CONFLICT PREVENTION STRATEGY FOR TRANSBOUNDARY RIVER AND LAKE BASINS IN WATER SCARCE REGIONS
As water stress and scarcity intensify globally, the risk of inter-state tensions and conflicts is rising in several regions. In this context, the optimal and equitable management of transboundary water resources becomes not just a necessity but a crucial element in maintaining peace and fostering sustainable development.
Acknowledging these challenges, I propose a 7-pillar Conflict Prevention and Cooperation Strategy that collectively addresses the complexities of investment, water diplomacy, and resource management. This strategy, founded on the belief that proactive, collaborative, and integrated approaches are essential, includes a range of focused initiatives, processes, and practices.
The shared goal is to collaboratively enhance water, food, and energy security for the populations in a peaceful manner.
The shared goal is to collaboratively enhance water, food, and energy security for the populations in a peaceful manner.
7-PILLAR STRATEGY
- Strengthen Institutional and Legal Frameworks (institutionnalisation): Enhance governance structures and establish comprehensive legal agreements and joint bodies, both bilateral and multilateral, for transboundary water resource management and cooperation.
- Develop a Multi-Track Water Diplomacy: Engage in a diplomatic process that integrates and goes beyond the governmental framework, facilitating significant participation from a diverse range of actors. This includes not only governmental institutions, but also civil society, the academic sector, community groups, and citizens.
- Apply Integrated and Multi-Sectoral Approaches: Promote collaboration across various water use sectors in planning and operation, applying the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles and the Water, Energy, and Food Security Nexus approaches. Ensure inclusive decision-making by involving all relevant stakeholders, including local communities.
- Strengthen Joint Hydrometeorological Data Collection and Modeling as well as Data and Information exchange: Enhance the common understanding and prediction of changes in flow regimes through improved collaborative data collection, hydrometerological modeling, and data exchange. Incorporate risk assessment tools and early warning systems to identify potential conflict hotspots or areas of heightened risk due to changes in water availability, usage, or quality.
- Implement Coordinated Investment Planning and Operation of Infrastructure: Coordinate investments through a joint multi-sector investment program and collaborate in managing existing water infrastructure throughout the entire basin or sub-basin, adhering to the “doctrine of coordinated investments”. Optimize water supply through measures such as water transfer, storage, recycling, desalination, etc., while also including the necessary measures to protect and sustain aquatic ecosystems.
- Increase Water Use Efficiency and Reduce Water Consumption: Implement practices in all sectors to use water resources more efficiently. Apply the virtual water concept in food trade to reduce agricultural water use and optimize water resource allocation among countries.
- Develop Communication, Awareness, and Training through Public Diplomacy and the use of Soft Power: Build awareness at all levels and enhance capacity in transboundary water resources management and water diplomacy.
- This strategy has the potential to pave the way towards a more peaceful and sustainable future by transforming water into a vector of cooperation rather than a source of conflict. However, its success fundamentally hinges on genuine realization and political will at the highest levels of government to cooperate in this direction.
- It is therefore imperative for governments to understand and acknowledge that water security, food security, and energy security in large river and lake basins can better be effectively addressed at the regional level.
- Furthermore, in the negotiated multi-sectoral arrangements, it is essential that each state secures sufficient interests based on equitable trade-offs, guaranteeing a reasonable 'slice of the cake,' along with tangible benefits for its population. The arrangements should also provide electoral advantages to heads of state and other political actors, offering compelling arguments to convince public opinion.
- Moreover, each state must demonstrate a commitment to internally optimize water consumption across all sectors and efficiently mobilize its own resources. This includes implementing measures such as water storage, transfer, recycling, desalination, and others.