IHP strategy for UNESCO's category 2 water-related centres (revised version, August 2012)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF STRATEGY FOR UNESCO’S WATER-RELATED INSTITUTES AND CENTRES

Strategy for individual centres

2. Concerning the process of creating water-related centres under the auspices of UNESCO, the strategy makes it clear that:

• once the Director-General receives a written proposal from a Member State(s) for designation of a category 2 water-related institute or centre she shall invite the IHP Bureau to review it and to submit its comments for consideration by the IHP Intergovernmental Council.
• The Council shall then review the proposal in order to determine if it fits within IHP’s relevant strategic medium-term plan and with its IHP category 2 network strategy and provide a recommendation to the Director-General as to whether a feasibility study should be conducted.
• should the Director-General, in consultation with the Assistant Director-General of Natural Sciences, decide that a feasibility study shall be undertaken, the concerned Member State(s) shall be invited to consider covering all related costs to prepare such a feasibility study, or to identify other extrabudgetary sources to cover these costs, in light of the Organization’s constrained resources.
• the feasibility study should set out, inter alia, why such a centre is needed as a category 2 centre, how the proposed programme of the centre contributes to UNESCO’s strategic programme objectives, and sources of funding for the centre.

3. The strategy outlines that UNESCO’s water-related centres should function in the following manner:

• address its thematic and geographic priorities within their capabilities;
• work together to contribute to implementation of UNESCO’s strategic objectives in general and to the IHP’s strategic plans in particular; and
• develop their workplans in a coordinated fashion with UNESCO’s biennial programme.

• are directed towards a programmatic assessment to ensure that the focus and coverage of the activities of centres are in line with the strategic objectives of UNESCO Annex-1);
• provide a valuable element (Annex-2) for deciding whether the agreement between UNESCO and the host government should be renewed in line with the document 35C/22 and Corr.;