Water Security: furthering peaceful co-existence of people and societies

Written By Alice Bouman

By: de Albuquerque, Catarina; Bouman-Dentener, Alice
and Maestu, Josefina

Source: Moita, Luís; Pinto, Luís Valença (Coord.) (2017). Espaços económicos e espaços de segurança. Lisboa: UA L; OBSERVARE. Pp 699 - 724.

Introduction

Water is life, a source of well-being and development. It is key to the survival of all species and the planet and “essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”.  With the global population growing exponentially and industrialization and economic development on a steep increase, the world is facing mounting water challenges. Technology and good water management practices from local level to river basins contribute to improving access to services, to allocating water fairly and protecting the resource base.

Beyond technical and management issues, in today’s increasingly globalized world, water surfaces as a security matter.  Next to the importance of water for development, its availability and allocation influence peace and stability locally, nationally, in transboundary basins, and beyond. Water is increasingly acknowledged to have strategic global relevance. Countries, commercial entities, academia and civil society organizations acknowledge their obligations and/or responsibilities in contributing to water security; and voice their common concerns about the water and sanitation status quo - which is already precariously balanced. Moving beyond the tipping point would be disastrous.

This chapter addresses water security as a global concern, both from a resource management perspective and in relation to social stability and peace. It first describes how water security is defined, what are the key challenges and how they are being addressed.  The second part of this chapter ventures into the emerging domain of water as a global security issue. The human rights to water and sanitation are discussed in this context. The third part of this chapter looks into how water security can be seen as a global public good requiring collective action. Finally we present some concluding ideas on the way forward.

1 Evolving perceptions on water security

Defining Water Security

The way in which water security has been defined over time reflects the global water management trends and follows the evolving perceptions and prioritization of water challenges in the water community.

At the onset of the new Millennium, the independent World Commission for Water in the 21st Century presented its vision for a water secure world. Water security was described as: providing water to meet the basic needs (drinking water, sanitation, food and energy) of every human in a manner that works in harmony with nature.

The Global Water Partnership, considering water security as the foundation and the “glue” for sustainable development, and integrated water resources management (IWRM) as the means to achieve water security, presented a similar but more comprehensive definition: Water security, at any level from the household to the global, means that every person has access to enough safe water at affordable cost to lead a clean, healthy and productive life, while ensuring that the natural environment is protected and enhanced.

Water security has subsequently evolved from being essentially people-centered and pro-poor, to a more holistic concept that applies to both the developing and developed world, to traditional economies and industrialized countries and to different socio-cultural and environmental circumstances. In the course of this process, Grey and Sadoff (2007) define water security as: the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks to people, the environment and economies.

UN Water and individual United Nations (UN) Agencies have contributed much to the centrality of water in the global to national sustainable development discourse, amongst others through the International Year of Water Cooperation and the International Decade for Action ‘Water for Life’ 2005 – 2015.  Consecutive World Water Development Reports have sensitized world leaders to take water security seriously and to address the issues outside the water box. The term ‘water security’ however, remained much debated and sometimes controversial in the United Nations until consensus was reached on the below working definition.

The working definition agreed by the United Nations in 2013 points to the adverse impacts of water risks on human well-being, nature and the global economy and links it to peace and security.  The UN-Water definition reads:  the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustainable livelihoods, human wellbeing and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability.

According to this definition, achieving water security considers the following aspects:

  1. Ensuring access to affordable basic water and sanitation services for all as a basic human need, helping reduce poverty, advance education, and increase living standards, especially for the most vulnerable;

  2. Provide water adequately for the different uses and manage water efficiently to contribute to socio-economic development through agriculture, energy, tourism, industry, and services;

  3. Ensure water is managed in an integrated and sustainable manner to prevent pollution, and ensure the preservation of ecosystems, reduce waterborne diseases without compromising the needs of future generation;

  4. Ensure water is managed so as to improve the resilience to water related disasters in the context of climate change.

Addressing water security challenges.

