• Water supply

Water supply

Whilst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not stem from an ecological cause, issues such as water supply and water scarcity, pollution of groundwater and solid waste management are important regional issues and a shared burden on all sides of the border.

The “Good Water Neighbours” (GWN) project was established by EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East in 2001 to raise awareness of the shared water problems of Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis. The GWN methodology is an original idea based on identifying cross border communities and uses their mutual dependence on shared water resources as a basis for developing dialogue and cooperation on sustainable water.

This report reviews different theories surrounding environmental peacebuilding and aims to connect these to the practical example of the GWN project. it goes on to provide detailed background, description and analysis of how the GWN project was applied and implemented in two communities; one Palestinian, one Israeli.

The report concludes that:

• bottom-up community work needs to be combined with top-down advocacy in order for environmental cooperation to develop into political cooperation and to generate social and political dialogue 
  
• the GWN project can be showcased as a six-year old successful implementation of the concept of environmental peacebuilding and serve as an example for environmental security, reconciliation and peace in other regions of protracted conflict
  

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend