national level, with lesser possibilities to influence it directly by the regional water
authority that was practice partner in the project.
The regional visits by the governance team were one type of the site visit
exchanges that took place in the DROP project. Another type of exchange was the
‘drought team visits’; where several experts on drought from the water authority
went to visit their partner region; for instance Twente experts visited the region
Somerset to learn about drought adaptation for nature there. Likewise, experts from
Somerset visited Twente. These drought team exchanges took place twice, just like
the governance team visits. A third set of exchange was the stakeholder exchange.
In this exchange a group of approx. 5–10 stakeholders visited the partner region.
These stakeholders were representatives from local/regional governmental agencies,
NGOs, businesses also local farmers. These visits took place once during the
project’s duration. A last form of exchange was the full partnership meetings of the
project team, where partners shared their work thus far, the lessons they had
learned, and the plans they had for the future.
Exchange and mutual learning were therefore important aspects of the work in
DROP. For governance assessment this meant that a strong focus laid on interaction
and exchange, and that there was a lot of room for discussion, and on the spot
science. This gives our assessment model a specific place in the wider array of
assessment approaches out there, as discussed in Sect. 1.3. Distinguishing characteristic of our approach—compared to other governance assessment approaches
—are the following ones. (1) Many approaches of governance mix elements of
descriptive nature and elements of normative nature, while our approach tries to
clearly separate the descriptive elements (the five dimensions of governance discussed at the end of Sect. 1.2) and the normative aspects (four criteria we employ in
our assessment, namely intensity, flexibility, extent and coherence).
(2) Furthermore our approach derives the normative criteria from a specific goal,
namely the feasibility and likelihood of realization of a certain category of measures
or projects (in this case the promotion of drought resilience). Thus the normative
component is limited and focused. That does not mean that more ethical approaches
(‘good governance’ like the one of the OECD) are wrong, just that they have
another focus. Our approach could be considered more practice-oriented—with the
risk that it can only be applied ethically in cases that the projected policies and
projects serve ‘good’ goals. (3) Our approach makes a clear separation between the
conditions and the activities. In many approaches ‘governance’ is used for both the
process and the contextual conditions for the process. In our approach ‘governance’
is just used for the context. It is even a very distinguished characteristic of our
approach that not everything (the circumstances and the process) is put in this one
basket, but that the governance context and the process are seen as related but
separated so that it is possible to study the impact of the governance conditions on
the process. This again makes it relatively practice-oriented.
10
N. Bressers et al.
authority that was practice partner in the project.
The regional visits by the governance team were one type of the site visit
exchanges that took place in the DROP project. Another type of exchange was the
‘drought team visits’; where several experts on drought from the water authority
went to visit their partner region; for instance Twente experts visited the region
Somerset to learn about drought adaptation for nature there. Likewise, experts from
Somerset visited Twente. These drought team exchanges took place twice, just like
the governance team visits. A third set of exchange was the stakeholder exchange.
In this exchange a group of approx. 5–10 stakeholders visited the partner region.
These stakeholders were representatives from local/regional governmental agencies,
NGOs, businesses also local farmers. These visits took place once during the
project’s duration. A last form of exchange was the full partnership meetings of the
project team, where partners shared their work thus far, the lessons they had
learned, and the plans they had for the future.
Exchange and mutual learning were therefore important aspects of the work in
DROP. For governance assessment this meant that a strong focus laid on interaction
and exchange, and that there was a lot of room for discussion, and on the spot
science. This gives our assessment model a specific place in the wider array of
assessment approaches out there, as discussed in Sect. 1.3. Distinguishing characteristic of our approach—compared to other governance assessment approaches
—are the following ones. (1) Many approaches of governance mix elements of
descriptive nature and elements of normative nature, while our approach tries to
clearly separate the descriptive elements (the five dimensions of governance discussed at the end of Sect. 1.2) and the normative aspects (four criteria we employ in
our assessment, namely intensity, flexibility, extent and coherence).
(2) Furthermore our approach derives the normative criteria from a specific goal,
namely the feasibility and likelihood of realization of a certain category of measures
or projects (in this case the promotion of drought resilience). Thus the normative
component is limited and focused. That does not mean that more ethical approaches
(‘good governance’ like the one of the OECD) are wrong, just that they have
another focus. Our approach could be considered more practice-oriented—with the
risk that it can only be applied ethically in cases that the projected policies and
projects serve ‘good’ goals. (3) Our approach makes a clear separation between the
conditions and the activities. In many approaches ‘governance’ is used for both the
process and the contextual conditions for the process. In our approach ‘governance’
is just used for the context. It is even a very distinguished characteristic of our
approach that not everything (the circumstances and the process) is put in this one
basket, but that the governance context and the process are seen as related but
separated so that it is possible to study the impact of the governance conditions on
the process. This again makes it relatively practice-oriented.
10
N. Bressers et al.