Water resource management challenges

Water use is growing at twice the rate of population growth. Higher rates of urbanization will result in a growing demand for drinking water and economic uses.  Feeding a world of eight billion people will require more water for food. The demands for energy will more than double, with hydropower called upon to make a far greater contribution than today.  Consequently, water withdrawals are predicted to increase by 50 percent by 2025 in developing countries, and by 18 percent in developed countries. By 2025, it is estimated that 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress conditions.

The protection of the resource base is under continuous stress as human water demands and productive needs increase (e.g. UNEP 2001 ; IBD 2013). Countries with difficult water dynamics (high rainfall and runoff variability) – are often the world’s poorest countries. While in these countries, the level of institutional and infrastructural investment needed is very high and the ability to invest is low. Meaning that their hydrology hampers their development. And to add to these challenges, the impact of climate change will threaten economies and put further strain on the environmental flows required to maintain ecosystems.  

Water is the primary link through which climate change affects people’s welfare and ecosystems. Climate change is likely to impact the entire hydrological cycle and then the distribution and availability of water across time and space.  Records over the hydrological past will become of relative value to forecast our water future and to plan and manage water infrastructures for the longer term. Water is linked to almost all climate related risks, such as longer and more severe droughts, more frequent floods, losses in snow and glaciers to regulate runoff, rising sea levels, reduced river flows, and storms. Countries need to enhance their capacity for adaptation and to make their infrastructures and their economic activities less vulnerable and more resilient to climate change and extreme weather events.

Van Beek and Arriens (2014) distinguish two approaches towards water security: The developmental approach (following the traditional IWRM approach) seeks to increase water security over time through adaptive policy and planning processes that address the core water security issues of a country or a location. The risk-based approach is more direct and concentrates on managing specific risks and reducing vulnerabilities. GWP furthermore points to the importance of breaking the multiple components of water security down into key dimensions and quantifiable indicators that match the scope of the water security framework under consideration.

Taking a risk-based approach, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) distinguishes four water risks:

  • Risk of shortage (including droughts): lack of sufficient water to meet demand (in both the short- and long-term) for beneficial uses by all water users (households, businesses and the environment);

  • Risk of inadequate quality: lack of water of suitable quality for a particular purpose or use;

  • Risk of excess (including floods): overflow of the normal confines of a water system (natural or built), or the destructive accumulation of water over areas that are not normally submerged;

  • Risk of undermining the resilience of freshwater systems: exceeding the coping capacity of the surface and groundwater bodies and their interactions (the “system”); possibly crossing tipping points, and causing irreversible damage to the system’s hydraulic and biological functions.

A joint GWP/OECD taskforce on water security and sustainable growth has analyzed the global status of water security grouping the headline risks somewhat differently: (1) droughts and water scarcity; (2) floods; (3) inadequate water supply and sanitation; and (4) ecosystem degradation and pollution. A global assessment of relative economic impacts of water insecurity shows that the largest impacts are in Asia, and that only Europe and North America generally experience water security, with risks reduced to tolerable levels.

Risk management and preparedness are essential components of water security. It requires a forward-looking organization, that analysis water related risks in a context of uncertainty. It also demands that we build resilient systems.

Challenges for access to basic services

As of 2015 91% of the global population used an improved drinking water source, up from 76% in 1990. This means 6.6 billion of the global population had then access to improved sources of drinking water; and 2.6 billion people have gained access to an improved drinking water source since 1990. This also means that the world met the MDG target for water. While the least developed countries (LDCs) did not meet the target, 42% of the current population of these countries has gained access since 1990.

No information is available on the number of people without access to safe water, purely because water quality is (still) not measured at the global level. These global figures camouflage even deeper inequalities, since not only are there obvious and profound differences between the developed and the developing world, but these differences are also present within developing countries themselves, as the rural population without access to an improved drinking water source is over five times greater than that found in urban areas. Furthermore, in several Sub-Saharan African countries, more than one quarter of the population takes longer than 30 minutes to make one water collection round trip – research having shown that in these cases those people will collect progressively less water, eventually failing to meet their families’ minimum daily water needs. In these situations, the undertaking of numerous trips per day to collect drinking water also implies enormous economic costs.

