What is water diplomacy and why should you care?

01.01.2019
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August 31st, 2018 Dr. Susanne Schmeier, IHE Delft, The Netherlands In recent years, the term ‘water diplomacy’ (or ‘hydrodiplomacy’) has experienced an impressive — yet surprising — career in the lexicon of journalists, policy-makers, and their advisors. Policy advisors and policy-oriented scholars use the term to discuss how those in foreign policy solve water conflicts and promote water cooperation for peace.¹ Numerous institutions like the European Union (EU)² and the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)³ apply the term to their work on water whether it is about conflict, management, or cooperation. Likewise, national governments use the term ‘water diplomacy’ when referring to issues associated with water scarcity, water conflict, or water cooperation (or lack thereof).^4,5 Journalists have increasingly referenced water diplomacy in those same broad strokes.^6,7 This buzz about water diplomacy has brought heightened attention to both water governance and water-related challenges and risks. However, water stakeholders from academia to policymakers to the media, have taken ‘water diplomacy’ to mean anything related to any work on water as a resource. The consequence of this confounding are issues in both the research and policy sectors which has constrained the potential of both. This article sets out to help develop a working definition of water diplomacy applicable to all stakeholders in the water sector to help address this problem. This definition will provide scholars with parameters to determine when water diplomacy is at play and should be analyzed as such, and when in fact something other than water diplomacy is occurring. The objective is to avoid scholars comparing apples to oranges and to give policy advisors’ and policy makers’ a better understanding of what water diplomacy can and cannot do, and which individuals and organizations are best equipped for the work. This is particularly important because various actors and institutions have recently been tasked with carrying out water diplomacy tasks that they are neither mandated, nor capable, of executing. For example, river basin organizations that are limited to technical basin management in their mandate have sometimes been tasked or expected to act as water diplomats and are blamed if the expected results are not delivered. The Mekong River Commission (MRC)’s perceived “failure” in preventing hydropower dam development^8-11 or, even more so, the Lake Chad Basin Commission’s role in the fight against Boko Haram in the region^12,13 are prominent examples. Finally, a clear definition of water diplomacy will help journalists report on water issues in a way that can better inform the public.

A clearer definition of water diplomacy can help improve policy implementation for transboundary river systems, such as the Mekong, shown here. Source: Wikipedia.

What is Water Diplomacy? Water diplomacy can be defined as the use of diplomatic instruments to existing or emerging disagreements and conflicts over shared water resources with the aim to solve or mitigate those for the sake of cooperation, regional stability, and peace. Water diplomacy is about applying diplomatic instruments, not technical ones. Water diplomacy’s diplomatic instruments may include negotiations, dispute-resolution mechanisms, the establishment of consultation platforms, and the organization of joint fact-finding missions. Technical instruments—such as establishing basin-wide management plans or joint monitoring networks–are not part of water diplomacy. While diplomatic and technical instruments often build on each other and can be directly linked, consistently defining water diplomacy merits this strict differentiation as will become clear later on. Water diplomacy focuses on disagreements and conflicts. Disagreements and conflicts are not narrowly defined as official, full-fledged disputes being fought with diplomacy, or even violence. Instead conflicts include situations in which user groups (nationally or internationally) have competing uses for a scarce resource that can lead to disagreements that destabilize communities, countries or regions. Conflicts can relate to different understandings of whether a watercourse should be developed for unilateral economic gains or for mutual benefit; an issue particularly pertinent in shared water basins, for instance. Ideally, such disagreements are addressed before they turn into conflicts, thus making much of water diplomacy preventive diplomacy. Water diplomacy has the ultimate goal of ensuring regional cooperation, stability, and peace. It is much more than water resource management. Water diplomacy uses water resources as a means of contribute to the broader goals of peace and stability through diplomatic engagement and cooperation. What Isn’t Water Diplomacy? With a better understanding of what water diplomacy is, the question remains what it is not. This is especially critical in terms of differentiating water diplomacy from other, related concepts, particularly transboundary water management and water cooperation. Transboundary water management. As water resources frequently cross-country borders, water resource management often needs to be transboundary as well. This does not mean transboundary water management is water diplomacy. Instead, transboundary water management can be defined as the application of technical tools to specific water-related questions and challenges to improve water-specific outcomes in watercourses that are transboundary by nature. By way of example, this can mean monitoring specific hydrological or environmental parameters as a basis for implementing water quality measures (such as better wastewater treatment along a shared river) in order improve water quality outcomes across legal jurisdictions as implemented along the Rhine since some decades. Water cooperation. Water cooperation relies on the fact that many watercourses are transboundary, and it ensures that the benefits that can be derived by managing such water resources cooperatively rather than unilaterally are generated for riparian communities and states. For example, integrated and cooperative management of a dam cascade on a transboundary river can provide greater hydropower generation or flood control benefits as seen through the details of the Colombia River Treaty between the United States and Canada.¹⁴ Bringing It Together The case of the Mekong River in Southeast Asia provides an illustrative example of how these three concepts of transboundary water management, water cooperation, and water diplomacy are different, yet connected. The fact that the Mekong is a transboundary river has led to a number of challenges, including for flood forecasting and flood management as flows cross nation states’ borders. To address these challenges, the Mekong River Commission (MRC)’s Regional Flood Forecasting and Management Center ensures transboundary flood forecasting and warning through technical means (e.g. data collection, flow monitoring, flow modeling, etc.) and thus transboundary water management. The transboundary nature of the Mekong River also provides opportunities for integrated planning regarding the use and development of water resources. The MRC’s Basin Development Strategy is thus an example of water cooperation because it aims to use cooperation among the countries to generate gains that none could have achieved alone. However, any time a resource is shared, conflict will arise from competing demands and interests. The disagreements and disputes over mainstream dams in the Mekong River Basin are a classic example. Water diplomacy provides the mechanisms, such as prior notification and governance meetings, to manage negotiations over such disputes and ensure that they do not undermine relations between riparian states and thus regional cooperation and stability more generally. This example highlights that the borders between these concepts can be fluid and interdependent while confirming what water diplomacy is and what it is not. A better understanding of the nature and the role of water diplomacy will not only help scholars in their research on shared water resources, but could also improve policy advice. In addition, a clear definition will impact how the media reports on challenges relating to transboundary watercourses and approaches, affecting how the public interprets and responds to water challenges. Together, clarifying what water diplomacy is, and what it isn’t, will help towards ensuring the long-term cooperative and sustainable management of rivers that cross jurisdictional boundaries. References: