Practical approaches to transboundary water benefit sharing

The emergence and maintenance of transboundary water management regimes rests on a complex web of inter-related factors that define incentives for cooperation. This paper considers practical mechanisms towards an operationalisation of benefit sharing in transboundary water by focusing on steps for putting the concept into practice and the lessons learned from existing cooperative efforts. Written from the perspective of an economist, it attempts to inject some degree of objectivity into what is otherwise a highly political exercise.

‘Benefit sharing’ has been proposed as one approach to bypass the contentious issue of property rights. The idea is that if the focus is switched from physical volumes of water to the various values derived from water use, riparians will correctly view the problem as optimising benefits rather than dividing water.

The authors assert that further attention should be given to areas that are critical for operationalising benefit sharing, which include the following:

• recognition of the link between national water policies and transboundary water issues is essential, as actions taken within a country can go a long way to both reducing water stress and improving relations with other riparians
• regional integration arrangements can play an important role in fostering cooperative efforts
• although the involvement of all stakeholders is essential to achieving viable solutions, a balance amongst the various ‘voices’ of these groups must be struck
• additional work is required in creatively applying existing economic tools to assess potential ‘win-win’ scenarios in transboundary river basin settings and in better linking transboundary benefit sharing with local level impacts
• alternative financing arrangements need to be identified and developed, particularly as the pool of available financing from funding organisations and bilateral donors continues to dwindle
• monitoring and evaluation, and in particular the use of key indicators to measure short-term progress, is vital as both a learning tool and a consensus builder.