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Peter Molt: Misleading notion of ownership

Timo Menniken: International cooperation on water along the Mekong and the Nile


10/2006
  

[ International rivers ]

Cooperation instead of conflict

Freshwater is becoming scarce all over the world. Due to population growth and pollution the amount available per person is decreasing. Experts reckon that 40 to 60% of the world population will have to make do with less than 1,700 cubic metres a person a year by 2025 – that is to say, they will face water stress or even water scarcity. Further cause for conflict resides in the fact that a great deal of freshwater is carried by transboundary rivers. In the Nile and Mekong basins, very promising cooperation projects exist and should be extended.


[ By Timo Menniken ]

40% of the world population live in the catchment area of 261 international rivers (Wolf et. al., 1999). 17 river systems flow through five or more countries. In some cases – mostly where the level of development is high, such as along the Rhine or the Danube – cooperation between riparian states is satisfactory. But many major river systems flow through low-developed regions, where fragile institutions, an asymmetrical distribution of power and a precarious political balance are typical.

Back in the early 1990s it was forecast that the shared water resources of the Nile, Indus or Mekong basins could become a casus belli (Buzan, 1991). In two of those basins today, however, efforts are being made to cooperate. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) was established in 1995, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999. Both institutions offer interesting models for other river basins, although their terms of reference and prospects are very different.

In the case of the Mekong, China is both geophysically and socioeconomically a hegemonial power. Not a member of the MRC, it is the uppermost riparian state of the Mekong river basin and able – quite literally – to dictate key decisions “from the top down”. In the case of the Nile, 85% of the water is controlled by Egypt, the dominant military power of the basin, and Ethiopia, the country in which the Blue Nile rises. Both are NBI members. Because problems are structurally complex in the case of the Nile, both conflict and cooperation seem more likely there. Accordingly, the NBI's objectives are more ambitious, whereas the MRC works with diplomatic tools towards incremental progress.


The Mekong model

The MRC was created in 1995 in a deal vigorously brokered by the United Nations. It is an independent international organisation with its own secretariat (MRCS). Policy decisions are taken by a Council of Ministers advised by a Joint Committee, which also implements the Council's resolutions. The unanimity principle preserves the national sovereignty of the four member states, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The MRC addresses eight issues (water distribution, water quality, hydropower, transport, fisheries, navigation, flood management and tourism) through three programmes: the Basin Development Programme (BDP), the Water Utilisation Programme (WUP) and the Environmental Programme (EP). The BDP and WUP have announced that binding regulations will be adopted in 2006. In June, the four governments signed an agreement – still to be ratified – on “procedures” for water use. Such a breakthrough is needed; the MRC is already considered a “paper tiger” (Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 August 2004).

The MRC's main problem, however, is that the dominant country, China, is not on board and engages in only selective cooperation. As far as the exchange of information is concerned, astonishing progress has been made. China sends the MRC daily reports on water levels from various monitoring stations and thus makes a valuable contribution to flood management. But the Chinese government’s dam policy impacts massively on water distribution. Eight dams are planned along the Mekong River. One is already in operation, another is just waiting for the reservoir to fill up and the last dam is scheduled for completion in 2017 (MRC, 2001). The lower riparian countries also fear they will be disadvantaged in terms of water quality, flooding, navigation and fisheries. There is no prospect of China joining the MRC. So developing a common “MRC foreign policy” would be the best way for the member states to counterbalance Beijing's policy. One stumbling block there, however, is the MRC’s intergovernmental character, which gives precedence to bilateral relations with China.

The MRC accordingly faces a double challenge. It needs to consolidate internally by adopting its development plan and rules on water use. And it needs to develop a common identity in order to form a united front in talks with China.


