Preface

Achim Steiner
Secretary General and Executive Director UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, Kenya;
Former Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams

Dams and displacement: Raising the standards and broadening the research agenda

Brooke McDonald-Wilmsen
Research Fellow, La Trobe Refugee Research Centre, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia; b.mcdonald@latrobe.edu.au
Michael Webber
Professorial Fellow, Department of Resource Management and Geography, The University of Melbourne, Australia; mjwebber@unimelb.edu.au

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams provided an analytical overview of the cumulative effects of years of dam development. A lack of commitment or capacity to cope with displacement or to consider the civil rights of, or risks to, displaced people led to the impoverishment and suffering of tens of millions and growing opposition to dams by affected communities worldwide. However, after the WCD, little has changed for the better in terms of resettlement policies. In fact, the standards of key agencies, like the Asian Development Bank, have been lowered and diluted compared to prior policies. Dam-induced development and displacement are stifled by a 'managerialist' approach to planning, in which solutions are sought internally and subordinated to the economics that underpins the existence of the project. The aim of successful resettlement is to prevent impoverishment and to enable displaced people to share in the project'€™s benefits. Within the field of dam-induced resettlement, this is a lofty goal rarely achieved. However, in other fields of resettlement, such as refugee studies and adaptation to environmental change, such a goal is regarded as a minimum standard. In this paper we seek to broaden the research agenda on dam-induced resettlement and to raise the standards of development projects that entail resettlement. We do this by importing some of the considerations and concerns from practice and research from the fields of refugee studies and adaptation to environmental change.

Participation with a punch: Community referenda on dam projects and the right to free, prior, and informed consent to development

Brant McGee
Consultant to the Environmental Defender Law Centre and other non-government organisations; mcgee.brant@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The 2000 Report of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) found that dams can threaten the resources that provide the basis for indigenous and other peoples'€™ culture, religion, subsistence, social and family structure -€“ and their very existence, through forced relocation -€“ and lead to ecosystem impacts harmful to agriculture, animals and fish. The WCD recommended the effective participation of potentially impacted local people in decisions regarding dam construction. The international right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) accorded to indigenous peoples promises not only the opportunity to participate in decisions affecting their lands and livelihoods but to stop unwanted development by refusing consent as well. The newly developed concept of community referenda, held in areas potentially impacted by development projects, provides an accurate measure of the position of local voters on the proposed project through a democratic process that discourages violence, promotes fair and informed debate, and provides an avenue for communities to express their consent or refusal of a specific project. The legal basis, practical and political implications, and Latin American examples of community referenda are explored as a means of implementing the critical goal of the principle of FPIC, the expression of community will and its conclusive impact on development decision-making.

Social discounting of large dams with climate change uncertainty

Marc Jeuland
Sanford School of Public Policy and Duke Global Health Initiative, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; marc.jeuland@duke.edu

ABSTRACT: It has long been known that the economic assessment of large projects is sensitive to assumptions about discounting future costs and benefits. Projects that require high upfront investments and take years to begin producing economic benefits can be difficult to justify with the discount rates typically used for project appraisal. While most economists argue that social discount rates should be below 4%, many international development banks and government planning agencies responsible for project appraisal can be found using rates of 7-12% or more. These agencies justify choosing higher discount rates to account for the opportunity cost of capital. Meanwhile, a new and robust debate has begun in economics over whether social discount rates of even 3-4% are too high in the context of climate change.

This paper reviews the recent discounting controversy and examines its implications for the appraisal of an illustrative hydropower project in Ethiopia. The analysis uses an integrated hydro-economic model that accounts for how the dam'€™s transboundary impacts vary with climate change. The real value of the dam is found to be highly sensitive to assumptions about future economic growth. The argument for investment is weakest under conditions of robust global economic growth, particularly if these coincide with unfavourable hydrological or development factors related to the project. If however long-term growth is reduced, the value of the dam tends to increase. There may also be distributional or local arguments favouring investment, if growth in the investment region lags behind that of the rest of the globe. In such circumstances, a large dam can be seen as a form of insurance that protects future vulnerable generations against the possibility of macroeconomic instability or climate shocks.