The consequences of lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation are enormous. An estimated 1.6 million people, mostly children under the age of 5, die each year from water and sanitation-related diseases; with research suggesting that poor sanitation may be linked to as much as a quarter of all under-five deaths. The health and lives of more than half the world's children are constantly threatened by environmental hazards as they get sick through contact with excreta in their environment. The links between access to water and sanitation and health are well documented, WHO estimating that 88 percent of diarrheal disease is caused by unsafe water and sanitation. Diarrhea kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.  Lack of access to water and sanitation can also have serious negative impacts on the enjoyment of the right to education, as each year 443 million school days are lost due to sickness caused by poor water and sanitation conditions.

Lack of access to sanitation and safe drinking water perpetuates poverty – people living in poverty cannot afford to obtain access, and without access, their capacity to work, go to school and engage in other productive activities is limited. Women and girls are particularly affected as they are mainly responsible for collecting water and caring for sick family members. Children, especially girls, do not go to school because they are sick, or because there are no toilets, or no sex-segregated toilets. In many cases, prohibited forms of discrimination are key factors in understanding who has access to sanitation and water and who does not. The lack of access to safe drinking water, basic sanitation and good hygiene practices is the third most significant risk factor for poor health in developing countries with high mortality rates.

2. Water: A global security issue?

Water and security in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda

Water security is a term that has an intuitive significance and appeal. It reflects a common understanding for the need to harness water-risks and to safeguard sufficient and safe water to sustain life and ecosystems. It helps to ensure the well-being of people and to enable sustainable and equitable development of countries and societies. As such, it can also contribute to peace and stability.  

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the holistic approach to achieve water security is captured in the dedicated water goal – SDG 6. The new development agenda also has peace as a cross-cutting issue and includes a dedicated goal – SDG 16, to 'Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels'. Furthermore, the targets addressing the transnational stresses that are drivers for conflict include target 13.1: ‘Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries’.

The implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is envisaged to be primarily driven through national level action, but global processes are needed to enable, facilitate and monitor the national efforts. Water security as a global public good addresses the SDG6 – SDG16 interface and would provide a framework to address trans-national drivers for conflict is a crucial element to support peaceful co-existence of societies and water security is a main driver to consider as it is the foundation and the glue for sustainable development. 

While the developmental and risk-based approach are complementary strategies that look at water security from the social and economic development perspective, treating water security as a global public good would transcend the development domain, therewith following the paradigm shift of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that emphasizes innovative forms of integration and an all-of-society engagement and partnership.

Towards recognition

At the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 the global community acknowledged the alarming deterioration of water resources, the detrimental effect on ecosystems and increasing water scarcity for a rapidly increasing world population. Integrated Water Resources Management became the new paradigm to address the mounting water challenges at community-, country- and/or (transboundary) river basin level.  It is at the onset of the new Millennium, that the World Water Vision for the 21st Century linked IWRM to achieving a water secure world1.  

The Global Water Partnership (GWP) took the lead in making the concept operational, fueling the water security discourse at various levels through its global network, sensitizing national and global leaders to the fact that water security is not solely a water sector issue, promoting IWRM and participatory water governance as the way forward, and encouraging national governments as well as individual other sectors to consider water in their policies and planning.

The efforts of the UN and of the global water community to place water security in the wider geopolitical context, gained momentum through a mounting recognition by prominent leaders outside the water realm that water security is not the sole responsibility of the water sector, but an important societal issue with strong links to food security, energy security and different aspects of economic and human development.  Since 2009 the World Economic Forum prioritized water security as a global risk, naming water crises as the highest global risk for the next 10 years.

The working definition of Water Security agreed by the United Nations in 2013 not only points to the adverse impacts of water risks on human well-being, nature and the global economy, but also paves the way towards recognizing water security for its importance for peace and political stability.  

2012 saw the call from the InterAction Council (IAC), a group of 40 Government leaders and Head of States, to the Security Council to recognize water as an urgent security issue and a top concern.  

In November 2016, the Security Council convened a meeting on Water Security. Expert studies on contemporary armed conflicts were quoted to demonstrate that “water is seldom the single cause of armed conflict. However, water can be among the important contributing factors. Moreover, water usually becomes a military and strategic tool during an armed conflict, a weapon of war that most often affects civilian populations. It is in that context that some of the most serious concerns arise”. There are striking examples where water has been used as a weapon during armed conflicts. During the war in Syria, water infrastructures were destroyed and supplies poisoned. In Gaza there were attacks on the wastewater treatment plant.  

Some countries pointed to water as a security concern outside armed conflicts. Lack of access to and failure to provide proper functioning water supply and sanitation may lead to community tensions, instability and could result in local riots and conflict. Water shortages and extreme events can also become a source of instability leading to massive migrations and displacement of populations. As shortages in some river basins and local areas become more acute more social and political tensions could arise, including in shared river basins. Droughts and food shortages in Syria have likely contributed to the unrest that triggered the war.  The International Organization of Migration estimated that about 200 million people will be forcibly displaced by 2050 due to threats caused by increasing water scarcity. Shrinking water resources in Lake Chad Basin is seen by some neighboring governments as a factor in poverty and conflict affecting the region and producing a huge humanitarian crisis, with increasing concentrations of internally displaced persons in urban areas.

In a 2016 report on “Early warning and economic, social and cultural rights”, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) clearly (re)affirms the links between peace, security and access to water, stating that “water-related disputes can lead to social unrest and violent protest”. The said reports refers to the clash that took place in 2007 between 30,000 farmers and the police in the Indian state of Orissa, because the Government had decided to allow a large number of industries to draw water from the Hirakud dam, depriving the farmers of their source of irrigation. The report also affirms that social unrest can also be provoked by poor or inequitable management of water services, stating that “disputes may arise over water connections for suburban or rural areas, service liability and, in particular, prices. Given that the State is responsible for providing drinking water, in many countries, disputes over water supply management often arise between communities and State authorities. Protests are particularly likely when the general public suspects that water services are being managed in a corrupt manner or that public resources are being diverted for private gain.” Finally OHCHR recognizes that problems arising from water supply management can lead to violent conflict, as witnessed during the confrontations that erupted in 2000 in Cochabamba, the third-largest city in Bolivia, following the privatization of the city’s water utility. The report explains that “months of civil unrest culminated in the decision of the Government to send the army into Cochabamba and to declare a state of emergency throughout the country. Several days of violence left more than 100 people injured and one person dead. The protests eased only after the Government agreed to revoke the consortium’s concession and to return management of the utility to the municipal authorities”.

Agreement on water as a security issue is not unanimous. During the 2016 debate at the Security Council, some countries voiced concerns about treating water as a global security issue. They argued that water needs to be seen as a means to promote national development. It is in the realm of national sovereignty and needs to be treated in the context of bilateral treaties. Regional and transboundary agreements among riparian countries and institutional frameworks may be favored as a way to support cooperation and appropriate management.  

By addressing Water Security in the Security Council, the international community has started to recognize that water is a strategic resource which has an impact not only on development, but also on peace and security. It’s not only a transboundary issue, but a global security issue.

According to the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, this is a matter that the international community must act upon. To use his words: “Let us commit to invest in water security as a means to long term international peace and security”.

The Human Rights to Water and Sanitation as major stepping-stones.

The resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council regarding the human rights to water and sanitation are part of the international legal framework that States and other actors have agreed to use, including during humanitarian crises and armed conflicts. These resolutions and the normative content of the human rights to water and sanitation guide different actors – including civil society and international organizations – in identifying early causes of unrest, instability or even conflict. As was stated by OHCHR, water crises “illustrate how violations of economic, social and cultural rights are often the root cause of violence, social unrest and conflict. The analysis of economic, social and cultural rights should therefore be at the forefront of any national or international early warning effort.”

The process to recognize water and sanitation as human rights spans several decades. An important stepping stone was the adoption, in 2002, by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, of General Comment No. 15 stating that “the right to water clearly falls within the category of guarantees essential for securing an adequate standard of living, particularly since it is one of the most fundamental conditions for survival”. The Committee also recognized the right to water as an essential component of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standard of health, enshrined in articles 11 and 12 of the ICESCR. The Committee asserted that everyone is entitled to “sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.

On 28 July 2010 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution which recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. This resolution was passed with a significant number of abstentions (41 reflecting the concern of UN member states with issues of procedure, but also with the fact that the legal implications of a declared right to water - both domestic and international obligations of countries  - had not yet been carefully and fully considered.

Interestingly the linkages of the human right to water and sanitation and other human rights have been emphasized, mainly because they were seen to be derived or related to other human rights. The resolution 15/9 of the United Nations Human Rights Council further “affirmed that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity”. This resolution was adopted by consensus, being it the first time where UN member states universally supported this human right.

Recognizing that water and sanitation human rights changes the legal obligations of governments in terms of respecting, protecting and fulfilling these rights. States have an immediate obligation to guarantee non-discrimination in the exercise of the human rights to water and sanitation. In practice this means that states are obliged not only to ensure that their national laws, policies, programmes and practices do not discriminate against anyone, but also to take affirmative action in order to ensure that those groups that have traditionally not enjoyed these rights are not left behind in gaining access.

3 Water Security as a global public good?

The UNDP defines a global public good as “a public good with benefits that are strongly transversal in terms of countries (covering more than one group of countries), people (accruing to several, preferably all, population groups) and generations (extending to both current and future generations, or at least meeting the needs of current generations without foreclosing development options for future generations).” (Kaul et al. 1999, pp 509-10)

Global security is the main example of a global public good because once there is security no one can be excluded from benefiting and the use by one does not diminish the overall availability.

Water is a commodity that is excludable (allocated and consumed by a specific user under conditions such as a contract or license); and it is rivalrous in consumption (available water cannot be consumed by different users at the same time).
As such, water in itself cannot be considered as a public good.

Water Security – and especially global water security- however, could be considered as a global public good. The overall benefits of Water Security and/or negative effects of water insecurity can extend across countries and regions, across rich and poor population groups, an across generations. There are strong externality aspects of Water Security, both at the local level and across national borders.

“With resources depleting, supplies of freshwater could be reduced by 25% in the next 20 years, mismanagement of water and climate and bad politics could have serious consequences. By 2050 at least one in every four human beings will likely live in a country affected by chronic and recurring shortage of water due to climate change. With 2 billion people living in shared river basins water is strategically important at local and regional level, but it is also a global security matter as it affects one third of the world’s population”

The President of the Strategic Foresight Group (Security Council meeting on Water Security, 2016)

Failures to provide services or increasing water scarcity can lead to humanitarian crisis and massive migrations. There are other wide economic externality effects of lack of Water Security that have been extensively illustrated. Although the positive effects of improved access and sanitation may affect specific individuals or economic activities these can be added up to gains/looses for the economy (in terms of GDP, employment, productivity). Benefits resulting, for instance, from being better prepared to deal with extreme events – where hydrological fluctuations are decoupled from economic performance-  may transcend the national borders and have cross-country effects.

Water Security as a global public good requires international collective action. There may be a role for international organisations, and international stakeholders for consensus-building and collective decision-making as it yields significant external benefits, across multiple nations. There are multiple interdependencies of the “different securities” (food, Climate Change, health, political) to be able to realize the full the benefits of cooperation.

Multiple interconnections: the case of how global climate change risks affect access to water and sanitation services

Climate Change risks present a serious obstacle to the realization of the rights to water and sanitation. Water is a key medium through which climate change impacts upon human populations and ecosystems, particularly due to predicted changes in water quality and quantity. The impacts of climate change need to be seen in light of its direct effects on water resources as well as its indirect influence on other external drivers of change, in particular increasing population pressures and changing consumption patterns. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that in many regions of the globe, changes to the supply and quality of freshwater resources resulting from climate change may imperil sustainable development, poverty reduction and child mortality goals.

Interlinkages and interdependences are important. Water and sanitation cannot be analyzed in isolation from other human rights. Both may be impacted by violations of other rights, and both are indispensable for the realization of the rights to life, health, housing and education, among others. For example, water collection and lack of adequate or appropriate sanitation facilities keeps girls out of school, and access to clean water and sanitation can reduce the risk of child mortality by as much as 50 percent.

The absence of clean water and sanitation is a major cause of poverty and malnutrition, and water insecurity linked to climate change may increase malnutrition by 75-125 million people by 2080.17 Rapidly swelling urbanization combined with increasing demand for freshwater and insufficient sanitation infrastructure, accentuated by climate change, poses threats to public health and increases the prevalence of water-borne diseases. For example, endemic morbidity and mortality due to diarrheal disease associated with floods and droughts are expected to rise in East, South and South-East Asia due to projected changes in the hydrological cycle. These empirical links are reflected in the normative content of particular rights.

Climate change will magnify the uneven distribution of risk skewing disaster impacts even further towards poor communities in developing countries. One recent quantitative assessment of the human impacts of disasters found that “countries with high levels of income inequality experience the effects of climate disasters more profoundly than more equal societies.” The OHCHR notes that climate change impacts “will be felt most acutely by those segments of the population who are already in vulnerable situations due to factors such as poverty, gender, age, minority status, and disability.” Approximately 1 billion people live in informal settlements in developing countries’ cities: many of these are in hazard-prone areas. Insofar as the right to water is concerned, other individuals and groups who have traditionally faced difficulties in exercising this right include indigenous peoples, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, migrant workers, prisoners and detainees.

Women and girls face specific obstacles to the enjoyment of their rights to water and sanitation and bear the brunt of increasing water scarcity and poverty. They are most often the ones sacrificing their time and development opportunities to fetch water, are frequently responsible for the provision of food and water in the household, and face particular challenges in accessing sufficient, safe and culturally appropriate sanitation facilities. Therefore women and girls will often be disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change upon the rights to water and sanitation. Moreover, recent research by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) suggests that climate change will disproportionately affect children by exacerbating existing health risks and disrupting the natural resource base sustaining nutrition and water security, among numerous other factors.

Extreme weather events and reduced quantity and quality of water already are leading causes of malnutrition and child death and illness, including through poor sanitation. Climate change will be likely to exacerbate these stresses.

Collectively achieving water security

Framing water problems as a matter of security means that we need to address them collectively in a coordinated manner. At national level, governments create the enabling conditions for water security through planning, direct provision, financing, subsidies or regulation.However, security can only be achieved by cooperating among sectors, among levels of administration and different stakeholders.

“Preventing and mitigating water risks is considered an absolute necessity and joint responsibility and active engagement of the private sector in sustainable water use and management is vital” WEF water initiative.

There is much evidence of successful water cooperation to achieve water security at different levels: among countries, among stakeholders in river basins, between farmers, between companies and their communities, and between local authorities and local stakeholders.

A strong history of cooperation in water management shows the importance of collective action to provide water security. There have been only 37 incidents of acute conflict between riparian states over water since 1948 involving violence. In the same period, 295 international water agreements were signed (UNESCO 2013, )

Adeel, Aslov and Maestu (2015) have identified different cases of cooperation in transboundary basins. These are summarized in the Box below.

Africa:

Africa has 63 river basins, of which 20 have international agreements in effect while 16 have institutionalized transboundary forums. Progress has been built over time, with areas in South Africa having more equitable rights established after apartheid policies were revoked. Many continental, regional, and national organizations have been developed to focus on cooperation, like the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Niger Basin Authority (NBA), Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO), Lake Tanganyika Authority (LTA), and the African Ministers´ Council on Water (AMCOW). SADC created a Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems in 1995 that later was revised and adopted to be in line with the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention.

