In recent years, much media, academic and policy attention has focused on the rapid growth of large-scale land deals around the world. The rush to acquire land resources for alternative energy, food security and environmental services has been labeled 'land grabbing'. This has made global headlines and is argued to contribute to skyrocketing global food prices. There is a large literature, both popular and academic, that describes this. For example, "Land grabbers: Africa’s hidden revolution" in the Guardian in May 2012 described how an oil billionaire has brought large areas of former natural forest under agriculture in Western Ethiopia, severely damaging the environment and destroying the local population’s livelihood basis. The food produced - in excess of a million tons of rice per year - is shipped to Saudi Arabia. The quantity of virtual water leaving the Nile Basin is massive. Compared to the huge Gezira scheme established in nearby Sudan in 1914 by a colonial power, is there any difference? Was that a case of "water grabbing" as well? How do we define "water grabbing"?

Until today, the effects that 'land grabbing' has on existing water resources have largely been ignored. Growing evidence, however, suggests that in many cases land grabbing may be motivated by the desire to capture water resources. Still, to associate land grabbing only to large-scale agriculture for food, feed and fuel crops is probably not correct. Recent studies are beginning to move beyond this important but still rather limited view (see reference below). Land development as linked to water resources should be seen in relation to a wide range of activities that span the food, water, energy, industry and even water pollution domains. 

Altogether, the term "water grabbing" is increasingly being used today (Googling the term provides some 28 million hits). The connotation is typically negative; it is about exploitation, environmental degradation, and dirty deals. Cases that are often referred to include hydropower development in Laos, (promoted by neighboring Thailand), water transfers from the Palestinian West Bank into Israel, state-supported water development schemes in India and Kenya, and the well-known agricultural schemes along the Nile River in the Sudan, producing food for far-way populations in China, India and the Middle East. Would similar cases also include the export of tea from Sri Lanka, wheat from the US and rice from Thailand, as well as wine from South Africa and water transfer from Malaysia to Singapore?       

When the Gezira scheme was established a hundred years ago the driver was not water scarcity, it was colonial imperialism, making money and establishing power and influence. Today, however, we see other reasons for virtual water flows. Some are indeed linked to water scarcity, while others are linked to e.g. trade and export earnings, a lack of land for agriculture, or a quest for tropical fruits. Few would argue that wheat production in Saudi Arabia based on desalinated seawater or fossil groundwater is sound natural resources management; it is better for such a country to import food (if they have the financial resources) from countries or region more endowed with water and thus contribute to an "optimization" of the world's water system.

To trade water - like water flowing into Singapore or the export of "wine virtual water" from South Africa - is a fundamental process for national well-being and development. It is also a way to handle global water scarcity. When it is done according to sound policies and a respect for the environment and marginal groups, it is fine and should be supported like any other form of international collaboration. However, when the benefits are not shared equally, the environment mismanaged, poor people marginalized, and influential individuals or even whole nations given the opportunity to exploit faraway water resources at little cost, it is about something else - water grabbing.

Further reading:
A thematic issue on “water grabbing” in Water Alternatives (June 2012) contains 15 academic articles. They problematize the issue and provide examples of “water grabbing” from around the world. It is available for free at http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=1. In addition, the website http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2012/08/06/thailands-mekong-water-grab/ provides a particular focus on Southeast Asia and hydropower development in the region. 
Finally, click here for the World Water Week in Stockholm reference.
 

A database describing what regional and international actors are doing in the field of Transboundary Water Management is now available at Swedish Water House's website.

Currently, the database holds information on activities, projects, tools and publications of more than 80 actors, including River Basin Organisations, Regional Economic Communities, Financial Institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations, UN Agencies and Intergovernmental Organisations. The database can be used for multiple purposes. Organisations can use it as a base for discussion on future activities, hence decreasing the risk of duplication. Researchers can use it to identify research needs and water managers and decision-makers to identify working models or tools that facilitate river basin management. Explore the database here! 

This week, when the Cancun negotiations are supposed to move into top gear, I feel it is relevant to give some thoughts to how climate change (or even the perception of it) may affect transboundary water management. While this is certainly not the focus of discussions or negotiations in Mexico, it is an important area that needs to be further understood.

Much of the knowledge we have, as well as existing agreements/regimes over transboundary water are increasingly volatile because of increased water use. Also, they are becoming  unworkable due to the perception that climate change is altering the basic parameters for water governance. Whether correct or not, perceptions of climate change are undermining existing agreements.

According to the Oregon State Database on transboundary water agreements over the period of the last 200 years, riparian countries have signed nearly 400 water-sharing agreements. While that is a positive sign one  key question is, however, dual: to what extent are these agreements actually contributing to meaningful cooperation, and how can they be kept functioning particularly in the face of climate change induced uncertainty? Many of these agreements are essentially rigid instruments that are modifiable only under certain limited conditions. Thus, it is not only that we need functional agreements on transboundary waters; we also need the agreements to be sustainable, lasting and progressive Unfortunately, more than 40% of present agreements do not even mention ‘uncertainty’ in their texts.

Transboundary waters need to be dealt with. However, this is not an easy process. The increasing competition and the difficulties emanating from the altering parameters caused (or so claimed) by climate change are creating further uncertainties. Agreements on transboundary waters are in general not adapted to deal with uncertainties and a changing world, but are often characterised by rigid volumetric allocations of the resource, based on averages of a historical pattern. The keyword that is lacking is flexibility. States are not prone to  sign agreements with uncertain consequences for them in the future. So even though we may know now that agreements should be more focused on sharing waters in percentage terms rather than in cubic metres, it  does not mean it will be easy to get there. 

