Sound Planning Processes

When large dams are built, increasingly, companies, banks, and governments commit to follow internationally-recognized standards for such projects. Some of these standards are voluntary, and sometimes the financing or support for a dam project is conditional upon complying with them. But what exactly are dam standards, who makes them, and how can civil society use them? "Dam Standards: A Rights-Based Approach" attempts to summarize the strongest social and environmental standards related to each stage of a dam's project cycle: from strategic planning, to project analysis, to implementation, op

Integrated Resources Planning (IRP) is a public process in which planners work together with other interested parties to identify and prepare energy options that serve the highest possible public good. In the process, they establish scope, investigate options, prepare and evaluate integrated plans, select preferred plans, and establish mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and iterate plans as conditions change. The IRP method was developed in the 1980s in response to repeated cases of power plants that were not needed and experienced serious cost and time overruns. In contrast to the limited cho

La Comisión Mundial de Represas independiente (CMR) fue creada en mayo de 1998, con el apoyo del Banco Mundial y la Unión Mundial para la Naturaleza (UICN). Su mandato fue examinar la efectividad de desarrollo de las represas, y crear normas y directrices para futuros proyectos. La Comisión estuvo inte- grada por 12 representantes de los sectores gubernamental, industrial, académico y de la sociedad civil, y fue presidida por Kader Asmal, entonces Ministro de Recursos Hídricos de Sudáfrica. ACERCA DE ESTA GUIA INFORMATIVA Esta guía informativa se centra en las principales catego