paper 46 Water, Development and Cooperation— Comparative Perspective: Euphrates-Tigris and Southern Africa Water, Development and Cooperation—Comparative Perspective: Euphrates-Tigris and Southern Africa by Lars Wirkus (ed.) Proceedings of a workshop organized by Published by ©BICC, Bonn 2005 Bonn International Center for Conversion Director: Peter J. Croll An der Elisabethkirche 25 D-53113 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-911960 Fax: +49-228-241215 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.bicc.de Contents Table of Contents Wirkus, Lars: Water, Development and Cooperation— Comparative Perspective: Euphrates-Tigris and Southern Africa. An Introduction to the Workshop Proceedings. 4 Ashton, Peter and Anthony Turton: Transboundary Water Resource Management in Southern Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Lessons Learned 32 Curtin, Fiona: Emerging Trends in Water Resources Conflict Prevention: Public Participation and the Role of Civil Society 54 Heyns, Piet: Strategic and Technical Considerations in the Assessment of Transboundary Water Management with Reference to Southern Africa 81 Jägerskog, Anders: Why States Cooperate over Shared Waters— The Example of the Jordan River Basin 100 Meissner, Richard: Interest Groups as Local Stakeholders involved in the Water Politics of a Transboundary River: The Case of the Proposed Epupa Dam across the Kunene River 121 Pazvakavambwa, Simon: The Politics of Water Use and Water Accsess—How National Water Development Plans affect Regional Cooperation (Focus on Zimbabwe and Southern Africa) 135 Salman, M.: The Euphrates and Tigris: South Boundary Utilization and Views 156 Swatuk, Larry: Political Challenges to Sustainably Managing Intra-Basin Water Resources in Southern Africa: Drawing Lessons from Cases 183 Warner, Jeroen: Plugging the GAP— Working with Buzan: the Ilisu Dam as a Security Issue 214 Topcu, Sevilay, Kazım Tulucu and Burak Sen: Turkey’s Water Resources, Water Needs and Data Collection Infrastructure 228 1 Lars Wirkus Water, Development and Cooperation— Comparative Perspective: Euphrates-Tigris and Southern Africa An introduction to the workshop proceedings Lars Wirkus Integrated transboundary water management is increasingly gaining interest. Around fifty percent of the world’s population lives near and off the worldwide 261 transboundary river systems that are used and claimed by two or more states. Until today, there has been no legally binding international law regulating the distribution and use of these water resources. Additionally, approximately forty percent of the world’s population suffer from water scarcity, with the Middle East and parts of Southern Africa being particularly affected. From 1–2 March 2004, the Center for Development Research (ZEF) and the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) hosted an International Expert Workshop on “Water, Development and Cooperation – Comparative Perspective: Euphrates-Tigris and Southern Africa” in Bonn, Germany. Experts from the Euphrates-Tigris region (Turkey, Syria), Southern Africa (Namibia, Zimbabwe, Republic of South Africa, Botswana) as well as from European countries and the United States discussed issues of cooperation and development in transboundary river basins. The focus lay on the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris as well as on various international river basins in Southern Africa, even though both regions face a somewhat different situation and go back to a different history in transboundary water management and water stress. The workshop compared and contrasted the situation of the Euphrates-Tigris basin to that of the Southern African region to learn from their respective experiences with regard to the various economic, socio-political and strategic factors which do or may affect cooperation. At the same time, participants tried to identify strategies for cooperative water management in the interest of all riparian countries. An analysis of the conditions conducive to cooperation, confidence building and dispute resolution was the main issue of the workshop 2 Introduction An Overview of Transboundary Water Issues in Southern Africa and the Euphrates-Tigris region Starting with an overview of different international river systems, the participants in the workshop discussed the opportunities and challenges in transboundary resource water management, water supply and demand, data management as well as the organizational infrastructure necessary to create bases for cooperation. (Geo)Politics of Water Management Further on, they turned to the issue of politics and, specifically, to the strategic and political decisions which affect transboundary water policies. The workshop focussed on the impact of national development plans upon regional cooperation as well as on water management as a (non-traditional) issue of “security”. Since dominant national discourses and interests, as well as security considerations on the regional and international level, may reduce the options of a cooperative water management policy, an analysis of these topics is of vital interest to identify strategies for and conditions conducive to cooperative water management. (Hydro) Politics of Water Cooperation A third block considered the interface and interaction of various levels of action with the aim to enhance cooperative schemes. Participants looked at the process of convergence of values to support cooperative regimes, highlighting the role of international standards and regional strategic conditions. The political challenges of intra-basin transfers was also addressed. Stakeholders’ Role in Water Cooperation Finally, the last session of the workshop explored the role and impact of different stakeholders in water cooperation. A critical analysis of the role of donors and their policies examined the various repercussions they might have on cooperative water management. As public participation is vital to the sustainability of water cooperative regimes, the role of non-governmental actors was presented from a practical, participatory approach which highlighted their involvement in water cooperation schemes. As the importance of integrated transboundary water management keeps increasing in an ever more interdependent 3 Lars Wirkus world, we hope our work will meet the attention of a wide audience, and be of interest not only to the scientific, but also to the decision-making public. To us the exchange of Lessons Learned between the affected basins seems to constitute a main ingredient necessary to address the challenge represented by these basins. We hope that the workshop, by bringing together experts working on two such different and yet so closely connected regions in terms of their natural conditions as the Middle East and Southern Africa, highlighted the many advantages that lie in such an exchange. The proceedings now released are a collection of those papers presented at the workshop that were handed in to the editors. We would like to thank the Center for Development Research (ZEF) for its close cooperation during the preparation and realization of the workshop. Looking forward to similarly inspiring events, we hope that you will enjoy this paper. 4 Water Resource Management in Southern Africa Transboundary Water Resource Management in Southern Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Lessons Learned. Peter Ashton and Anthony Turton 1. Introduction Water is widely acknowledged as the most indispensable of all natural resources, underpinning and sustaining biological diversity as well as social and economic development (e.g. Gleick, 1998). Almost every country faces the challenge of providing sufficient water to meet the escalating needs of expanding populations whilst ensuring that the available resources are used equitably, efficiently and sustainably (Biswas, 1993; Gleick, 1998; Ashton and Haasbroek, 2002). Water supplies continue to dwindle because of resource depletion and pollution, whilst demands for water continue to rise rapidly because population growth is coupled with increasing industrialization, mechanization and urbanization (Falkenmark, 1999; Gleick, 1998; Ashton, 2002). This unfortunate situation is particularly acute in arid regions where water scarcity impedes social and economic development and is linked to the prevalence of poverty, hunger and disease (Falkenmark, 1989; Gleick, 2000; Ashton, 2002). Southern Africa’s water resources are unevenly distributed in both geographical extent and time; large areas of the region regularly experience prolonged and extreme droughts, and water resource availability is naturally variable and often unpredictable (Conley, 1995). An additional complicating factor arises because a Shared water significant proportion of the region’s water resources consist of large river basins and underground aquifers that are shared by several countries (Ashton, 2002). Most of the countries sharing these water resources experienced a variety of social and political circumstances that were imposed by previous colonial and Apartheid administrations, and further compounded by localized military conflicts or civil wars during the last three decades (Turton, 2003a, b; Turton and Earle, 2005). Overall, this resulted in markedly different levels of social, economic and political development, and has complicated the search for equitable and sustainable solutions to water supply problems across the entire region (Ashton, 2000, 2002; Ashton and Seetal, 2002). Early estimates (e.g. Falkenmark, 1989) noted that several southern African countries were approaching the point indicating severe 5 Peter Ashton/Anthony