"It has been an creative first step," said Lakshmi Chand Jain, India's former high commissioner to South Africa and one of the commissioners, at a press conference after the hearings. The commissioners, who represent both pro and anti-dam lobbies from around the world, listened to 30 presentations from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka covering a wide range of views on large water projects.

The South Asian hearings were the first in a series of world-wide hearings that WCD will hold before it submits its recommendations on large dams to the World Bank and IUCN (World Conservation Union) in June 2000.

Originally scheduled to be held at Bhopal, the hearings were relocated to Sri Lanka after the Indian government withdrew permission for it at the last minute due to objections bythe Gujarat government that it was all an anti-Narmada dam conspiracy. Commission chairman Kader Asmal, also S Africa's minister of Water Resources, said that WCD was not a "policeman" but said its recommendations would "assist in decision-making for those who want to make investments in large dam projects".