Analysing transboundary water conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa

In many cases, poor governance of international transboundary water resources results in water conflicts of varying intensities. Can cooperation over water replace competition and conflict?

Transboundary water resources are those which cross one or more international borders. Research from Kings College London in the UK focuses on transboundary water conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. The research examines how control is determined by the competing riparians (countries sharing the banks of a water resource), and attributes many of the outcomes to the ‘power’ of each country.

Predictions of ‘water wars’ have generally not been correct, despite increasing water shortages. This is not due to cooperation among the countries involved, as many low-intensity conflicts demonstrate. Instead, the stronger countries in a region manage water for their own benefit, often at the expense of weaker countries. The authors use the concept of ‘hydro-hegemony’ to analyse how countries exploit power inequalities to stake their claims to water resources. The concept of hydro-hegemony is best described as somewhere between positive regional leadership that emphasises cooperation, and regional dominance.

In the cases studied, Israel, Egypt and Turkey have established situations of hegemony over the Jordan, Nile, and Tigris and Euphrates river basins respectively. They have denied weaker countries their water rights, leading to low-intensity conflicts. These stronger countries use three strategies to control water resources:

• Resource capture: countries acquire or annex land or construct large-scale hydraulic works on rivers (for example Turkey’s GAP project and Egypt’s High Aswan Dam).
• Containment: stronger countries dominate competitors, for example by threatening economic sanctions, political isolation, or unevenly balanced treaties. Examples include the 1994 Israel-Jordan and 1959 Egypt-Sudan treaties.
• Integration: some countries encourage more shared control of water resources, for example South Africa’s approach to the Orange River. 

The hydro-hegemony framework identifies the factors behind each country’s ability to use these resource-control strategies:

• Countries exercise power through military or economic means, by providing incentives for weaker countries to comply, or using propaganda to justify control.
• Countries upstream of a water resource use the water available to them to wield more power. Countries downstream use other forms of power (such as military or political power) to get more water.
• Exploitation potential is the technical capacity and infrastructure a country has to exploit a water resource. This is greater in stronger countries.

In the Middle East and North Africa, Israel and Egypt possess more power and exploitation potential than their neighbours, allowing them to overcome the disadvantage of being downstream. Turkey has all three factors in its favour. The lack of internationally recognised water laws also plays a role in allowing some countries to dominate water resources.

To enable better sharing of water resources, the authors stress the need for more research. Priorities include:

• how the hydro-hegemony framework may support the formulation of an international water law
• how the apparently weaker countries can resist these hegemonies
• how a similar approach could examine transboundary water pollution issues, the behaviour of multinational corporations and water conflicts within one country.

Source(s):
‘Hydro-hegemony – A Framework for Analysis of Transboundary Water Conflicts’, Water Policy, No.8, pages 435–460, by Mark Zeitoun and Jeroen Warnerb, 2006

id21 Research Highlight: 13 December 2006

Further Information:
Mark Zeitoun
Centre for Environmental Policy and Governance
London School of Economics and Political Science
Tower 2, V901
Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 207 852 3618
Fax: +44 (0) 207 955 7412
Contact the contributor: m.zeitoun@lse.ac.uk

London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

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