On October 28th the Swedish Dialogue Institute for the Middle East and North Africa hosted a webinar centred around the theme of water and security, including aspects of water diplomacy in the MENA region. These webinars are arranged monthly for colleagues in the Swedish Foreign Service, as well as from Sida, FBA, SI and other relevant organizations, to stimulate learning, exchanges and discussions on MENA related topics and generate ideas for future activities for the dialogue institute.
The October webinar on water and security featured an eminent panel of experts, consisting of Dr. Anders Jägerskog, Senior Water Resources Management Specialist at the Global Water Practice at the World Bank; Dr. Martina Klimes, Advisor for Water and Peace at Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI); Annika Johansson, Senior Advisor for Environment, Water and Climate Change at Sida/MENA; and Paolo Lembo, former UN senior official with long experience from the MENA region. The webinar was moderated by ambassador Charlotta Sparre, director of the Swedish Dialogue Institute. The meeting was attended by colleagues from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm, Swedish embassies in the MENA region, Sida, FBA, Sipri, SIWI and the UN.
Charlotta Sparre, director of the Dialogue Institute welcomed participants and introduced the theme and the speakers. She first gave the floor to Dr. Anders Jägerskog (World Bank), who gave a background to the topic, outlined the status of water agreements and highlighted the work of the World Bank. He underlined that the region’s longstanding water scarcity has further been exacerbated by effects of climate change, with population growth, weak governance structures and limited regional cooperation. Jägerskog stressed that water is no longer seen only as a development issue, but that there has been a growing awareness to recognize broader aspects including fragility, conflicts and violence and he mentioned that he World Bank recently published a new strategy on fragility, conflicts and violence.
Jägerskog mentioned that while 50% of the region’s water resources are transboundary, yet two thirds of the transboundary basins lack functioning agreement to facilitate cooperation and that there rarely are comprehensive agreements between basin states. As agreements are often based on average flow, climate change will make all or some of the existing agreements obsolete and difficult to implement. He also presented the World Bank’s Mashreq water initiative, which is done in collaboration with UN ESCWA, under which the Mashreq Data Platform is being developed.
The next speaker, Dr. Martina Klimes (SIWI) spoke about water as a tool for inclusive peace and security. In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Klimes highlighted that 20% percent of households in the MENA region don’t have the opportunity to wash their hands with water and soap. She stressed that it is essential to think about water holistically, but also specifically (e.g. water quality). These specific elements can create new entry points for interaction between foreign policy and technical discussions.
Klimes focused her intervention on water diplomacy, as a process that leads to establishing cooperation over shared freshwater resources. She emphasised the need for dialogue and experience-sharing and said that in addition to creating shared knowledge, dialogue creates trust between stakeholders. In this process its essential to gather information from all different stakeholders (civil society, academia etc.). SIWI has curated a process for engagement with stakeholders, a form of track 1.5. It’s informed by technical tracks as it relies on its data. SIWI brings together technical and policy advisors, who in their own capacity and in an informal space don’t need to adhere to official positions. Some of the main achievements of SIWI’s work on water diplomacy includes trust improving on track 1 and 2 levels, more enhanced knowledge sharing, and more shared visions. A key success factor is building relations when stakeholders spend more time together.
Klimes stressed the importance of a) local ownership (local champions understand the benefit of efforts and collaboration); 2) water diplomacy needing a holistic context analysis, understanding different dimensions of security /human security (incl. employment security, gender equality and how these affect traditional security risks); 3) support to linkages between political and technical tracks and knowledge constituencies; and 4) inclusive processes that are communicated in a non-donor driven way.
The following speaker, Annika Johansson (Sida) spoke about the role of development cooperation in water and security. Sida’s work on water and security derive from two strategies: regional cooperation strategy with the MENA (2008-present) and the bilateral cooperation with Palestine (Mid 90s-present). She outlined water security challenges and cooperation models. On a transboundary level regional organisations (if they exist) are weak and don’t include all the basin states needed to have in the cooperation. Water is often considered as a national security issue, therefore tricky. On a national level challenges exist related to management, climate change and water scarcity as a contributor to poverty, tensions and migration. In this regard, water and security has a clear development angle.
Johansson presented some of the programmes supported by Sida and said that some of the lessons learned were importance of long-term commitment and a flexible approach. The presented programmes included some successful cooperation models: a)UNESCWA’s climate change water modelling, b)Sida’s international training program, c)the “Blue peace” report, d)EcoPeace’s “Good Water Neighbours”, e)the Palestine-Gaza bilateral program and f)the recently established SDG Climate Facility. Katrin Aidnell (Sida/Amman) presented the SDG Climate Facility, a facility including both regional and local aspects, where local pilot projects are piloted and then connected to a regional level where financiers (especially from the Gulf) come in, scale-up and support the projects. The platform is being built through UNDP Amman together with the League of Arab States in the region. Aidnell also mentioned a proposal being considered to establish a Climate Change hub at the Swedish Embassy in Amman. The hub is meant to connect Team Sweden’s efforts, in line with Sweden’s ambition to be a carbon neutral welfare state by 2045.
The last speaker, Paolo Lembo (former UN official) started his intervention with a broad outlook on some of the key challenges pointing to the fact that the MENA region will double population in next 40 years and that all existing challenges will be exacerbated by the impact of climate change. For the region to be able to develop there is a need to consider stable models and efficient water resources management transboundary frameworks. Lack of regional frameworks for energy management/ electricity is one of the reasons why the region is lagging in implementation of the SDGs.
Lembo then shared experiences from an initiative, aimed at preparing the ground for a first modern framework on water resources management of the Tigris and Euphrates water basins, an incremental process that started some 12 years ago and then gradually developed. In the post-Saddam Hussein era in Iraq, the UN, in collaboration with SIWI decided to address the water resources management in the Tigris-Euphrates river. The focus of this exercise was to create a framework to re-establish communications between countries and re-engage to reach better results. UN, The World Bank, SIWI and Sida put together a group. Diplomats and scientists from the countries were invited to Stockholm and brought to the World Water Week under the UN convening umbrella. The goal was to re-connect the group, establish communication, and ensure a permanent communication architecture to formalize communications.
Lembo highlighted best practices in water diplomacy based on the Euphrates-Tigris exercise: a)Focus on creating common definitions. SIWI experts focused on the definitions. People from the different countries came into the discussion with different definitions. It was therefore important to agree on common definitions of the elements of the discussion; b)Understand the history. SIWI team gave a history. Presentation by World Bank on the context and advantages of crafting a better system; c)Concrete objectives. Set concrete objectives for the exercise and dialogue. This exercise focused on re-establishing communication channels; d) Expectation management. Participants were given a chance to discuss expectations. They shared what the water resources needs of their countries and what they need for political and economic survival.
After the presentation followed a short Q&A session.
A number of recommendations came out of the meeting, including:
Recommendations for the Dialogue Institute on water and security:
