August 18, 2000
Water is a catalyst for peace, and will not be the cause of wars, says Professor Kader Asmal, chair of the World Commission on Dams. Asmal, who is South Africa's Minister of Education and winner of the 2000 Stockholm Water Prize, challenged the assumption of many international environmental diplomats that decreasing supplies of fresh water will inevitably lead to water wars.
Water scarcity is cause for concern, he acknowledged, but said "there is not a shred of evidence" to back up the rhetoric of water wars.
Professor Asmal was South Africa's Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry in the cabinet of President Nelson Mandela when he took on the job of chairing the World Commission on Dams two years ago. In his policy address before the Stockholm Water Forum Monday, Asmal listed some of the strongest arguments for the likelihood of water wars, some of them made by his friends and colleagues.
"In 1991," Asmal said, "my World Water co-Commissioner Asit Biswas predicted that "the political tensions between certain neighbouring countries over the use of international rivers, lakes and aquifers may escalate to the point of war, even before we move into the 21st Century."
"Four years later, the World Bank president for environmentally sustainable development, my friend Ismail Serageldin warned, 'wars of the next century will be over water,' not oil," said Asmal.
"My fear is that we're headed for a period of water wars between nations," Klaus Toepfer, head of the UN Environment Programme, recently announced. "Can we afford that, in a world of globalisation and tribalisation, where conflicts over natural resources and the numbers of environmental refugees are already growing?"
"Battles have been fought over water allocation in many other countries," asserts former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who now heads the International Green Cross. "The potential for a conflict over water is perhaps at its most serious in the Middle East where water supplies are extremely limited, political tensions traditionally run high, and water is just one of the issues that may divide countries."
"With all due respect to my friends," said Asmal, "have battles ever been fought over water? Is water scarcity a casus belli? Does it divide nations? The answer is no, no and no. Indeed, water, by its nature, tends to induce even hostile co-riparian countries to co-operate, even as disputes rage over other issues."
"There is some value to sensational Water War rhetoric," Asmal acknowledged. "Alarmists awaken people to the underlying reality of water scarcity, and rally their troops to become more progressive and interdependent. By contrast, to challenge that rhetoric is to risk making us passive about the status quo, or delay needed innovations or co-operation." But the Water War rhetoric must not replace the vacuum left by the Cold War's end, Asmal advised.
For the past two years the World Commission on Dams has been studying the effects of these structures on the environment and the people living near the rivers they control. The Commission's report on its investigation is due out November 16. The report will not be legally binding, but will serve as a guideline as countries work to maximize the benefits of their waterways and minimize the environmental, political and social consequences of damming them.
"The odds are that any of the 145 nations who share a common river will disagree with each other over the use of that river," said Professor Asmal. "And since use almost invariably requires dams, dams become a critical focal point in almost every nation's foreign policy," he said.
In the Middle East, Asmal said, "the one thing that Israel's Prime Minister Barak, Jordan's King Abdullah and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat can all agree upon is that failure to resolve freshwater resource scarcity could result in a conflict worse than all previously seen in the region."
He pointed to water conflicts such as Turkey's plans to build a complex of 20 dams on the Euphrates River, upstream from fast growing and chronically drought prone Syria, which brought an exchange of tensions, leverage, and angry threats. He mentioned the Nile River, the Indus and the Parana as basins of conflict.
Still, Professor Asmal says water wars are not likely. "I have seen sovereign states and tribes within nations go to war over every resource - oil, land, humans, diamonds, gas, livestock, or gold - but never, interestingly, over renewable resources, and never, in particular, over water development and dams."
"True," he said, "water has never been more scarce, and there is always a first time for anything. But there is also a difference between reaching a snapping point, and snapping; between being pushed to the brink of conflict over water and waging a water war."
"For two years, the World Commission on Dams has explored that difference. We explore not only the role dams play among peoples and nations, but equally important, we examine the strategic role of dams between them, asking: Does our need for water divide us, or unite us?"
Asmal praised the Swedish Government which has declared its intention to increase water development capacity by bringing four separate research and policy bodies together under the roof of the Stockholm Water House. The Global Water Partnership, the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Stockholm International Water Institute, and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute have united to tackle international water issues.
As for the process he has headed for the past two years, the final report of the World Commission on Dams will be presented November 16 at Cabot Hall in London, England.
The Commission includes business leaders, environmentalists and social activists as well as internationally renowned experts in water and energy resources development. It aims to bring a more responsible approach to investments in large dam projects by conducting the first ever independent global review of their costs and benefits.
