Water Diplomacy Framework An Introduction Fazilda Nabeel Assistant
Water Diplomacy Framework - An Introduction Fazilda Nabeel Assistant Professor, Forman Christian College Lahore Water Diplomacy Workshop Alumnus 2015, Harvard Law School Lead Pakistan Fellow on Transboundary Water Governance (2014 -15) 22 August 2015
Indopotamia - A Water Management Fable for all times? GAMMA ✤ Indopotamia River Basin BETA ALPHA MU STATE
Indopotamia ✤ Lets think of a river basin called Indopotamia where three hunter gathering tribes had settled ✤ Many millennia ago, people were few and resources were plenty. ✤ As population grew, they went from being hunters and gatherers to settled agriculture, requiring sophisticated irrigation techniques. ✤ Land water became synonymous with power - political boundaries were drawn and they eventually became three modern states of Alpha, Beta and Gamma ✤ Flash forward to the present century: where now there have been a lot of tensions between the three states: ✤ ALPHA: largest state, economically and politically dominant. It has long monopolised access to the river insisting that only after its needs are met, will Beta and Gamma be allowed more water. Continued population growth and increasing crop productivity in Alpha, seem never to leave enough water for the smaller upstream countries Beta and Gamma. Alpha has earned this reputation for being self serving, cruel and uncompromising. ✤ GAMMA: Periodic droughts and forest fires plague Gamma. Lack of stored water, low storage capacity undermines Gamma’s ability to deal with these problems and also slowed much of its economic development. In addition, much of Gamma’s groundwater is contaminated with arsenic, forcing it to rely almost entirely on river water for fulfilling much of its drinking water requirements. ✤ BETA: has a lot of farmable land but not adequate labour supplies. In recent years it has tried to shift to less labour intensive- energy powered agriculture. This move is difficult, because Beta cannot afford gasoline or coal. Thus, Beta needs to generate cheap hydropower from the river otherwise its crop development and economic growth will suffer.
Lets introduce a Dam into this scenario ✤ Beta and Gamma have decided to join forces and build a dam. Seeking funding from a RLA. However, they wont qualify for loans and grants until they reach an agreement with Alpha over water usage. ✤ Alpha is quite unhappy with the idea of the dam. But because RLA will only give money to countries that have good relations with neighbours and because Alpha wants funds from RLA for its own development, Alpha has signed an agreement saying that it supports the dam. At the same time Alpha has threatened Beta and Gamma through indirect channels saying that it wont be able to control local insurgents who may destroy the dam it if is built. ✤ Alpha has reason for alarm. If dam, is built: it wont have the water it needs to grow enough rice which is the staple food of its population and economy. This concern has been further exacerbated by climate change in recent years - glacial melt and associated sea level rise have caused salt water intrusion in the Indopotamia basin. As a result Alpha’s coastal rice paddies are too salty to produce rice. ✤ Alpha has such strained relationships with B and G that it cannot ask for assistance. A has pumped more and more water from the basin to expand rice production over the years and B and G did not have the political clout to stop this. ✤ Within Alpha, the state of Mu is planning a rebellion against the national government. Why? As Alpha’s population has continued to expand, irrigation of Mu’s rice paddies has requires millions of gallons of water at the expense of B and G, Residents of Mu feel that they have been robbed of their rights by the Central Government - Wages have been cut to pay for drastically ever increasing pumping costs. Residential areas have been cleared to make more farmland. . Central Government has made it clear that purpose of citizens of Mu is to feed the country. Mu wants to cut off the nation’s rice supply in rebellion. Mu is on the border with Beta and wants to trade subsidised labour for arms and military support.
How do we turn an age old conflict into a problem solving opportunity? ✤ During diplomatic discussions about the dam, the relationship between Beta and Mu was revealed. This undermined trust between Beta and Gamma. ✤ If Alpha wants to settle its dispute with Mu state, and wants to make Beta discontinue its support for the same, Alpha will ideally offer subsidized labour to Beta. ✤ If Beta abandons the project, Gamma will not be able to finish the contruction of the dam on its own. ✤ Beta can get by without the dam- it really needed the dam to support water powered energy production as it converts its rice fields into machine operated farms. ✤ By contrast the only way for Gamma to deal with dehydration, drought and wildfire is to to increase its access to the river. ✤ In an ideal world, Alpha would allow Beta and Gamma to build the dam free of insurgent attacks. This would solve Gamma’s issues of drought and wildfire and also allow. Beta to pursue machine operated farming. Gamma and Beta would export rice to Alpha and also gain some political clout in the process, creating a stronger web of interdependencies in the process. Alpha’s relationship with Mu, which would no longer be the sole food producer, would also heal. Finally with peace in the region, RLA and other international players would also be more inclined to increase their investments. ✤ The question is can we turn this age old conflict into a problem solving opportunity? Through Water Diplomacy!