Non-dam alternatives for delivering water services at least cost and risk

Michael P. Totten
Chief Advisor, Climate Freshwater and Ecosystem Services, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, US; m.totten@conservation.org
Timothy J. Killeen
Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, US; t.killeen@conservation.org
Tracy A. Farrell
Senior Director of Conservation Initiatives, Conservation International, Arlington, VA, US; t.farrell@conservation.org

ABSTRACT: The World Commission for Water in the 21st Century estimated the annual cost of meeting future infrastructural needs for water at US$180 billion by 2025, including supply, sanitation, waste-water treatment, agriculture, and environmental protection. These estimates assume that future global demand for water-related services will mimic those of industrialised nations that rely on centralised water supply and treatment infrastructural systems. This large annual expenditure excludes an estimated US$40 billion that will be invested annually on new hydropower dams and other large-scale water transfer systems. These estimates exclude the environmental and social cost from improperly designed dams, and the true long-term cost to society will be many times greater. Many hydropower schemes are at risk from irregular flow regimes resulting from drought and climate change, while increased land-use intensity leads to sedimentation rates that diminish reservoir storage capacity. Methane emissions from rotting vegetation can be higher than displaced fossil-fuel power plants, while fragmented aquatic habitats and altered flow regimes threaten biodiversity and inland fisheries -€“ a primary protein source for millions of poor people.

We present evidence that a value-adding and risk-minimising water planning process can be achieved by shifting from the conventional focus on supply expansion to one that concentrates on efficiently delivering services at and near the point of use. The State of California has two decades of experience with this approach, demonstrating that market-based policy and regulatory innovations can unleash efficiency gains resulting in more utility water services and energy services delivered with less supply expansion at lower costs, while minimising climate-change risk, pollution and the social cost that accompany large infrastructural projects. Efficiency in delivered water services could be accomplished with investments in the range of US$10-25 billion annually, while obviating the need for spending hundreds of billions of dollars on more expensive hydropower and related infrastructural expansion projects. The shift to a regulatory system that encompasses cost-effective end-use efficiency improvements in delivering water and energy services could eliminate the need for an estimated half of all proposed dams globally, thus allowing for the maintenance of other ecosystem service benefits and offer the best hopes of meeting basic human needs for water at a more achievable level of investment.

Ravi Baghel
Graduate Programme of Transcultural Studies, Cluster of Excellence: Asia & Europe, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; baghel.ravi@gmail.com
Marcus Nüsser
Chair, Department of Geography, Director South Asia Institute, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; marcus.nuesser@uni-heidelberg.de

ABSTRACT: The guidelines proposed in the World Commission on Dams (WCD) final report were vehemently rejected by several Asian governments, and dam building has continued apace in most Asian countries. This reaction is in line with the simplistic dam debate, where dam critics offer laundry lists of socioeconomic and environmental costs, and dam proponents highlight the benefits while underestimating associated costs. Whereas the WCD sought to evaluate dams in terms of 'costs and benefits', this approach is self-defeating due to the very subjectivity of such measurements. This paper argues that the way ahead must be to move beyond a consensus evaluation of dams, and instead examine the shifting asymmetries and discursive flows that sustain and promote dam building over time. However, such an analysis of the dam discourse must incorporate an understanding of the multiple actors and driving forces, as well as the underlying power relations within this politicised environment. We therefore suggest that a post-structural political ecology approach provides a suitable framework for the future examination of large dams in Asia.

Uncertainties in Amazon hydropower development: Risk scenarios and environmental issues around the Belo Monte dam

Wilson Cabral de Sousa Junior
Professor, Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil; wilson@ita.br
John Reid
Executive Director, Conservation Strategy Fund, Sebastopol, CA, USA; john@conservation-strategy.org

