1. Top
    2. Event
    3. Report of the 5th meeting of OECD Water Governance Initiative

Report of the 5th meeting of OECD Water Governance Initiative

 

Tadashige KAWASAKI
NARBO secretariat

 

 

   NARBO has been contributing to OECD Water Governance Initiative (WGI) for over two years by offering its experiences on IWRM in the field. OECD launched “Stakeholder Engagement for Inclusive Water Governance” including the indicators on Water Governance by focusing on stakeholder engagement as one of the achievements of its activities at the 7th World Water Forum (7WWF). NARBO also contributed to the success of OECD’s session at 7WWF as one of the panelists at the session.


   Based on these backgrounds, the 5th WGI meeting was held in Edinburgh, Scotland on 26-27 May, 2015, and approximately 70 members of WGI jointed. The meeting discussed the follow-up on the outcome of the OECD’s sessions at 7WWF and the scoping note on Water Governance Indicators.


   The participants warmly welcomed the approval of OECD Principles on Water Governance by the Regional Development Policy Committee in OECD and the Ministers at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting. The Principle provides ‘a framework to understand whether water governance systems are performing optimally and help to adjust them where necessary＊ and has been developed and discussed through a bottom-up and multi-stakeholder process by members of WGI. Importance of the viewpoint of basin level and importance of coordination among all stakeholders which had been strongly recommended by NARBO have been mentioned on the Principles. In this point, NARBO highly contributed to develop the Principles by offering its experiences in the field. The participants agreed to support the implementation of WGI as a next step. You can download the Principles at the following website. The Principles will be translated into some languages and put on OECD WGI website in the near future. http://www.oecd.org/gov/regional-policy/OECD-Principles-on-Water-Governance-brochure.pdf

＊Brochure of OECD Principles on Water Governance
http://www.oecd.org/gov/regional-policy/OECD-Principles-on-Water-Governance-brochure.pdf



   NARBO made a presentation on how to use Water Governance Indicator by considering the result of the discussions at the sessions of 7WWF and showed a clear practical method. It was welcomed by the participants, and NARBO was recognized as a regional champion in the Asia-Pacific region to implement WGI, especially at field level.


   6th Meeting of WGI will be held this November, and report sessions to introduce practical activities to disseminate and apply the Principle and Indicator will be held. In addition, more discussions to refine the Water Governance Indicator are expected. NARBO will contribute to the discussions continuously as one of the biggest contributors to WGI. Dissemination and application of WGI to the field by bridging the knowledge gaps will be held through NARBO activities in the future. More contributions of member organizations of NARBO are highly appreciated.

 

Brochure of OECD Principles on Water Governance http://www.oecd.org/gov/regional-policy/OECD-Principles-on-Water-Governance-brochure.pdf