Congratulations! I think you've done an impressive job of synthesizing and analyzing a huge amount of information and I agree with the bulk of your conclusions. I think your report will be very useful. One aspect of the report I strongly disagree with however is the analysis of why the World Bank has failed to endorse the WCD's recommendations and how this could have been avoided. The Executive Summary states that: "When the Bank later issued a weak response to the Commission's findings, many observers asked whether providing the Bank a seat at the negotiating table would have increased its buy-in to the Commission's outcomes." (p.7) I believe this statement is factually misleading. I hear a lot of opinions on the WCD but I have never once heard an 'observer' voice this opinion. If this question is being asked by people outside the WRI review, I think it is misleading to say that 'many observers' are asking it. The ES continues that: "When the WCD released its final report, the disadvantages of independence from the Bank became apparent. The Bank failed to embrace the WCD's package of recommendations, demonstrating that it did not have a sense of accountability to the process . . .(p.9) I very much disagree with this conclusion. The Bank failed to embrace the recommendations because it didn't like them, not because it wasn't sufficiently involved. Witness the more favourable 'embrace' from the ADB and AfDB, even tho' these institutions were far less involved in the process than the World Bank. Had the World Bank been more closely involved I have no doubt that they would have done everything in their power to make the recommendations more palatable to the Bank. If they had succeeded, civil society groups would likely have withdrawn from engagement with the Commission with a serious impact on its multistakeholder legitimacy. Close Bank involvement with the Commission would therefore likely have killed it. (As is implied in the first para on p.18). (The analysis of WB involvement in the Exec Summ seems inconsistent with statement on p.47 of main report that "On balance the decision to not seek direct representation for the WB was likely the right one. . ")

Below are specific comments going thru the text:

ES p.3 para 5: 'It was a stalemate . . . ' Ever since the Commission's first establishment, it used the word 'stalemate' to describe the situation of pro- and anti- dam groups before Gland. The NGO group have always disagreed with this characterization. Anti-dam groups at least did not have a sense of a stalemate but rather increasing strength and progress and the fact that we were able to push the industry to accept the WCD was another sign of how we were advancing, not that we were stalemated.

ES p.7 para 3: 'Members of the secretariat staff . . . were intended to capture the extremes of the dams debate' I think this is misleading. No one with a record as an NGO or movement anti-dam activist was employed by the secretariat - activists were turned down for secretariat jobs using the argument that they were seen as being too identified with one side. There were also no real 'extremists' from the pro-dam side, although Bert Oud was a professional dam industry insider and strong promoter of some dam projects.

ES p.15 para 3: I think it should be noted here the huge importance of the individual characters and skills of the Commissioners and the chemistry between them.

ES p.17 para 3: I think the description of industry reactions should include the conspiracy theories - eg that it was Northern plot and/or funded by nuclear and fossil fuel industries. These were common reactions, especially from ICOLD members in the South.

ES p.19 para 4: ends mid-sentence

ES p.19 para 5: 'governments question the legitimacy of non-elected individuals' I think governments question the legitimacy of those they disagree with, but whether or not they are elected is irrelevant. Almost all the shrill criticism of WCD from 'governments' has come from unelected bureaucrats. No governments questioned the selection of the unelected Shen Guoyi. Had eg the Indian govt. been represented on the commission it is very likely it would have been thru a bureaucrat, not an elected politician.

Ch 1, p.1, para 3: I disagree with the 'stalemate' word/concept (also on p.2 para 6)

p.4 para 1: I don't think WCD had a 'goal' of 'healing wounds'.

p.26 para 2: Nagara and Pak Mun are not good examples of protest movements that slowed down or stalled dams. Both have been completed and I don't think either were held up substantially by protests.

p.28 para 3: states that NGOs 'argue' the OED report wasn't made public and only precis was. This is not just an opinion of one side in the debate, but a verifiable fact.

p.29 para 2: 'The IRN critique asserted without justification that the Bank believed that remedial action was possible . . ' !!! I presume this is meant to read something like 'The IRN critique asserted that the Bank believed without justification that remedial action was possible . . '

p.30 para 5: I'm not really sure of the meaning of this para (Beginning 'Both the . . . '). Maybe you could try and reword and make it clearer.

p.35 para 1: syntax problem in last sentence implies we thought govt. involvement would have delayed or stalled the comprehensiveness of the report. Should be something like NGOs believed that more govt. involvement would have compromised the Commission's ability to produce an unbiased report.

p.42-43 the account of the IWG, commissioner selection etc. contains some errors, mainly related to timing of disputes and when 'expanded-IWG' was established. I've forwarded the various letters which trace the history of the disputes as below:

• the dispute over commissioner selection was just part of the 'protracted, bitter and partisan' fighting you describe. Fighting over the commissioner list didn't really start until October 97 (and not April as implied on p.43 para 3).
• the first formal protest from RG NGOs to IWG was made on 27 June 1997. Our complaints concerned how the purpose of the commission was being depicted in the notes from the first IWG meeting at which only WB and IUCN reps were present. * in response to this protest 6 'representatives' from different stakeholder sectors in RG were invited to attend 2nd IWG meeting in Stockholm in August 16-17, 1997. This meeting selected Asmal. This 'expanded-IWG' format was used for a meetings in DC in September and then the final commissioner selection meeting in January 1998. (p.43 para 4 implies expanded IWG was only set up for the January 1998 meeting).
• the 1st proposed list of commissioners was issued in Oct. 97. The list was decided at a meeting in Geneva with which included only IUCN, WB and Asmal. In hindsight this was a major error - the expanded IWG should have chosen the commissioners, as eventually happened in January 1998.
• I don't remember the NGOs being swayed by any threat from Asmal to withdraw. We threatened to withdraw due to non-acceptance of proposed commissioners in a letter to IWG on 28 October (forwarded separately).
• in response to this and reactions to commissioner list from other RG members there was an expanded IWG conference call on 3 November, 1997. Nothing was resolved.
• On November 21 1997 Asmal, Greene, Briscoe wrote to RG saying that were prepared to continue with or without NGO support
• Dec 2 we replied saying that if they went ahead as proposed we would withdraw, but proposing a final meeting of the expanded IWG as way of breaking the impasse (I had suggested this to Bissell in phone call on 13 November)
• Dec 23 (!!) Greene and Briscoe wrote to RG saying that they would go ahead as planned and justifying their position with a paper commissioned from Dorcey (in other words Dorcey was helping destroy possibility of NGO involvement rather than saving the process as implied in p.43 para 4)
• Jan 13 Bissell wrote to RG saying Asmal had decided a further expanded IWG meeting was needed. The rest is history . . . well actually all of it is history.

