together or we will fail; and

Whereas, the Commission further concluded that there will, of course, be further disagreement on these issues but that dynamic debate leads frequently to better outcomes; and

Whereas, the Commission expressed the belief that business as usual is not a viable strategy; and

Whereas, the report closes with a call to action and a challenge to all readers:

We have told our story.

What happens next is up to you.

and

Whereas, the South African stakeholders gathered in a Symposium in Midrand on 23th and 24th July 2001 to consider the WCD report; and

Whereas, the Symposium resolved as follows:

This Symposium declares itself to be broadly supportive of the strategic priorities outlined in the WCD report, but believes that the guidelines need to be contextualised in the South African situation.

This Symposium recommends that a steering committee, elected at this Symposium, be tasked with the process of convening a series of meetings of the Steering Committee at which proposals will be drafted about:

• the composition of a Co-ordinating Committee ;
• the agenda of such a Co-ordinating Committee ;
• the timeframes for reporting back to a multi-stakeholder forum of this nature.

The work of the Steering Committee must be completed by the end of October 2001, and its outputs must be communicated, appropriately and adequately, to all participants in this Symposium for agreement.

and;

Whereas, the Steering Committee convened in a series of meetings; and

Whereas, the Steering Committee deemed it wasteful to convene the multi-stakeholder forum merely to consider this its process report and proposals and to constitute a Co-ordinating Committee; and

Whereas the Steering Committee consequently decided to seek by way of correspondence a mandate from the broad stakeholder forum to re-constitute itself as the Co-ordinating Committee with the additional members proposed hereunder; and

Whereas, this would enable it to start on the substantive work programme described hereunder so that the multi-stakeholder forum when convened could consider representation, process and substantive issues based on a scoping report prepared by the Co-ordinating Committee.

Now therefore, the Steering Committee presents this its report to the stakeholders and seeks their comment thereon and their approval of the proposals.

2 Name

The South African Multi-stakeholder Initiative on the World Commission on Dams’ Report

3 Objectives

The objective of the initiative is to:

• contextualise the report in the South African situation;
• identify elements of the report that could be beneficially implemented or reinforced in South African large dams practice;
• make recommendations to all stakeholders on implementing such elements of the report in their work;
• make recommendations on policy, regulation and legislation;
• identify constraints to the implementation of the recommendations and
• propose institutional structures for multi-stakeholder participation in follow-up and monitoring.

4 Participants

4.1 Policy

The on-going initiative should be as inclusive as possible affording every individual, institution or group an opportunity to make representations. The Co-ordinating Committee must actively seek out and encourage the participation of interest groups and networks.

4.2 The Multi-stakeholder Forum

The list of delegates at the Symposium is attached (Annexure 1) and all should be invited to participate in the multi-stakeholder forum. The Steering Committee will send this report to all these delegates and any other parties it may identify but a response will be welcome from any stakeholder. Any interested party may join the multi-stakeholder forum and it will not be restricted in size although participation for the most part will not be funded.

4.3 Groupings on the Co-ordinating Committee

The multi-stakeholder forum recognised at the Symposium the value in the stakeholders working in broadly representative but relatively informal groups. These are government, NGO’s, affected parties, utilities, private sector and academia, research and finance. These groups were retained by the Steering Committee but it was agreed that labour, and agriculture should be recognised as additional sectors. The Co-ordinating Committee will procure delegates from these groups. It is mandated to allow or make changes to any representation until the next multi-stakeholder forum either in its own volition or on nomination from interest groups. The Co-ordinating Committee will invite the Dams and Development Project and the IUCN to send observers.

5 Process

5.1 Co-ordinating Committee

The multi-stakeholder forum called for the establishment of a Co-ordinating Committee. The function of this committee is to guide report preparation, making of recommendations and consensus-seeking in preparation for presentation to the broader multi-stakeholder forum. Two delegates should represent each of the interest groups. Where a delegate is unable to attend a meeting they may send an alternate who may participate as if they were the delegate.

5.2 Broader representivity

The Co-ordinating Committee will encourage the sectoral groups to further organise so that the maximum number of stakeholders can be drawn into the process and be represented.

5.3 Chairpersons

A meeting of the Co-ordinating Committee will elect their chairperson and deputy chairperson. The Co-ordinating Committee will appoint a chairperson for any meeting of the multi-stakeholder forum.

5.4 Secretariat

A secretariat is required for the administration of meetings of the Co-ordinating Committee and the multi-stakeholder forum.

5.5 Drafting

The Co-ordinating Committee may request any person or group to prepare draft documents for consideration by it or by the multi-stakeholder forum.

5.6 Consensus-seeking

The initiative will work on the sufficient consensus principle.

Where there are diverse opinions in the Co-ordinating Committee and initial attempts at sufficient consensus fails, the Co-ordinating Committee will present the issue at the next multi-stakeholder forum.

Substantive interim documents or recommendations will not be released until they have been accepted by the Co-ordinating Committee nor will any report of the initiative be regarded as final until the multi-stakeholder forum has had an opportunity to respond to the proposals. The report will reflect endorsements and diverse viewpoints.