To address these issues the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development, Stockholm International Water Institute (www.siwi.org) and Peace and Development Research at School of Global Studies at Gothenburg University have joined forces to research this important area. The basic thrust of the research (funded by Sida-SAREC) will focus on the question: how are Transboundary Waters to be governed given the increasing demands on global water resources and the increasing perceptions of a Global Climate Change?

The research, which starts in 2011, will draw upon cases from Africa (Nile and Niger), Middle East (Jordan Basin and Asia (Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra).
While some countries recently have called for the water issues to be more prominent in the Cancun meeting it is receiving less attention than it should. Knock on effects of climate change (or the mere perception of it) such as the one described above merits more attention in the future. It is important also to address future scenarios and adaptation options  at river basin level . Sweden is currently financing a UNEP led project to address such questions in the Nile Basin. Such regional analysis coupled with political and governance research will equip us better for the challenges that are coming.

by Dr Anders Jägerskog, Associate Professor of Peace and Development, School of Global Studies, Göteborg University and;
Senior Programme Manager, Water Resources
Regional Team for Economic and Environmental Development (REED), Sida
Embassy of Sweden, Nairobi, Kenya

Sitting at the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi with responsibility for transboundary waters (I am responsible for the Swedish support to the Nile Basin Initiative as well as the Lake Victoria Basin Commission) my thoughts are going back to the basic political science on international politics that I read a long time ago. What does that have to do with development cooperation and support to transboundary water management one may ask? Well, quite a lot I think.

Having observed transboundary water management programmes and the people involved in managing those as well as the complexity (technical as well as political) which is associated with these programmes I am inclined to think that perhaps bit more of Machiavellian analysis would make sense. Anyone that has read his seminal book The Prince would be familiar with the pre-eminence of power in its hard and brute form. He can be seen as the forefather of what has become the realist strand of political science. However, most people working with development cooperation and support to, among others, transboundary water management programmes are clearly not realist. Quite the contrary, we tend to be fans of Immanuel Kant (although not always aware of it) who is behind what is called the idealist or functionalist school of thinking. An idealist tend to believe that cooperation over a “low politics” issues such as water may be something that spur cooperation over even more sensitive political areas. And that cooperation would spur more cooperation.

Often it has been assumed in the debates over transboundary water that if we build technical cooperation that would lead to more political contacts, improved relations and eventually equitable agreements signed. Still, that is not really what is happening in cases such as the Nile or the Jordan River Basin.

It may be argued that in the development business (myself included) there has been a tendency not to engage to much with the perspective that realism represents. This perspective has been left to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs security people and the Ministry of Defence. In sociological language there has been a de-emphasising of the risks associated with such a perspective. Arguably, often development practitioners adopt more of a functionalist approach to matters. This may result in that certain risks are missed with potentially serious consequences. Issues of power relations in a river basin context are but one example. If these are ignored in the preparatory work there is a risk that investments may be misguided or that there is a risk that the results of the investments may be derailed by political conflicts not anticipated at the outset (because the development practitioners had their ‘functionalist’ glasses on).

Thus, it may be so that some investments that were viewed as going to result in good results actually do not and that this is, from a realist perspective, understandable when looking at the assumptions made at the outset of the project/programme. What to do about it? Well, to start with it may be argued that a bit more of a Machiavellian analysis would do the development community a favour.

by Dr Anders Jägerskog, Associate Professor, First Secretary
Senior Programme Manager, Water Resources
Regional Team for Economic and Environmental Development (REED), Sida
Embassy of Sweden, Nairobi, Kenya
 

The weather in Istanbul is improving. Still cold and a little windy but more sun than early on in the week. The spirit is still high but towards the end of an intense week participants are starting to look a little drained.

Despite going towards the end of the Forum, yesterday’s and today’s session on transboundary waters brought up a lot of emotions and resulted in intense discussion. Acting as a co-chair of the introducing transboundary session on basin management and hydrosolidarity it almost felt as if I was caught in the cross-fire. Seemingly semantic questions on whether to use terms such as ‘international waters’ or ‘transboundary waters’, ‘sharing water’ or ‘sharing benefits’ were areas for passionate debate. The organizers of the transboundary theme of the week – UNESCO and INBO – certainly face a challenge in summarizing the key results and outcomes. One does not envy them.

Last night I also chaired a session organized by the Palestinian Water Authority in which an option for an inclusive (including all five riparians – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory) Jordan Basin future may look that, over time, will put all parties better off in terms of water availability. While the concept is thought-provoking and received positive responses from various parts of the basin the idea may well be hostage to political developments. This event will be followed up at a seminar during the World Water Week in Stockholm in August.

Today I talked at a session organized by the Euphrates Tigris Initiative for Co-operation (ETIC) about so called ‘track two’ initiatives and presented the Transboundary Waters Opportunity (TWO) Analysis that SIWI has been developing with colleagues in Namibia (PRA) and South Africa (CSIR). The presentation gained a positive response and the conceptual framework of the TWO analysis will be utilized in by the ETIC network.

Tomorrow - the final day of the Forum – coincides with the UN World Water Day with the theme – Shared water – shared opportunities where SIWIs Executive Director Anders Berntell will take part.
The days here start early and have a tendency to end very late. I do not foresee that this day will be any different. I am quite happy that it is only one day left…..
 

by Anders Jägerskog, Project Director, SIWI