‘ Open your heart and then act ‘

Last week, I analyzed the causes of conflicts around water, the different factors of tensions and their multiple scales. Today, as you can see with this introductory video I would like to look at COP26 and study the different scales of cooperation and their relevance.

As Elizabeth Wathuti says (a Kenyan environmentalist who founded the Green Generation movement to raise awareness of environmental issues with a project that resulted in the planting of 30,000 trees), there is a real urgent need to act and understand the environmental issues in Africa.

The purpose of COP26, as you know, is to bring together leaders from several states to discuss environmental issues. But the question is : is an international scale relevant to understand the real issues? Despite Elisabeth’s truthful speach, her sentence often repeated echoes previous UN meetings with no real consequences : ‘open your heart and act’.

Hence the question: can we understand the international climate consequences? What governance and government should we adopt? How to resolve conflicts around water sharing in Africa?

I have already mentioned it, but Africa is a major victim of climate change, with a growing population, unpredictable and repeated floods and droughts, and above all a pollution and sharing of groundwater resources that create tensions, famines and many deaths. Indeed, as Wathuti puts it: ‘The decision you make here will determine whether children will have food and water’

The different forms of water  cooperation in Africa:

International cooperation on the management of transboundary aquifers systems in Africa are less developed. However, initiatives emerged when the utilisation of common groundwater is high, when there is dependency or when a negative impact of overuse is felt. (Scheumann et. al, 2009)

We can see two forms of cooperation : 

1. Where countries share a transboundary aquifer and a transboundary river/lake : management includes groundwater resources and surface water. E.g : the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) and the Orange-Senqu River Basin Commission (ORASECOM). (Scheumann et. al, 2009)

 2. Where there is no transboundary river and the aquifer is no linked to bodies of transboundary surface water : then entities focus on groundwater resources. E.g = Joint Authority for the Study and Development of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) 

United nation water convention attempt at international water course usage = 

There were a  need for modern international water law and especially an articulate and broad based water law. The UN Attempt is to bring uniformity, to international water law, which led to the International Law Association (ILA) to develop the Helsinki Rules in 1966 but only 12 states out of the 35 have ratified the treaty (Saliu et. al, 2011).

Regional cooperation : 

There is a need to resolve disputes over water, integrate water into regional strategic cooperation, domestic water initiatives, systems rehabilitation, increasing data collection, new world water convention. (Saliu et. al, 2011)

Indeed, it is true to recall that the pattern of water distribution has caused political crises and several wars have been fought because of water. 

What governance ? 

Water governance is characterised by ‘changing power relations’. Multi-sectoral approaches are encouraged and developed like Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) which emphasises local actors, and express ‘the need for more effective cooperative  practices and more cost-efficient  than higher scales of governance’. Governance is embodied in institutional mechanisms like co-management, public-private partnerships and social-private partnerships which are new ways in which the states, market and communities interacts.

 

Various frameworks proposed by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) all place great emphasis on cooperative governance: the Water Services Act (1997b), National Water Act (1998a). Strategy demands more cohesion between the national, provincial and local governments through mechanisms such as information sharing. (Mirumachi et. al, 2010)

Water management has to deal with interdependence between countries, which is not always recognised while essential in decision-making process, and also with the balance of power among different stakeholders with diverse interests and the limited ability for many of the stakeholders to mobilise the technical resources required. (Mirumachi et. al, 2010)

But...

Who can be responsible for the achievement of water security ? 

Who controls water quality and decides how much waste may be dumped into rivers by industries and municipalities, and under what conditions? How is the extraction of underground water regulated to ensure that wells do not run dry? And who decides how  much effort – and sacrifice – should be devoted to environmental protection, since this invariably means restraining the use of the resource? (Muller, 2019)

Participation of all levels of government and different sectors of civil society in the decision-making process (interaction between local authorities and their citizens), is an essential element of good governance to meet the challenge of sustainability and resolve conflicts around water. (Diouf, 2008).

So we can say that sustainable development is not just a simple project of intent in favour of the environment. Rather, it is part of a dynamic of socio-economic and cultural reconstruction for the benefit of present and future generations. (Diouf, 2008).

It is not enough for the State and the Government to adopt the principles of sustainable development without ensuring effective implementation of the recommendations made in Agenda 21/COP26.

Success depends above all on real political will, efficiency and transparency in the management of business that affects both the economy, the social and the environment. And this cannot lead to positive results, to the benefit of the populations and especially the most disadvantaged, without real investment in human capital and reducing inequality.

Therefore, I will see the limits of cooperation around water in a future post. Thank you for reading !