Facilitating Cooperative Water Management in Afghanistan and Southwest Asia

On Thursday, April 2, EWI’s Preventive Diplomacy Initiatives launched a new series of expert dialogues on water security in Afghanistan and the region. The series, Alternative Futures for Afghanistan and the Stability of Southwest Asia: Improving Regional Cooperation on Water, follows a decision by the EastWest Institute’s Parliamentarians Network on Conflict Prevention and Human Security to focus on water security as a critical component of conflict prevention.

The opening session of the series, held in Brussels, brought together leaders and experts from Afghanistan and the region to forge collective action on water – the most critical of natural resources.

The key issues identified at the meeting were:

• The political sensitivity of the water issue;
• The potential of collaborative water management as a means to build trust and confidence in the region;
• The importance of sharing information;
• The need for better management of water as a precondition for social and economic development; and
• The connections between water and energy (hydropower)

Participants agreed that there is an urgent need for development of Afghanistan’s water infrastructure. According to Mohammad Masoud, Counselor of the Afghan Embassy in Brussels, decades of conflict and neglect have devastated Afghanistan’s infrastructure. Only 20% of the Afghan population has access to clean water now, and only 6% have access to energy, he said.

The most important strategy to address this need for infrastructure, according to the group, is for governments and NGOs to more effectively share information on water projects. “As a first step toward water security, information-sharing is crucial,” said Rakhshan Roohi of the National Agricultural Research Council of Pakistan, stressing the need for more reliable and accurate data.

Victor Dukhovny, Director of the Scientific Information Centre of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (ICWC), pointed to the potential benefits of more streamlined flows of information. “Information sharing has strengthened cooperation between the five post-Soviet states in Central Asia,” he said, inviting Afghanistan to participate in the ICWC’s information sharing mechanisms. He offered www.cawater-info.net, an online knowledge portal, as an example of a tool that can help share information between the many agencies and organizations working on water-related projects in the region.

Seyed Vahid Gharavi of the Iranian Embassy in Brussels provided more examples of successful local approaches to water management, pointing to Iran and Afghanistan’s coordinated management of the Helmand River.

EWI has already started securing commitments to share the information necessary for successful water management. The Asian Development Bank’s David Kruger mentioned the Bank’s new technical assistance project in the region, and expressed the Bank’s willingness to cooperate and coordinate with other stakeholders. Other participants expressed a desire and a willingness to continue the dialogue and begin building the networks needed for better regional cooperation on water issues.

According to many participants, a discussion on water management in the region is incomplete without a mention of hydroelectric power. Mr. Fedor Klimtchouk, Deputy Head of the UN Regional Centre for Conflict Prevention in Central Asia (UNRCCA), called the water-energy nexus a main priority, essential to a long-term sustainable development of the region.

Mr. Rustam Soliev, Deputy Head of Mission of the Tajik Embassy in Brussels pointed to cooperation between his country and Afghanistan on hydroelectric developments on the Panj River. Ambassador Isan Mustafoev, of the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Brussels, agreed that hydroelectric development has great potential, but stressed the need for independent assessments of the impact on downstream populations.

This was the first in a series of five policy dialogues. Each of the next four sessions will focus on a specific water resource shared between Afghanistan and one or more of its neighbors. The series will produce an action-oriented policy paper and build towards an international conference on regional cooperation over water in December 2009.

Following are the remaining sessions in the series:

• Thursday, 2 April, 2009: Identify  key challenges, outline areas for win-win solutions, and establish a framework for future dialogues;
• Thursday, 30 April, 2009: Management of the Amu Darya river and  Afghanistan’s relations with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan;
• Thursday, 28 May, 2009: Management of the Kabul river and Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan;
• Thursday, 25 June, 2009: Management of the Helmand River basin and the Harirud and Murghab rivers, affecting Afghanistan’s relations with Iran and Turkmenistan.