a more professionally based recruitment of water professionals and mandates based on medium and longterm consensual strategies may help stabilise the activity of state agencies ideally state agencies and basin agencies should replicate as much as possible the high standards of the ana a new version of the national plan emphasising its strategic nature based on a vision for the next one or two decades and addressing explicitly the very distinct conditions of the various regions of the country could be a very useful tool for building consensus on strategic water issues