World Commission on Dams / External Reports

A series of discussions are under way among the governments that ratified the Kyoto Protocol on what commitments developed countries (Annex I Parties, in the Protocol's jargon) should take on after the first phase of the Protocol expires in 2012. They are also discussing means to meet these commitments, including potentially redesigning the Clean Development Mechanism.

The UK's Department of Environment (DEFRA) has prepared a checklist which can be used to assess whether a large hydro project complies with the World Commission on Dams criteria. The checklist is Annex C in DEFRA's "guidance on approval and authorisation to participate in Clean Development Mechanism project activities" which can be downloaded below.

Members of the South Africa Coordinating Committee on the WCD created this PowerPoint presentation.

The construction of Tipaimukh Dam by India on the international Barak river raises a number of questions in relation to successful implementation of World Commission on Dams (WCD) recommendation on Gaining Public Acceptance (GPA) for large dams. The government of India has never officially informed the lower riparian state of Bangladesh about the construction of the dam although experts fear that the dam would have adverse environmental impact on Bangladesh that share the same river basin.

This paper was prepared as a submission to the Fourth Regional Consultation of the World Commission on Dams in Hanoi.

The German Environment Ministry in October 2007 issued a "Guideline for Determination of Compliance with the Recommendations of the World Commission on Dams Regarding Hydroelectric Power Projects with a Capacity over 20MW, within the Context of Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Projects."