IW:LEARN Regional Workshop on Economic Valuation and Water Related Decision-making

Date: 6th november - 8th November 2006

Venue: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Group photo

Welcome to the worksite for the first IW:LEARN workshop on river basin learning. The topic of this workshop is the application of economic valuation to water-related decision-making

Through the Water and Nature Initiative (WANI), IUCN is engaged in a three year partnership with GEF IW:LEARN, which aims to strengthen Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) by facilitating structured learning and information sharing among stakeholders in transboundary water resources. IUCN-WANI is the Project Activity Leader (PAL) for learning relating to the freshwater – particularly river basin – subset of the GEF International Waters portfolio, under IW:LEARN Activity B2.1.2. Further information on WANI can be found at:

• www.iucn.org/themes/wani

• The IW:LEARN programme is jointly overseen by UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank/World Bank Institute. Further information on IW:LEARN can be found at: www.iwlearn.org

This workshop is being organised in response to needs assessment conducted with the GEF constituency prior to and during the International Water Conference in Brazil in June 2005, and experience from Water and Nature Initiative projects. These showed that there is high demand for better understanding of the concepts and tools of economic valuation of ecosystems. Key issues include how to quantify the benefits generated by ecosystems goods and services and how to apply valuations to support decision making and options assessments. Demand is particularly high in Africa where IWRM and environmental flows are being actively promoted at national and transboundary scales.

Host institutions and partners:

• International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering/ L’Institut International d’Ingénierie de l’Eau et de l’Environnement (2iE/Groupe EIER-ETSHER), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
• IUCN - The World Conservation Union / UICN - Union mondiale pour la nature
• World Bank Institute (WBI)/ Institut de la Banque mondiale
• Global Water Partnership – West Africa

Invited participants include GEF project coordinators, chief technical advisors (CTAs), key project managers and staff who are or will be involved in areas relating to the workshop subject, and key project partners in government institutions.

• Final list of participants
• List of participants (version on the CD-Rom)

Background

Sessions & Readings

Evaluation

Photo Album

Workshop Report

Workshop Objectives

The goal of the workshop is to enable wider and more knowledgeable application of economic valuation of ecosystems in water management decisions. The workshop will strengthen the capacity of key decision-makers to use ecosystem valuation as an IWRM tool, by:

• improving their understanding of the relevance of economic values of ecosystems to water planning and management decisions;

• enabling the use of ecosystem valuation in options assessment and environmental flow analysis;

• identifying how ecosystem valuation can inform the GEF TDA and SAP processes; and

• equipping participants with the practical skills, capacities and network access needed to get started in applying economic valuation in IWRM.

Learning framework

The workshop will be structured to deliver 6 learning objectives for participants. These are:

      1.  Understanding the principles of economic valuation of ecosystems and linkages to sustainable development and the MDGs;

      2.  Understanding how economic values of ecosystems inform decision making in IWRM;

      3.  Introduction to methods for ecosystem valuation;

      4.  Enabling design and implementation of valuation studies;

      5.  Practical application of ecosystem valuations to river basin management and water decisions and communication of outcomes;

      6.  Formulation of personal action plans for project applications and ongoing learning

Agenda

Additional References

• Please click here for a copy of the TOR for the workshop designer and facilitator.