ABSTRACT: The Amazon region is the final frontier and central focus of Brazilian hydro development, which raises a range of environmental concerns. The largest project in the Amazon is the planned Belo Monte Complex on the Xingu river. If constructed it will be the second biggest hydroelectric plant in Brazil, third largest on earth. In this study, we analyse the private and social costs, and benefits of the Belo Monte project. Furthermore, we present risk scenarios, considering fluctuations in the project'€™s feasibility that would result from variations in total costs and power. For our analysis, we create three scenarios. In the first scenario Belo Monte appears feasible, with a net present value (NPV) in the range of US$670 million and a rate of return in excess of the 12% discount rate used in this analysis. The second scenario, where we varied some of the project costs and assumptions based on other economic estimates, shows the project to be infeasible, with a negative NPV of about US$3 billion and external costs around US$330 million. We also conducted a risk analysis, allowing variation in several of the parameters most important to the project'€™s feasibility. The simulations brought together the risks of cost overruns, construction delays, lower-than-expected generation and rising social costs. The probability of a positive NPV in these circumstances was calculated to be just 28%, or there is a 72% chance that the costs of the Belo Monte dam will be greater than the benefits. Several WCD recommendations are not considered in the project, especially those related to transparency, social participation in the discussion, economic analysis and risk assessment, and licensing of the project. This study underscores the importance of forming a participatory consensus, based on clear, objective information, on whether or not to build the Belo Monte dam.

Treatment of displaced indigenous populations in two large hydro projects in Panama

Mary Finley-Brook
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, US; mbrook@richmond.edu
Curtis Thomas
International and Environmental Studies Programs, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, US; curt.thomas@richmond.edu

ABSTRACT: Consultation practices with affected populations prior to hydro concessions often remained poor in the decade since the World Commission on Dams (WCD) although, in some cases the involvement of local people in the details of resettlement has improved. Numerous international and national actors, such as state agencies, multilateral banks, corporate shareholders, and pro-business media, support the development of dams, but intergovernmental agencies struggle to assure the protection of fundamental civil, human, and indigenous rights at the permitting and construction stages. We analyse two large-scale Panamanian dams with persistent disrespect for indigenous land tenure. Free, prior, and informed consent was sidestepped even though each dam required or will require Ngöbe, Emberá, or Kuna villages to relocate. When populations protested, additional human rights violations occurred, including state-sponsored violence. International bodies are slowly identifying and denouncing this abuse of power. Simultaneously, many nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) seek change in Panama consistent with WCD'™s good-practice guidelines. A number of NGOs have tied hydro projects to unethical greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trade. As private and state institutions market formerly collective water and carbon resources for profit, these Panamanian cases have become central to a public debate over equitable and green hydro development. Media communication feeds disputes through frontline coverage of cooperation and confrontation.

The Ilisu dam in Turkey and the role of export credit agencies and NGO networks

Christine Eberlein
Programme Manager, Berne Declaration, Zurich, Switzerland; ceberlein@evb.ch
Heike Drillisch
Coordinator, CounterCurrent -€“ GegenStrömung, Potsdam, Germany; heike.drillisch@gegenstroemung.org
Ercan Ayboga
International Spokesperson, Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive, Yenisehir-Diyarbakir, Turkey; e.ayboga@gmx.net
Thomas Wenidoppler
Project Coordinator, ECA-Watch Austria, Vienna, Austria; thomas.wenidoppler@eca-watch.at

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) report focused attention on the question of how those displaced by large dams can be adequately compensated and properly resettled. An important debate from the Dams and Development Forum concerned the appropriate roles of different stakeholders, and the question as to how governments and 'external stakeholders' such as international institutions, financial investors and non-government organisations (NGOs) can be encouraged to implement the WCD recommendations and international standards on resettlement and environmental protection. This article analyses the actions of three European export credit agencies (ECAs) aimed at improving the outcomes of the Ilisu Dam and hydroelectric power project in Kurdish-populated southeast of Turkey. It also explores the role of NGOs within the process of achieving best practice and preventing poor outcomes. Even though the ECAs'€™ efforts to meet World Bank project standards were unsuccessful and ended in July 2009 with their withdrawal, this was the first case in history where ECAs tried to implement specified social and environmental project conditions. This article aims ultimately to analyse the reasons for the failure to meet the ECAs'€™ conditions, and the lessons to be learned from this process.

