When day 1 of the meeting was meant to exchange information about the current state of affairs, and to create support among stakeholders (lots of presentations!), day 2 was focused on content (yeah!).
For the morning sessions, the participants were divided in working groups. The Water Youth Network attended 2 of these sessions: on stakeholder engagement and on water integrity. Both of these sessions were very productive and focused on concrete issues and actions, and provided the best chances for lobbying to create involvement of (youth) stakeholders and openness of processes, which would benefit young people in the future.
The discussion on indicators continued as well: It was acknowledged that indicators on governance are often context specific, which means you have to have quite in depth knowledge of a country before you can understand what the indicators mean, and they are difficult to compare.
Why would we continue with this discussion then? – Having indicators on water governance raises the awareness for the issue, and when they are dealt with in a good way, provide valuable information. Also, the principles and indicators on good governance will also be used in the process to update all the water principles and indicators of the OECD (in 2015/2016). This might lead to a recommendation (= a very important political tool of the OECD, which countries have to implement once they agree on it) on water to the OECD countries.
The working group on Stakeholder engagement worked on the first results of the survey that has been disseminated (can be found here http://webnet.oecd.org/Survey/Survey.aspx?s=3a3eddf891e64d49be14c8031b16ce57, as organisation, you are welcome to fill it in!), answers are expected by end of May), on which case studies should be documented to learn more about governance (if you have ideas, please contact us, we’ll share) and on principles to ensure effective stakeholder engagement.
The working group on water integrity discussed the proposed principles for Water Integrity, which were already provided in detail and focused on the Transparancy, Accountability and Participation and anti-corruption. Furthermore, the organisation showed how the OECD WGI process was part of a bigger puzzle which aims to strengthen the discussion on integrity in the water sector, through publications, workshops and open discussions. It is said that the water sector especially is vulnerable to corruption and loss of integrity.
The afternoon was used to receive feedback from all working groups and discuss the process, the principles and the indicators that will be produced by the Initiative. The importance of all stakeholders, including young people, was enhanced. The OECD will send a report of the meeting in a few weeks, after all partners have contributed to the document. Already, the OECD will update the website and show more about the follow up process.
The process is not yet over. The first drafts of the principles of the 4 working groups are now being finalised. After this, they will be discussed during the Stockholm Water Week, and also during the World Water Forum. In November, there is another meeting to discuss the progress.
As usual, we will circulate all documents as soon as we can (once we get consent from the OECD and the writers of the documents) in order to get your inputs. These will be used for the November process. In the meantime, you can contribute through filling the survey (Link above) and sharing examples of case studies on water governance which can be useful to learn from. These can be examples from OECD, non OECD, national, regional and local level.
Feel free to contact us if you have more questions or input!