WDF - An introduction ✤ How can we ensure effective management of water as a common pool resource given that we can neither predict nor control many of the forces involved in its allocation and use? ✤ Given this, we can “think of diplomacy as the process of defining and resolving water issues at every level - from the design of a small scale sanitation system in a village, to the development of a contested hydroelectric facility in one region of a country, to formal treaty negotiations among different nations” Islam and Susskind, 2012. ✤ The most vexing water management problems are neither simple nor complicated. They are COMPLEX. Simple problems are easily understood and manageable. Complicated problems, while not simple, involve interactions that are still knowable and predictable. Complex problems like most water management issues, involve interactions that are both unknowable and unpredictable. Complex problems like these involve too many variables, too many interactions and too much feedback! ✤ Water networks as interconnected set of nodes representing natural, political and societal variables.
Key Propositions Proposition #1: Boundaries and representation in water networks should be considered open-ended and continuously changing Proposition #2: Modeling and forecasting for water management should account for variability and uncertainty Proposition #3: The politics of transboundary water management should be adaptive and negotiated using a non-zero-sum approach
Boundaries in Complex Water Networks A common presumption in water management is that the boundaries of water “systems" are set in natural, societal, and political terms. The Water Diplomacy Framework challenges this idea, presuming that coupled natural and societal networks continue to evolve and are open, not closed. The complexity of these coupled natural and societal systems also means that the tools required to manage water resources go beyond what water engineers and public- policy analysts have typically used.
NSPD interactions shape water problems ✤ Water problems are shaped by NSPD interactions that create complex water networks. As population growth, ec
NSPD ✤ Many water problems stem from what we describe as the competition, interconnection and feedback among natural and societal processes within a political domain. ✤ Within the natural domain, interplay among three important variables - water quantity (Q), Water quality (P) and ecosystems (E) - can lead to conflict. ✤ Within the societal domain, there are equally complex interdependencies and feedback among societal values and cultural norms (V), economic and human resources (C), and governance institutions (G) ✤ There are strong boundaries between the Natural and Societal Domains, and they are likely to get in the way of how complex water management problems are solved.
Indus as a complex network operating in multiple domains, scales, levels. The Indus can be represented as a system comprising of large interconnected networks that operate in multiple domains – natural, societal, political – at the same time. Indus also operates on multiple scales (e. spatial, temporal, jurisdictional and institutional) and different levels (eg. local, national, basin level) Water networks like the Indus are typically open to external influences. Complex water networks like the Indus, exist within their environment and they are also a part of their environment. As the environment changes, the patterns of interaction among the NSP variables in the Indus basin are radically different than the interactions hundreds of years ago. For instance, India and Pakistan were key players in the Basin, but now Afghanistan is also looking towards the waters of the Kabul River to develop its water resources.
Need to align water shed, problem shed and policy shed in the Indus Watershed is an area of land that drains into a common body of water and is sometimes called a river basin; Policy-shed is a geographic area over which a governmental entity has legislative authority Problem-shed is a geographic area that is large enough to encompass management problems, but small enough to make implementation feasible In case of the Indus, water shed is the basin level. Policy shed is at the country level. Indus Treaty only covers a part of the watershed, not including two other riparians of the Basin. Water Use in the Indus Basin takes place in at least three different jurisdictions. In a particular watershed, multiple policies may apply and have overlapping but not identical geographical juridictions. For instance, groundwater use polices will be different across different countries of the Indus. The variation in policy application across the water shed will pose significant problems in the governance of the watershed. e. g. subsidization of electricity for tube wells in India. The Indus River Commission formed by the Indus Water Treaty is an important actor in the water shed. Other local organizational structures for managing water? Governance in this watershed occurs through the efforts of a number of organizations that do not have mandates or jurisdictions that are defined by the watershed.
Variability and Uncertainty The Water Diplomacy Framework assumes that the supply and quality of water are more unpredictable(and becoming even more so, for example, because of a changing climate). They can rarely be forecasted with confidence and certainly not by experts working alone. There are too many non-objective judgments that can influence the outcome. In addition, the WDF frames water as a flexible resource in terms of embedded water, blue and green water, virtual water, new technologies for improving water quality. Again, new tools are required to model emerging water concerns. Joint fact finding and collaborative decision making — rather than expert analysis — are required to develop the necessary tools and ensure transparency and legitimacy.
Numbers or Narratives?
Non-zero sum approach Another dominant belief in conventional water management is that the allocation of common pool resources (another name for public goods like water resources and the ecosystems that support them) is always a win-lose situation. More powerful political parties "win" and gain control of resources; less powerful parties "lose" and only have access to water if the more powerful nations or factions permit it. Mutual-gains negotiation theory has challenged this win-lose logic by offering a value -creating alternative that allows groups with conflicting goals to achieve them simultaneously. This value-creating or mutual gains approach to negotiation rests on theory that joint fact finding, the packaging of interlocking trades, contingent commitments, and an adaptive approach to handling uncertainty can maximize joint gains. "All-gain" negotiations usually require the assistance of a neutral facilitator or mediator.
WDF
Interactive Exercise: Mapping the Indus as a network? ✤ How does the coupling of G, C, V in the societal domain, and E, P, Q in the natural domain interact to produce complex challenges for the management of the Indus?
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