2.2 Agreement Design & Key Components
Irrespective of the type of formal agreement that is established, coordination commitments need to delineate specific information related to the process of coordination and the commitments of the parties involved. Broadly, coordination agreements usually contain sections that list the parties that will be included in the agreement, what actions the parties agree to accomplish, and define each party’s responsibility towards accomplishing those actions (See Box 2b). Within these sections, details are listed in the form of provisions.
When drafting the provisions of an agreement, coordinating agencies have the opportunity to determine important aspects of their new relationship, such as how they will allocate power and how they will balance the transaction costs of coordinating. Therefore, the success of a partnership between agencies can depend on which topics are included in the agreement and the level of detail in which each of these topics is described.
Effective agreements generally address the topics of membership, roles and responsibilities, the decision-making process, dispute resolution, and agreement termination. The following sections provide further details about each of these components and briefly discuss why each section is important to coordination.
Box 2b Provisions of Coordination Agreements – Example from California
Under California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), agencies sharing a groundwater basin are required to coordinate development of their groundwater sustainability plans. Agencies must ensure that the groundwater sustainability plans use the same data and methodologies and demonstrate how plans, when implemented in concert, achieve sustainability at the basin level.
In the Delta-Mendota groundwater basin, agencies signed a coordination-agreement during the early stages of groundwater sustainability plan formation. This agreement spelled out in detail the roles, responsibilities and practices that would be used for development and coordination of groundwater sustainability plans across the basin. This approach had the benefit of clarifying for all parties how the coordination process would unfold. [See the Delta-Mendota Basin Coordination Agreement]
In the Tule groundwater basin, agencies developed their formal coordination-agreement after planning was substantially underway. The agreement details the decisions made as to data, methodologies and assumptions to be included in the final plans and formalized the decision-making process used to reach that agreement. This approach left the initial coordination process more informal, yet solidifies how coordination will be ensured and proceed into the future. [See the Tule Basin Coordination Agreement]