Philip Hirsch
Professor of Human Geography, School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia; philip.hirsch@usyd.edu.au

ABSTRACT: This paper explores political dynamics surrounding dam building in the Mekong river basin, prior to, and following, the World Commission on Dams (WCD). Since the 1950s, dam building in the Mekong river basin has been enmeshed in a complex and shifting geopolitical and eco-political landscape. The broad geopolitical sweep of US hegemony, Cold War, regional rapprochement and the rise of China has been superimposed on eco-political shifts between modernist belief in progress as mastery over nature, concerns of global and national environmental movements over dams and their impacts, and a galvanised Mekong environmentalism. During the first decade of the 21st century, mainstream dams on the Lower Mekong have returned to the agenda after having almost disappeared in favour of tributary projects. The growing strength and assertiveness of regional economic players has fundamentally altered the context of energy demand, planning and investment. New sources of finance have relocated the points of political leverage. Environment has been mustered in favour of, as well as in opposition to, dam construction in the contexts of climate-change discourses, protected-area linkage with dam projects, and an industry push for sustainability protocols and certification. Despite the Mekong being one of its focal basins, WCD has not played a prominent role in this transformed arena, yet many of the social and environmental concerns, stakeholder-based processes and safeguard-oriented approaches to hydropower planning that WCD brought to the fore have persisted in the wider ethos of politics around dams in the region.

Nga Dao
PhD Candidate in Geography, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada; ngadao@yorku.ca

ABSTRACT: Prior to 1990, Vietnam did not have a resettlement programme for situations where the state appropriated land for its own interests. Vietnam is now revising its resettlement policies to meet international standards. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic research and government documents, this paper compares the Hoa Binh (constructed between 1979 and 1994) and Son La dams (formally under construction since 2005) to seek answers to the following questions: How have resettlement policies evolved over time? How have resettlement programmes been implemented in Vietnam? The comparison between a dam built in 1970s-80s and one now under construction shows that the improvements in policy may bring limited improvements in dam development planning and practices to Vietnam.

The World Commission on Dams + 10: Revisiting the large dam controversy

Deborah Moore
Former Commissioner, World Commission on Dams; Executive Director, Green Schools Initiative; Berkeley, California, USA; deborah@greenschools.net
John Dore
Water Resources Advisor, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Mekong Region; john.dore@dfat.gov.au
Dipak Gyawali
Research Director, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Kathmandu, Nepal; dipakgyawali@ntc.net.np

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was an experiment in multi-stakeholder dialogue and global governance concerned with a subject area -€“ large dams -€“ that was fraught with conflict and controversy. The WCD Report, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making, was published in 2000 and accompanied by hopes that broad-based agreements would be forged on how to better manage water and energy development. Ten years later, this special issue of Water Alternatives revisits the WCD and its impacts, exploring the question: Is the WCD still relevant? The editorial team and the Guest Editors of this special issue of Water Alternatives have selected a range of 20 papers, 6 viewpoints, and 4 book reviews that help to illustrate the evolution in the dams debate. The goal of this special issue is to examine the influence and the impacts of the WCD on the dam enterprise, in general, and on the policies and practices of key stakeholders and institutions, and on the development outcomes for affected communities and environments, in particular. In this introduction, the Guest Editors provide an overview of the special issue, exploring the new drivers of dam development that have emerged during the last decade, including climate change and new financiers of dams, and describing the themes emerging from this diverse set of papers and viewpoints. This special issue demonstrates the need for a renewed multi-stakeholder dialogue at multiple levels. This would not be a redo of the WCD, but rather a rekindling and redesigning of processes and forums where mutual understanding, information-sharing, and norm-setting can occur. One of the most promising developments of the last decade is the further demonstration, in case studies described here, that true partnership amongst key stakeholders can produce transformative resource-sharing agreements, showing that many of the WCD recommendations around negotiated decision making are working in practice. We hope that this special issue sparks a dialogue to recommit ourselves to finding effective, just, and lasting solutions for water, energy and ecosystem management. It is a testament to the continued relevance of the WCD Report that ten years later it is still a topic of intense interest and debate, as illustrated by the papers presented in this special issue.

