07-08 November 2013, Paris, France – The GIWEH participated in the second meeting of the OECD Water Governance Initiative. The OECD Water Governance Initiative is an international multi-stakeholder network of delegates from public, private and not-for-profit sectors that gather together to share on-going reforms, projects, lessons and good practices in support of better governance in the water sector.

The OECD Water Governance Initiative kicked off four Working Groups – the GIWEH will be active in the Working Group on Stakeholder Engagement for Effective Water Management led by OECD and Suez Environment. Rather than an objective per se, stakeholder engagement1 is a governance instrument that can help achieve water policy outcomes in terms of efficiency, sustainability and equity. It is a means to prevent conflicts, manage trade-offs, raise awareness and build intersectoral complementarities at the right scale.

The objective of the working group will be to develop a methodological framework based on empirical evidence, in support of effective stakeholder engagement in water management decision-making process, encompassing both water services and water resources.

The project will rely on a questionnaire to collect data across OECD and BRICS countries. It will conclude with the publication of a report including a set of recommendations and indicators to be included in OECD Principles on water governance and Indicators on water governance. The project will aim to build the evidence case for stakeholder engagement as an instrument for effective water governance.