HSAF: Latest News

HSAF Update: Webinar 6: July & August 2010

After completing its ninth meeting in May 2010 in Vientiane, Lao PDR, hosted by the Mekong River Commission, the Forum members have convened two more times by webinar meetings. During this period, the Forum has been reviewing revisions of the Final Draft Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol and reaching agreements on final amendments to the Protocol documents before closing its process. The Forum members aim to present the Final Draft Protocol to IHA to consider adoption, and to Forum member organisations to consider endorsement, in September 2010 following a final webinar engagement at the end of August.

Stakeholders are welcome to review the minutes and papers of Forum Webinar 5 and Forum Webinar 6 by clicking on these links.

The Forum’s response to issues raised in the Consultation Outcomes Report, which summarises the views of stakeholders on the Draft Protocol August 2009, will be made publicly available once final agreements to the Protocol are confirmed with the Forum members. A notice will be sent to stakeholders when it is publicly available.

Plans for follow-up work, including Protocol dissemination, communication, training and capacity building, will be progressed and communicated following finalisation of the Protocol documents.

HSAF Update: 8 June 2010

The Forum recently held its 5th Webinar, on 8 June 2010, the primary purpose of which was to share initial impressions of the Draft2 Final Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) documents distributed for review on 24th May 2010.

Stakeholders are welcome to review the minutes and papers of Webinar 5 and the preceding Forum Meeting 9, by clicking on these links.

Since Forum Meeting 8, the Forum has been reviewing redrafts of the Draft Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, August 2009, that was the subject of 15 weeks of consultation and trialling between September and December 2009.  Major objectives of the redrafting have included making the Protocol less complex, reducing redundancy, and improving ease of understanding and ease of use.

HSAF Update - 27 May 2010

The Forum has recently completed its ninth meeting, held from 3-6 May 2010 in Vientiane, Lao PDR and hosted by the Mekong River Commission.

Stakeholders are welcome to review the minutes and papers of Forum Meeting 9 and the preceding Webinar 4 by clicking on these links.

Since Forum Meeting 8, the Forum has been reviewing redrafts of the Draft Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, August 2009, that was the subject of 15 weeks of consultation and trialling between September and December 2009.  Major objectives of the redrafting have included making the Protocol less complex, reducing redundancy, and improving ease of understanding and ease of use.

The Forum will have two more webinars to review and agree on final amendments to the Protocol documents before closing its process.  It aims to present the Final Draft Protocol to IHA to consider adoption, and to Forum member organisations to consider endorsement, by the end of July 2010.  Plans for follow-up work including dissemination, communication, training and capacity building are being developed alongside finalisation of the Protocol documents.

A detailed response to issues raised in the Consultation Outcomes Report is being prepared, and it will be finalised once final agreements to the Protocol are confirmed with the Forum members.  A notice will be sent to stakeholders when it is publicly available.   

HSAF Update - 12 March 2010

After 15 weeks of intensive consultation on and trialling of the Draft Protocol (August 2009), the Forum met in February 2010 for its eighth meeting to consider the outcomes and determine the next steps towards finalizing the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol. It was noted that the trials and consultations showed a great interest in the work of the Forum, which reaffirmed the decision to provide a practical sustainability assessment tool.  Some of the major issues which the Forum has had to consider include:

• The Draft Protocol (August 2009) covers the issues of high importance to the sustainability of hydropower, but structurally is complex and somewhat overwhelming for stakeholders;
• It is not possible to get through all of the elements requiring assessment within the typical assessment time frame (five working days or less);
• The use of seven standard attributes for each aspect is overly systematic, as many are not necessarily relevant or most insightful for that aspect at a particular project stage;
• The language is difficult to translate in many cases;
• There is a lack of clarity on who were the target users and uses.  

In response to the issues raised during trialling and consultation of the Draft Protocol, the Forum reached a number of important agreements at its eighth meeting and third webinar meeting.  Some of these are to:

1. Make adoption of the Protocol by IHA and endorsement by Forum members a clear objective of the Forum’s work;
2. Target users and uses to those most likely to apply the Protocol, being representatives of the proponent of a hydropower project  and the assessor;
3. Focus Section I, presently assessing both the context for a potential hydropower project as well as the fit of a potential hydropower project in this context, to assess the strategic fit and potential contributions of a specific project under consideration;
4. Clarify and centralise how stakeholder involvement is addressed across a project through a Communications and Consultation topic, whilst still having assessment of stakeholder involvement and support included for key topics;
5. Provide guidance on potential interviewees during an assessment;
6. Reduce redundancy and replication in the Protocol through some rationalisation of topics;
7. Be highly conscious of translation issues, with a notable change being to replace the name “aspects” with “topics”, and “attributes” with “criteria”;
8. Not use the seven standard attributes (now criteria), but rather to use for each topic those criteria that are most insightful as indicators of sustainable performance;
9. Reference high profile and cross-cutting issues directly under every topic for better inclusion;
10. Make auditing guidance notes within the document more focussed on the needs of the assessor, and to have an educational appendix at the back.

These agreements of the Forum are guiding the re-drafting process, and will be evaluated and discussed by the Forum members and their reference groups as the documents evolve towards a Draft Final Protocol.

At the third webinar meeting, the Forum members also agreed to the following schematic describing its work and how it sees it progressing, including important elements of the vision of follow up to the Forum process upon its completion:

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