In 2003, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2005 to 2015 to be the decade of “water for life” as a way to encourage countries to reach their water-related targets under the Millennium Development Goals. In summing up the last 10 years, it was noted that water cooperation had been promoted widely, featuring at international fora and in government initiatives and development agendas. Water cooperation is described as having the potential to enable peace and sustainable development. However, just as focusing on “water wars”  might undermine the everyday challenges of securing safe and adequate supplies of water, focusing only on “more cooperation” may well simplify the problem at hand.

If we are to truly make a difference in the parts of the world where water issues are most consequential, we need to transform the social structures that underpin inequalities in access, allocation, and stewardship. Cooperation cannot merely happen between governments or within the global policy community. We need to address the way diverse water users are included or not in decision-making and make their voices count.

Shallow Cooperation and Shallow Conflict

The experience of the past decade (and more) suggests states rarely mount militarized attacks on each other over shared water resources. One might think that cooperation has prevailed then. But water cooperation remains frustratingly “shallow,” as the UN Development Program puts it.

“Shallow cooperation” describes narrowly defined agreements between states focusing on specific water resource management projects. It is an intensely political process of implementing rules and principles of water utilization and river basin development by state elites in the service of national development goals or strategic considerations.

However, by putting national interests first over long-term sustainability of the basin, shallow cooperation can undermine human development goals and livelihoods that rely on benefits from healthy watersheds. It can also hide conflict. For example, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam have signed an agreement concerning the sustainable development of the Lower Mekong River Basin; however, what kinds of project are acceptable as supporting sustainable development is subject to constant political negotiation.

By its state-driven nature, shallow cooperation also frequently leaves out poorly represented communities which rely on the resources in question and alternative uses of resources that do not align with the state’s vision.

The Kosi River

When I started research for my book, Transboundary Water Politics in the Developing World, I was focused on deciphering the state-to-state deliberations that seemed to determine inter-state inequalities over water allocation. However, as I drove through the Orange-Senqu River Basin in the highlands of Lesotho, walked along the flood plains of a Ganges tributary, and floated down the Mekong, I began to see rifts between the priorities represented in inter-state agreements and how water was actually used. I saw the repercussions of decision-making by elites on those actually living in the basins.

In August 2008, the Kosi River flowing from Nepal to India caused major havoc when parts of its embankment failed. Flooding led to major displacement, casualties, and loss of livelihoods. In total, an estimated 3.3 million people were affected in India and 70,000 families in Nepal. As I watched the rebuilding of the flood barriers, it was hard not to notice the risk local communities faced and costs of flood hazards for individuals, not just in terms of material loss of homes and means to secure a livelihood, but the non-monetary burdens placed on those already marginalized in society – women, the landless, those already vulnerable.

There have been repeated calls to reconsider the state-driven approach to managing the Kosi, whereby the river is controlled by engineering interventions that end up poorly maintained, but the same pattern of management prevails.

This is not an anomaly. Alternative approaches to the status quo rarely feature in decision-making processes dominated by state elites. But the top-down paradigm is increasingly under pressure, even in places like India where dams have been the symbol of modernity. Large-scale infrastructure is controversial for its high costs and environmental impacts and its efficiency is being questioned. In an era of climate change, such an approach may prove ineffective at dealing with uncertainty and fluctuating conditions.

The Next Decade of Cooperation

The importance of water security is certainly not going unnoticed in policy circles. But advocating for more cooperation or deeper cooperation may not be enough to address the insecurities of those along the Kosi River and places like it without changing the processes that currently entail cooperation. This means recognizing that existing water uses may need to be revisited as well as opening up options for re-allocation of water from one state to another, one sector to another, one community to another. New knowledge, both scientific and traditional, will be required as well as new ways of deliberating competing interests.

As we look forward to the next decade of water cooperation, more research needs to be done on how to incorporate different approaches, rationalities, and worldviews into decisions over water management. This means recognizing not only the economic but also the non-tangible, non-material values attached to watersheds by various users. Employing market-based mechanisms to ensure security may simply not be sufficient – a long, hard look at the social structures and power relationships that produce and reproduce inequality is required.