p48 para 5: I don't think Achim was a 'Deputy Director' with IUCN (but don't remember what he was). Should be clarified that he was Interim Coordinator of IWG (not WCD).

p49 para 2: Its wrong to say that civil soc candidates for secretariat were 'uncritically accepted'. No candidates from activist NGOs/movement backgrounds were selected. Only candidates accepted which could be said to have been clearly sympathetic NGOs/movements were Sanjeev and Parasu. I don't see why they were any more 'uncritically' accepted that any of other candidates.

p49 para 4: I don't think the Sec staff selection really did mirror commissioner selection. Contrary to what is stated I think the sec't staff were from more of a middle ground than the commissioners.

p51 para 2: I'm not sure that DAWN actually attended any meetings or were involved in any other way.

p60 fn50: this is written is if I was author of OED report!! please change!

p64-65: I always understood that the opposition to Ataturk study came from Turkey, rather than ICOLD as stated. But I don't know what evidence I have for this.

p68 para 1: I don't think the India country study was criticised as much by NGOs as implied here.

p76 box para 3: The whole purpose of calling for an assessment of empirical experience was to have provided details on how past dams performed - thus I don't understand your conclusion.

p93 box: figure of 700,000 is wrong. Statistic normally given is 113,000

p94 para 5: 'lifestyle choice' is strange way to describe economic inequalities!

p96 para 5: the description of regional meetings as 'hope of a lifetime' raises an interesting issue which I don't think is mentioned - that of the commission (and indirectly NGOs thru encouraging their participation) raising false expectations among presenters.

p.103 para 5: 'Some of the Commission's early hiccups have been attributed to [Medha Patkar's] interest in advancing campaign goals' seems unfair. This presumably refers to SSP field visit and Bhopal hearing. I think that both had more to do with ensuring Commission was exposed to affected peoples' realities rather than with advancing NBA campaign goals.

p.104 para 5: I thought 'sufficient consensus' concept was developed as way of moving forward the all party negotiations on ending apartheid, rather than as something to deal with issues within anti-apartheid movement. (But I'm not sure)

p.107 para 4: the 'all dams are good'/'all dams are bad' characterization is rather a caricature. I don't think any commissioners would subscribe to either of these views.

p.108 para 4: Medha's campaigns were not just in the courts (and certainly not 'state courts' if this means the courts in each Indian state)

p113 para 2: 'with no (official) review' - the parenthetical statement raises the big question of what were the unofficial reviews. If no info is given on these I think it better to drop the '(official)'.

p121 the NGO responses should include the more critical responses e.g. from Phil Williams (see post-launch article in The Guardian) and Grainne Ryder (see Probe International press release)

p123 'the WB was involved in only 1% of large dam building' - this should be attributed as a World Bank claim - they did a lot of statistical massaging to come up with this figure. Its also interesting that WB's main response was to emphasise how little responsibility they had for building dams.

p125: 'the chilliness of the Bank's response led some NGOs to question whether it had been worth pushing for a review that was independent from the World Bank'. This sounds dubious to me. Which NGOs? I haven't heard anyone say this.

p132-3: as I stated at the top of this message I strongly disagree with the belief that the Bank's lukewarm response was because it wasn't sufficiently involved. Their response was driven by the fact that the Bank (and especially John Briscoe) simply didn't like the report.

p141 para 4: 'When the Bank responded hesitantly to the Commission's findings, many observers asked whether providing the Bank a seat . . .. " Same comments as above. Who are these mysterious 'observers'?

p142 para 3: 'When the WCD released its final report, the disadvantages of independence from the Bank became apparent. The Bank failed to embrace the WCD . . . demonstrating that it did not have sense of accountability . . . " Same comments. If Bank didn't like the recommendations it wouldn't have endorsed them no matter what their involvement had been. It sounds to me like maybe the 'many observers' are within the WRI review team?

p143 para 2: 'The first attempt to stage a consultation failed miserably because the Commission chose a meeting location near the hugely controversial Narmada Valley project in India, a decision that outraged the local state government.' The main problem wasn't the meeting location (Bhopal in MP) but the field visit to SSP. The MP govt. welcomed the hearing. It was the Gujarat govt. that went bonkers.

p144 para 7: The implication here is that if industry etc. had been consulted more they would have not have been defensive and hostile. I don't agree. Just like the Bank the problem for industry was that they didn't like what the report said about dams which they (rightly) see as inimical to their interests (building more dams). Had the industry known what would be in the report earlier they would only have kicked up a stink earlier. And had the report been altered to keep the industry happy we would have kicked up a stink. As is recognized on p.149 'some differences are irreconcilable'.

p148 para 3: this implies that a 'broad consensus' would have been possible. I don't think it would have been.

p.149 para 4: 'govts. question legitimacy of non-elected individuals' - see above comments on import of elected/non-elected reps.