Asia:

South Asian water resources connect many countries that have had military conflicts in the past with each other. With many of these countries being located entirely within an international water basin, water is a central topic. India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty in 1960. In Central Asia, more coordination has been seen, especially in response to the Aral Sea disaster. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan formed the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia and pledged 1% of their budgets to help the sea recover. Also, in South Asia there is still progress being made towards cooperation. The Mekong River Commission has been helping countries in the lower Mekong basin move from humanitarian cooperation to economic cooperation.

Middle East:

While for other areas water cooperation may be a means for development, in the Middle East, water is especially important for security and peace between countries. Israel and Jordan have come to agreements, like the 1994 Peace Treaty that included allocations of the Jordan River and joint efforts to prevent water scarcity, but cooperation is even more important today. A large project to divert water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea has been developed by the World Bank and three parties – Israel, Jordan, and Palestine – have signed a trilateral agreement in 2014. The Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) was created in the Oslo Accords in 1996 and has been an influential third party bringing Israel and Palestine together for water cooperation.

Overall evidence shows that achieving water security through cooperation has endured and has served and serves everyday to manage differences in interests successfully. This has been the case for more than 50 years standing in water cooperation between such diverse partners such as Finland and Russia, the long history of cooperation among irrigation farmers in Mediterranean countries and in India (Suresh A. Kulkarni, and Avinash C Tyagi. 2013) dealing with disputes through water tribunals and juries. They provide compelling evidence on where we have to go and what takes to achieve water security.

International legal frameworks, such as the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International adopted in Helsinki in 1992 at a global scale or the European Union’s Water Framework Directive at a regional one, have played a fundamental role in fostering cooperation agreements. They have been key in the Sava River, the Tisza River and in the Albufeira Convention, as well as in other countries in Europe or other regions in the world.  

Some lessons emerging from observing collective action and cooperation efforts can be highlighted. This includes active and continuous involvement of a third party mediator such as in the Indus Water Treaty, the Senegal River, the Zambezi and Orange-Senque negotiations. It includes demands the consideration of creative methods of financing, such as in the Nile Waters Treaty, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. Creation of incentives through shared benefit models such as in the Senegal River and Payment for Environmental Services (PES) schemes. Joint Water assessments/data analysis such as those carried out by the UNECE Water; Joint Scenario planning such as in the Okavango River Basin, the Mekong River, the Colorado River, building partnerships and stakeholder involvement and creating joint management structures.

A major lesson to be learned from water-related development efforts over the past decades is that there is no one-solution-fits-all strategy. Each country has its own unique set of physical, social, economic, political, and environmental circumstances that will determine a country’s pathway towards increasing water security.

4 In conclusion

The near-term future of sustainable development has been outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development agreed by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. It includes a dedicated and comprehensive water goal – SDG6, which sets the scene for sound and participatory water governance that addresses water security holistically. It also contains a goal to invest in peaceful and inclusive societies – SDG16. Water Security as a global public good would address the SDG6 – SDG16 interface.

The implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda is envisaged to be primarily driven through national level action. However, global processes are needed to enable, facilitate and monitor national (and sub-national) level action. Addressing trans-national drivers for conflict is a crucial element to support peaceful co-existence of societies and water security is a main driver to consider as water is the foundation and the glue for sustainable development. 

The strategic importance of Water Security at local, national and transboundary level has been advocated for a long time and by many organizations. Considering Water Security as a global public good provides a framework for water security as a means to deal with trans-national drivers for conflict and as a crucial element to support peaceful co-existence of peoples and societies. By addressing this interface between SDG6 on water and SDG16 on peaceful and inclusive societies it provides the basis for supporting collective action at global level. 

The International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development 2008-2018, approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2016, provides a platform for strengthening collective action.  It calls for improving integration and coordination in the context of the United Nations. Accordingly it can help facilitate intergovernmental coordination and improve joint action and accountability of UN agencies.  The decade’s commitment to partnerships and joint action provides a global collectively agreed framework for stakeholders at all levels to collectively contribute to Global Water Security,

References

Alice Bouman
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