The Nile model

The NBI model is more ambitious – and therefore exposed to a greater risk of failure. After several doomed attempts in the 1960s, the NBI created a provisional mechanism in 1999 for cooperation among all ten of the Nile basin countries. Like the MRC, the NBI is governed by a Council of Ministers (Nile-COM). It is administered by a secretariat based in Entebbe, Uganda (Nile-SEC). But the NBI has a decentralised structure. Operationally, it has two main thrusts: the Shared Vision Programmes (SVP) and the Subsidiary Action Programmes (SAP). The former aim at building confidence and creating joint capacities through diverse activities in different places. The two SAPs, on the other hand, are regional. Based in Kigali and Addis Ababa respectively, they roughly cover the sub-basins of the White and Blue Nile.

The Nile riparian countries are also negotiating a “Cooperative Framework” to serve as the founding document of a “Nile River Commission”. It has not yet been decided whether the treaty will address the vital question of water distribution. In 1959, Sudan and Egypt concluded a bilateral agreement which defines the present status quo. Under its terms, Egypt is entitled to 55.5 of the 84 billion cubic metres of water measured at the Aswan Dam while Sudan is entitled to 18.5. The rest evaporates. The agreement takes no account whatsoever of the riparian countries further upstream.

Egypt uses every drop of “its” volume and has made it clear on many occasions that it sees access to the Nile's water as its historical right. Ethiopia officially considers the 1959 treaty non-binding and stresses its own claims. So an agreement on the redistribution of the Nile water would be sensational. There is also disagreement over whether member states need to be consulted when major projects (dams, irrigation systems), which affect water volumes downstream, are planned.

The NBI has raised high hopes – hopes which seem likely to be dashed in the light of severe droughts in Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya. East Africa's energy crisis and Ethiopia's growing water requirements are also worrisome in this respect. Everyone concerned agrees that actual projects based on the Cooperative Framework need to be realised in the next three years, for else Nile cooperation will fail altogether.


Conclusion

MRC and NBI are unequal siblings. While the NBI plays for high stakes, counting on everyone to cooperate with everyone else, the MRC adopts an incremental approach. Accordingly, the NBI hovers between lasting breakthrough and final failure. The MRC's existence, on the other hand, is secure – although China's non-membership could render it irrelevant in the long term. The Nile cooperation is decentralised and visionary. That of the Mekong is centralistic and pragmatic – and therefore less spectacular and less susceptible to crisis.

Other river initiatives can certainly learn from both models. The MRC's strengths lie in the central role of its secretariat, its scientific base, its innovative proposals for water distribution and its general focus on what is achievable. What is impressive about the NBI, on the other hand, are its broad membership, its decentralised structure and its visionary attitude.

The two initiatives have profited from donor engagement – especially in the early days. GTZ, for example, has helped both. It operates a Watershed Management Component in the MRC and runs a small but strategically important Water Policy Programme in Addis Ababa for the NBI.

Both the MRC and the NBI need to grow. Paradoxical though it may seem, the MRC would now probably do well to become more ambitious and square up to the issue of China's dam policy. The NBI, on the other hand, would probably be well advised to set its sights lower for a while. It should leave the key issue of water distribution unaddressed and first of all build on its positive achievements in project-based cooperation. An over-ambitious agenda would jeopardise its existence, whereas the MRC risks being relegated to irrelevance unless it takes a bolder line than at present.


Timo Menniken
is doing a PhD in political science at Freiburg University. His book “Konflikt und Kooperation am Mekong – Internationale Politik an grenzüberschreitenden Wasserläufen” (Conflict and Cooperation on the Mekong – International Politics on Cross-Border Watercourses) was published this year by LIT Verlag, Münster. He has also spent several months in the Nile Basin conducting research in conjunction with GTZ.
tmenniken@hotmail.com



Links:
http://www.mrcmekong.org
http://www.nilebasin.org

Literature:
Buzan, Barry, 1991:
People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era, New York.
MRC, 2001:
MRC Hydropower Development Strategy, Phnom Penh.
Wolf, Aaron T:/ Natharius, Jeffrey A./ Danielson, Jeffrey J./ Ward, Brian S:/ Pender, Jan K., 1999: International River Basins of the World, in: International Journal of Water Resources Development, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 387-427.