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A watershed in global governance?
By Gargi Parsai
NEW DELHI, JAN. 15. Was the World Commission on Dams (WCD) a watershed in global governance?
Three NOGs - the Lokayan, the American World Resources Institute and the Tansanian Lawyers Environmental Action Team - think so in their independent assessment. According to their report, the WCD marked a departure from previous global commissions. The report says that because of its origins in the international organising of dam-affected people and their supporters, the commission included representatives of project-affected communities. Commissioners came from all points on the political spectrum who, for the most part, were active practitioners in international networks rather than the eminent persons.
The WCD's objective was a global review of the development effectiveness of large dams and assessments of alternatives; to suggest a framework for options, assessment and decision-making process for water resource and energy services and development. In this process it included voices that had previously been excluded from global commissions. This sometimes did not go down well with structured, technical experts.
The report opines that the commission made an explicit commitment to incorporate good governance principles in its work, such as independence, inclusiveness and transparency as a way of creating an effective platform for dialogue. The commission with these elements of structure and good process was meant to create opportunities for broad stakeholder participation and thus a rich base of common knowledge. Good process was also intended to build constituencies for implementing the WCD's recommendations. But did the commission succeed in implementing the good process to which it aspired.
The report observes that the commission transcended, rather than reproduced, fractures among interest groups in the dams debate by producing a consensus report. But the range of positive and negative reactions to the final report suggests that the consensus among commissioners did not translate immediately to agreement among the broad stakeholder constituencies, it says.
Still, the report suggests that the most significant contribution of good process was to support the legitimacy of a multi-stakeholder process. This was more so because in contentious arenas such as dams, not all differences can be reconciled. Yet it was a process worth emulating - and improving upon, the report says.
It may be recalled that the Indian Government had, after initially giving permission to the WCD, disallowed the commission to hold its first meeting in India. It was never stated in so many words, but the major reservation appeared to be on the choice of Medha Patkar, leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, as one of the commissioners. The WCD meeting was held in South Africa, with the commission inviting stakeholders to send in their representations. The Union Water Resources Ministry initially kept out of the hearings of the commission, but later decided to take part. But the Ministry had objections on some of the findings of the interim report, after which they boycotted the commission's report which was released in London. Finally, the Ministry decided ``not to accept'' the WCD report and the matter rests there.
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