5.7 Liaison

The Co-ordinating Committee will actively seek liaison and exchange of ideas with other regional and national initiatives including but not limited to the SADC Water Sector Co-ordinating Unit and the Dams and Development Project office.

5.8 Scoping Report

The Co-ordinating Committee will as an initial step produce a scoping report. This report will analyse the issues on a broad basis, identify those that might be contentious, identify any specific studies or research that is needed and recommend the way forward for the initiative.

6 Substantive Issues

6.1 Available Documents

The final report of the Commission entitled “Dams and Development – A New Framework for Decision-making” represents the work of the commission and forms the focus of this initiative. The supporting documents are mainly the views of the commissioned authors but contextualise the issues. The Co-ordinating Committee will deal with the final report and will refer to the supporting documents to the extent that this might be needed for background information or as a source of alternatives.

The Co-ordinating Committee must taken cognisance of the proceedings of the Symposium held on 23/24 July 2001.

6.2 Seven Strategic Priorities

The Symposium expressed itself broadly in agreement with the strategic priorities offered by the WCD. The Co-ordinating Committee will also analyse each of the policy principles that the WCD relates to the strategic priorities.

6.3 Twenty-six Guidelines

The WCD report presents the guidelines as advisory tools to support decision-making. The Co-ordinating Committee will analyse them intensively in this context and undertake a crosscheck against the analysis of the priorities and the related policy principles.

6.4 Further Analytical Approaches

The Co-ordinating Committee should be “forward-looking” and focussed on reaching consensus on future initiatives and as such should not undertake a study to compare South Africa’s historical practices with the recommendations of the report. However, examples from South African practice may be used as illustration.

The Co-ordinating Committee should accept the values and approaches proposed by the WCD without doing analytical work in this regard.

The subject matter of the report that should be intensively analysed can conveniently be grouped into the seven strategic priorities with related policy principles and the twenty-six guidelines. In reviewing each of these points the Co-ordinating Committee will undertake the following:

• Come to a conclusion on its relevance and desirability in South Africa;
• Determine the extent to which it is covered by existing policy, regulation and legislation and in doing this, check
• whether implementation is successful; and
• what particular participatory decision-making, monitoring and compliance mechanisms are in place;

• Make recommendations:
  • to remedy any gaps or inadequacies in policy, regulation and compliance;
  • to improve implementation, decision making, monitoring and compliance;
  • to specific institutions regarding enhancing their performance; and
  • to stakeholder groups regarding further actions needed.

• Identify whether there are any outstanding research needs; and
• Use illustrative examples from Southern Africa to support this analysis.

A stepwise approach will be followed commencing with a scoping report to be presented at the multi-stakeholder forum in July 2002. Although there may be considerable analytical work to be done the Initiative will concentrate on consensus building around the general issues so that its final output will be an advocacy document (perhaps fifty pages are envisaged) rather than detailed (and costly) technical reports.

7 Publicity

The Co-ordinating Committee will publicise its work to ensure that as many stakeholders as possible are informed and drawn into the process.

The Co-ordinating Committee will seek to present the progress in its work in the form of the scoping report, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August 2002.

8 Capacity Building

In order for stakeholders to participate meaningfully in this process the Co-ordinating Committee will utilise capacity-building opportunities directed at an improved understanding of the WCD report and the issues and challenges it presents. In this matter it will seek the assistance of the Dams and Development Project.

9 Programme

The co-ordinating committee will work towards having done significant work before the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August 2002. This will enable the initiative to present a meaningful scoping report to the summit.

The work of the Steering Committee should be presented to the multi-stakeholder group by February 2002.

The Co-ordinating committee will commence work in March.

The multi-stakeholder forum will be convened at the end of July 2002 to review progress and approve the submission to the WSSD.

The Initiative should produce a final report by June 2003 at which time the multi-stakeholder forum will be reconvened.

10 Financing

Finance is required for the Initiative. All proposals hereunder are contingent on the forum procuring financing.

Delegates to the Steering Committee, co-ordinating committee or forum sessions will not be paid for their time.

At least two multi-stakeholder forum sessions are required at an expected cost of R150000 each. The principle is that a delegate should not have to pay to represent a constituency at the multi-stakeholder forum proper but that they should pay their own cost to get there. Funding will be needed for some delegates unable to pay their own costs (R50000).

The co-ordinating committee should meet five times at a cost of R20000 for each meeting. Here the principle is that the travelling and hotel costs should be paid by the initiative not the delegate or their organisation.

Consultants may be paid to undertake particular tasks such as research or report writing. A committee member or multi-stakeholder forum member is not precluded from being paid for extraordinary work. A budget of R100000 is proposed.

The NGO and affected party groups are particularly diverse and the initiative will benefit if they are financially empowered to hold preparatory meetings and to caucus before a multi-stakeholder forum. Two meetings at a cost of R150000 each and two caucus meetings at a cost of R50000 are envisaged.

A budget of R1000000 is proposed if the expectations of the delegates are to be met. The Steering Committee and Co-ordinating Committee will have to apply their best efforts in procuring this financing.