Free Flow

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ransboundary

ater

anagement

tentionally result in favour of the stronger party – thus entrenching a

status quo that in the long run may be disruptive for effective, just and

sustainable cooperation. The authors maintain that it is important to

strengthen the weaker parties in a region so that all actors can interact

on equal terms with each other when negotiating the management of

a shared resource such as water. In this way, creating an equilibrium

between all riparians within a basin means to establish the enabling

environment necessary to achieve higher levels of cooperation and

coordination – an assertion shared by Zeitoun and Jägerskog.

Notwithstanding the challenges posed by an uneven distribution

of power within a basin, there are new challenges on the horizon.

The impacts of climate change are profoundly evident through-

out hydrological systems. From the transboundary perspective,

increased climatic variability is greatly concerning. In certain

regions climatic variability will result in an excess of water during

certain parts of the year contrasted by a deficit during others.

Unfortunately, few transboundary agreements (where they even

exist) have been designed to compensate for increased variability

as they are often restricted by a rigid definition of water allocation

expressed by volumes of water and not according to percentages

of flow which would allow for greater flexibility. Thus increased

climatic variability will result in an increased pressure on, in many

instances, rather weak agreements.

Another important challenge

relates to the increasing investments in land by foreign capitalists

that are being made primarily in Africa, but also in Latin America

and parts of Asia.

Often the agreements guiding these invest-

ments are ‘water blind’. They do not always include provisions

for water and, where they do, it is not made clear whether that

water is derived from national or transboundary sources. It can

be presumed that in cases where the investments will draw on

transboundary waters this will adversely affect the hydro-political

relations in the basin.

Part of this equation also relates to the

‘water, food, energy’ nexus where ‘virtual’ trade-offs

(for example, as manifested through trade in virtual

water

) between water for food production as well as

energy production are outlined.

This also has impli-

cations for transboundary relations – in particular

where there is a lack of water resources and the trade-

offs are ‘real’.

At present, the promotion of transboundary water

cooperation is underfinanced within the interna-

tional system, and mechanisms to fill the financial

gap are scarce. Development partners are gener-

ally not programmed to finance processes without

a clear result and timeline. Generating cooperation

in transboundary basins largely consists of promot-

ing a process of building collaborative structures and

institutions, commonly at both national and regional

levels. This process is inevitably time-consuming and

often means taking two steps forward and one step

back. For a development partner to engage in building

such cooperative structures in a shared river basin,

patience and the understanding that this process most

often transcends the lifetime of a single project are

prerequisites. Process financing is often what is needed

to secure, deepen and improve water-related collabo-

ration in transboundary basins where the parties have

little or no history of such collaborative efforts across

other sectors of mutual interest.

Transboundary waters in the Middle East

The Middle East represents a region rife with politi-

cal and ideological conflict throughout history. To

this day, many conflicts remain unresolved and there

Water Resource Community

–

managers and users of water;

developing pragmatic solutions

on the ground

Research, Academic

Donors & IFIs

– developing

new concepts often based

on the solutions developed

by the WR community

Politicians

– allocating values

in society, protecting state

interest, sovereignty, rights etc.

Co-opt and support ideas from the

Researchers: on their terms

Stakeholder action and interaction in the development of transboundary water management

Source: Earle et al, 2010