Chixoy dam legacies: The struggle to secure reparation and the right to remedy in Guatemala

Barbara Rose Johnston
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Political Ecology, Santa Cruz, CA, US; bjohnston@igc.org

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams brought global attention to the adverse costs of large dam development, including the disproportionate displacement of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities and the extreme impoverishment of development refugees. The WCD recommended that governments, industry and financial institutions accept responsibility for flawed development and make proper reparation, including remedial activities such as the restoration of livelihood and land compensation for relocated communities. One exemplary case cited is Guatemala'€™s Chixoy dam. Completed in 1982, this internationally financed dam was built during a time when military dictatorships deployed policies of state-sponsored violence against a Mayan citizenry. Construction occurred without a resettlement plan, and forced displacement occurred through violence and massacre. This paper describes an attempt to implement WCD reparation recommendations in a context where no political will existed. To clarify events, abuses and meaningful remedy, an independent assessment process was established in 2003, auditing the development record, assessing consequential damages and facilitating the community articulation of histories and needs. The resulting 2005 study played a key role in reparation negotiations. The Chixoy case illustrates some of the more profound impacts of the WCD review. The WCD served as a catalyst in social movement formation and a force that expanded rights-protective space for dam-affected communities to negotiate an equitable involvement in development.

Hannah Gosnell
Assistant Professor, Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University, USA; gosnellh@geo.oregonstate.edu
Erin Clover Kelly
Postdoctoral Research Associate, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, USA; erin.kelly@oregonstate.edu

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to explain the multiple factors that contributed to a 2010 agreement to remove four large dams along the Klamath river in California and Oregon and initiate a comprehensive social-ecological restoration effort that will benefit Indian tribes, the endangered fish on which they depend, irrigated agriculture, and local economies in the river basin. We suggest that the legal framework, including the tribal trust responsibility, the Endangered Species Act, and the Federal Power Act, combined with an innovative approach to negotiation that allowed for collaboration and compromise, created a space for divergent interests to come together and forge a legally and politically viable solution to a suite of social and environmental problems. Improved social relations between formerly antagonistic Indian tribes and non-tribal farmers and ranchers, which came about due to a number of local collaborative processes during the early 2000s, were critical to the success of this effort. Overall, we suggest that recent events in the Klamath basin are indicative of a significant power shift taking place between tribal and non-tribal interests as tribes gain access to decision-making processes regarding tribal trust resources and develop capacity to participate in the development of complex restoration strategies.

Viewpoint -€“ The World Bank versus the World Commission on Dams

Robert Goodland
613 Rivercrest, McLean VA 22101, USA; rbtgoodland@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The World Bank Group (WBG) has long resisted guidelines from reformers and the World Commission on Dams (WCD) requiring large dam projects to internalise the social and environmental costs of dam construction. Despite some progress, the Bank continues to resist calls for it to eschew countries'€™ use of violence in removing residents from areas to be flooded by reservoirs, compensate residents adequately for their losses, or involve affected people in planning for big dams. Suggestions are made for more humane and economically responsible Bank policies.

Viewpoint -€“ Overreach and response: The politics of the WCD and its aftermath

John Briscoe
Gordon McKay, Professor of the Practice of Environmental Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US; jbriscoe@seas.harvard.edu

ABSTRACT: This essay recounts the story of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) from the perspective of a former World Bank official who is often credited with first creating and then destroying the WCD. The story is consistent with the (in my view) only accurate previously published description of the politics of the WCD, that of the anti-dam leader Patrick McCully. In essence, this assessment is that the WCD was an extraordinarily audacious process, which aimed to substitute the legitimacy of the states in developing countries (elected in most cases, accountable in all) with the will of anti-dam NGOs that are not accountable to anyone except their fellow advocates. This essay outlines the reasons why no dam-building country has accepted the central recommendation of the WCD -€“ the 26 Guidelines. While the rejection of the Guidelines (by countries and by the World Bank) is bemoaned by anti-dam NGOs, this essay argues that this well thought-out rejection represents a positive and long overdue turning point in the governance of development assistance. Accountable representatives from the developing world eventually did their duty -€“ they developed a coherent and united position rejecting the WCD Guidelines and articulated a vision of why water infrastructure was central to growth and poverty reduction. This essay shows how this coherence evolved and how important it is in counterbalancing the moral hazard ('I decide, you live with the consequences') that pervades most discussions of development. Finally, the essay outlines the hope which this evolution and broader changes in global economic geography hold for bringing accountability and some common sense to the often Alice-in-Wonderland world of development cooperation.

