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of the Commons, is by no means a universal phenomenon, the notion

that human beings as well as nation states are interested in maximiz-

ing their respective benefits cannot be ignored. Therefore one has to

take into account the respective costs and benefits of cooperating on a

shared water resource to be able to assess in which cases cooperative

behaviour is worthwhile for a certain actor. In the case of transbound-

ary river basins, it might actually be more beneficial to the upstream

riparian not to cooperate at all, since cooperation might imply getting

less water from a river than before in order to increase the available

amount of water for a downstream country. Likewise, the existence of

cooperative measures as such is not necessarily a ‘good thing’. In terms

of implementation, cooperative agreements need to be examined more

closely as to whether they actually help in achieving the goals they have

been put up for. Likewise, if a cooperative arrangement clearly favours

one party over the other, non-cooperation could be the better option

with regard to benefits for the disadvantaged party.

However, the cost of non-cooperation regarding natural resource

management in terms of degradation or water scarcity can be

immense, and negative effects often transcend international borders.

Given that transboundary basins and aquifers are essential to the

livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, water creates mutual

dependencies across societies, countries and continents which often

necessitate cooperation.

So how to overcome a situation in which non-cooperation seems

more desirable for an actor than cooperation? One solution can be

to talk about overall benefits from cooperation on water issues rather

than about mere water quantities. Approaches that focus on the collec-

tive benefits that users receive from water sharing can thus be more

fruitful in stimulating cooperation than negotiating about water alloca-

tion alone. Issue linkage is the notion that if two sides cannot reach

an agreement when negotiating on one issue, adding a second issue

for a simultaneous discussion increases the probability of agreement.

Therefore, cooperation on transboundary rivers can be strengthened

when taking into account more than the issue of water use alone.

Therefore, issue linkage can prevent non-cooperative behaviour

by broadening a country’s range of options and contributes to

balancing uneven ‘power’ potentials.

As mentioned above, the public debate has often discussed

whether the wars of this century will be fought over water rather

than over oil. However, as Aaron Wolf and others famously

showed, cooperation over water exceeds conflict by far and water

wars have barely ever been recorded within the last thousands of

years. Research findings both of GWSP and others also suggest that

water cooperation can be a starting point for cooperation in other

areas, preventing political conflict and strengthening ties between

communities and nation states. Nevertheless, the above statement

that there are no wars being fought over water does obviously not

mean that there is no conflict or suffering due to increasing water

stress. Rather, the accelerating and competing demands for water

resources and the growing uncertainties due to global environmen-

tal changes necessitate cooperation more than ever.

Effective water cooperation does not only mean bringing together

those actors that need to cooperate, but similarly knowing which issues

need to be aligned. A joint discussion of issues that belong together

but are usually not discussed as such might in turn require bringing

together different actors than before. Recent global assessments have

revealed several issues that need to be discussed in a cooperative and

joint manner: we urgently need more collaboration to address water,

food and energy issues in an integrated way as well as a joint approach to

manage land and water resources. These issues need to be

taken into account when framing the policies of tomorrow.

Today the world is committed to creating a set of

sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, this

task is particularly difficult in the area of water, consid-

ering the magnitude of human activities transforming the

global water system. We know that competition for water

between societal needs and ecosystem demands will inten-

sify in the future. At the same time, securing water for other

vital human needs such as food and energy production, as

well as safeguarding the quality and quantity of water for

the ecosystem, should not be neglected in pursuance of

water supply and sanitation goals. Thus, while framing the

SDGs, there is further need for knowledge to understand

how to safeguard the global water system on which the

welfare of current and future generations depends and to

establish stategic partnerships to this end, as called for in

the Bonn Declaration.

Last but not least, from the perspective of a decade of

global water research, financial resources for research,

capacity building and education are a key element to facili-

tate water cooperation and a fruitful relationship between

science and policy. Facing global change, this relationship

must become a collaborative partnership of mutual learn-

ing to meet today’s and future challenges. What is needed

is ‘managing to learn in order to learn to manage’.

Benefit sharing through issue linkage

in the Volta Basin

Recent studies on transboundary rivers show in which way issue

linkages – for example of water and energy – can improve

cooperation between upstream and downstream riparians. A

case study

on transboundary water sharing between Burkina

Faso and Ghana, the major upstream and downstream countries

in the Volta River Basin, illustrates that the interdependency of

riparians can lead to mutual benefits if more issues than water

use are taken into account.

While Ghana gets the chance to increase the currently

limited amount of water used for agricultural purposes,

Burkina Faso benefits from cheaper energy from hydropower

as a compensation for constraining its water consumption.

In this case, collective benefits of issue linkages of water

and energy can result in improved welfare for both countries,

making a sustainable cooperation commonly advantageous.

Interdependency and issue linkage can lead to mutual benefits

Image: UN Photo/Logan Abassi