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Beirut, 24 October 2003 (United Nations Information Service)--The
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
(ESCWA) concluded today a training course on “Negotiations and
Dispute Resolution of International Water Resources” specially
organized for lawyers and policy makers in the Lebanese Ministry
of Water and Energy, the Syrian Ministry of Irrigation as well as
the ministries of foreign affairs in both countries.
Organized in cooperation with the Lebanese Ministry of Water and
Energy and the Syrian Ministry of Irrigation, and supported by the
Federal Institute for Geosciences and National Resources (BGR) of
Germany and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), the
five-day course was run by Compass (Geneva, Switzerland), a
leading international consultancy for training facilitation of
negotiations.
The course, which focused on a number of important issues such as
the international water resources problems and conflicts and the
legal principles in international water management, aimed at
bringing understanding about the negotiation processes, including
basic principles of international laws related to management and
resolution of international water conflicts--specially in relation
to the Middle East.
ESCWA has increasingly fulfilled a leading role in building
technical and institutional capacity of multidisciplinary teams of
its Member States on negotiations and conflict prevention over
shared water resources specially that improving the management of
shared ground and surface water resources is a priority agenda
item. Preventing conflicts and resolving water disputes have
gained much attention at the national and international levels as
a result of increasing competition over water use among sectors
and rising tension among water sharing countries.
While cooperation among riparian states on the use of shared water
resources is not always evident, shared water resources can be a
source of conflict in the absence of dialogue and cooperation
among stakeholders, and as long as there are no binding
institutional and legal mechanisms to address issues of water
allocation, control of water quality and monitoring of water
utilization among riparians.
There are six major water basins in Western Asia, which are shared
by more than one country. The dependency of ESCWA Member States on
inflows from these basins has important implications for water
security, food security and regional stability.
ESCWA objective is to highlight the complexity and uniqueness of
the region in terms of shared water resources management. Despite
all daunting facts, hope is surviving that shared river basins and
aquifers in the ESCWA region can still be characterized as
generating more opportunities for cooperation than confrontation.
Lebanon and Syria have distinctive record of cooperation on shared
water resources, which includes the agreements signed on the joint
management of Nahr El-Kabir. On its part, ESCWA is thriving to
strengthen cooperation between both Member States on shared water
resources with a view to promoting the concept and application of
integrated water resources management. This includes ESCWA
technical cooperation program on shared water resources,
undertaken in cooperation with the BGR, which aims at supporting
bilateral cooperation among ESCWA Member States on shared
aquifers.
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