Viewpoint -€“ Reflections on the WCD as a mechanism of global governance

Navroz K. Dubash
Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India; ndubash@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) has aroused debate as an innovation in global governance. I suggest that the WCD did, indeed, have many innovative features, but argue that processes such as the WCD are better suited to propagating norms than making rules at the global level. The norm setting and propagating role is critical because there are no other plausible mechanisms of debating the larger ideas that inform decision-making, in a way that credibly brings in voices of the poor and powerless. I develop this argument by looking at three aspects of the WCD: its characteristics as a global governance mechanism; how it sought to achieve legitimacy; and its role as an agent of regulative versus normative change.

Viewpoint - From dams to development justice: Progress with 'free, prior and informed consent' Since the World Commission on Dams

Joji Cariño
Former Commissioner, World Commission on Dams; Policy Advisor, Tebtebba, Baguio City, Philippines; tongtong@gn.apc.org
Marcus Colchester
Director, Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh, UK; marcus@forestpeoples.org

ABSTRACT: The World Commission on Dams (WCD) helped establish as development best practice the requirement to respect the right of indigenous peoples to give or withhold their 'free, prior and informed consent' (FPIC) to development projects that will affect them. Recognition of this right helps redress the unequal power relations between indigenous peoples and others seeking access to their lands and resources. In this Viewpoint, we examine the evolution of policy in the ten years since the publication of the WCD Report, and how FPIC has been affirmed as a right of indigenous peoples under international human rights law and as industry best practice for extractive industries, logging, forestry plantations, palm oil, protected areas and, most recently, for projects to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. To date, relatively few national legal frameworks explicitly require respect for this right and World Bank standards have yet to be revised in line with these advances in international law. We analyse how international law also needs to clarify how the right to FPIC relates to the State'™s power to impose resource exploitation in the 'national interest' and whether 'local communities' more broadly also enjoy the right to FPIC. In practice, as documented in this Viewpoint and in the cases we review, the right to FPIC is widely abused by corporations and State agencies. A growing tendency to reduce implementation of FPIC to a simplified check list of actions for outsiders to follow, risks again removing control over decisions from indigenous peoples. For FPIC to be effective it must respect indigenous peoples' rights to control their customary lands, represent themselves through their own institutions and make decisions according to procedures and rhythms of their choosing.

Viewpoint - Principles in practice: Updating the global multi-stakeholder dialogue on dams in 2010

D. Mark Smith
Head, Water Programme, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland; mark.smith@iucn.org

ABSTRACT: The WCD laid out a way forward for dams to serve development better, and to deliver better outcomes for people as well as ecosystems. The conclusions reached were evidence-based and made in an open, multi-stakeholder dialogue. Given this process and taken as a whole, the WCD could not be ignored in 2000, and ten years later in 2010, the WCD still cannot be dismissed. To be meaningful in the long-run, however, the WCD required follow-up. Among many needs was the challenge of translating principles and guidelines developed at a global level to practice that could be implemented at a national and project level. IUCN'€™s response, for example, has been very practical and oriented principally towards dissemination, dialogue, demonstration and learning.

The WCD recommendations were not embraced by all stakeholders, and it is increasingly clear that the drivers for dam development and the actors involved are changing, because of for example climate change and the emergence of China as a major international financier of dams. It may be time therefore to renew efforts to expand consensus on dams and re-galvanise the global multi-stakeholder dialogue that was started by the WCD. Otherwise, the 21st century dams industry will run into the same risks - fuelled by issues of equity, environment and dissatisfaction with development outcomes achieved -€“ that brought their counterparts into the WCD in 1998.

KEYWORDS: Multi-stakeholder dialogue, learning, demonstration, sustainability