Middle East: Water

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Alderdice for bringing this interesting and challenging report to the attention of the House. I know that he works tirelessly on the issues of peace and reconciliation, and he is to be commended for this work. Given his profound experience in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, it surely behoves us to listen to him closely. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate—contributions that are clearly borne out of deep experience. I especially congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Baglan, on his excellent maiden speech. His detailed knowledge of the region shows the profound challenges that the region faces and how important it is that we listen to those with possible routes through. I look forward very much indeed to his future contributions. I know that we will all benefit from his engagement here.

This report presents us with an innovative and striking proposition. We are all aware that factors such as resource scarcity—including that of water—climate change and population growth may increase the potential for conflict. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, rightly emphasised the key importance of population growth in the region. On water, the facts seem to bear out the potential for conflict. By 2025, more than 2.8 billion people in 48 countries may face water scarcity. Meanwhile, the International Water Management Institute has estimated that demand for water for agriculture alone could increase by over 30 per cent by 2030. My noble friend Lady Falkner flagged up the great significance of climate change in all this.

However, this report puts forward the premise that water should become an instrument of co-operation rather than conflict. As the report notes, water sources and rivers are no respecters of national boundaries. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice and others have so eloquently explained, water could become a theme of dialogue and co-operation between nations. All in a particular region must, of necessity, have an interest in resolving the challenges posed. This could then assist in other areas. As he said, this may not be achieved in a day or a week. The true resolution of conflict is a long-term challenge.

From noble Lords’ accounts, we can see how deep are the problems in terms of conflict, simply over water—not that there is yet even an agreed set of data, as my noble friend Lady Falkner pointed out. Set that against some of the political problems, as laid out, for example, by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, and my noble friend Lady Falkner, and one can see the depth of the challenge. However, as my noble friend said, doing nothing is no longer an option.

The Government place high value on innovative approaches such as those that look at how to use issues of mutual concern, such as shared and scarce resources to reduce conflict. Seeking to reduce conflict is a key element of our foreign and development policy. We have committed to spend 30 per cent of development aid in fragile and conflict-affected states by 2014-15. The Building Stability Overseas strategy published in July of this year, which spans the FCO, the MoD and DfID, sets out the UK Government’s overarching approach to try to prevent conflict and tackle instability through a strong integrated approach, bringing together all these areas of development, diplomacy and defence. A key pillar of this strategy is to invest in upstream prevention to tackle the underlying drivers of conflict and build capacity to manage tensions within and between nations constructively.

The type of approach suggested in this report on using water management as a source of regional co-operation rather than conflict has been seen to work well in some areas of the world that share scarce water resources. The Department for International Development is currently supporting regional initiatives, mainly in Africa and Asia, which have shown that water resource management can serve as an entry point for co-operative development. These include the water initiative under the Southern African Development Community, the Nile Basin initiative, and the South Asia Water Initiative.

The initiatives have already helped to build trust and stronger relationships between countries, and this improves the management of water within and between countries for the benefit of all. These approaches have worked well where initiatives were effectively co-ordinated and avoided duplication of effort.

Another lesson, which the report supports, is that, while distribution and management of water is highly political, it is sometimes better to treat co-operation on water as a technical, rather than a political, issue and hence to encourage practical co-operation between experts rather than politicians. We have heard from both the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, details of some of the university and other collaboration which is currently under way. That is very encouraging.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, rightly emphasises the importance of co-operation in science and technology and noble Lords will be no doubt be interested in the UK Government’s recent initiatives in this field. Tonight, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will travel to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories; during his visit he will launch the new UK-Israel high-tech hub and give political profile to the importance of co-operation in this field.

The report we are discussing today specifically focuses on the Middle East, where the fair and effective distribution of shared water resources is an absolutely key issue. Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are its main focus. The report, however, is cognisant of the enormous political difficulties, including those between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and therefore presents a road map for action which begins with efficient internal management, storage and distribution. It also proposes the interesting idea of establishing a co-operation council for water resources for Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey and, separately, a confidence-building initiative between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. We pay tribute to the authors and the sponsors for exploring and raising these ideas.

Noble Lords will be very well aware of the dramatic changes that have affected the region and the challenges and opportunities that they bring. The report was, of course, published before the remarkable events of the Arab spring, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and the noble Lord, Lord Williams, have referred. Many states are undergoing rapid transition and leaders in those countries have pressing issues to deal with so that they can respond to the legitimate demands of their population. The Government are committed to working through the Arab Partnership with the international community to support the democratic transitions that we hope are under way. However, we are aware that each of these countries will face a great range of challenges, not least in resource allocation. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is surely right to say that, as we focus on what is happening in the Arab spring, we should not forget the other challenges that these countries will face.

In the region, the UK funds the Global Water Partnership, which has supported a regional water partnership for the Mediterranean. Partners have included Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, among others. These independent regional groups have promoted the concept and implementation of integrated water resources management as a vital approach to managing this area’s resources.

Water is, as we have heard, one of several important subjects for negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians. Noble Lords have shown how acutely aware they are of this problem. UK officials regularly raise concerns over water issues with Israeli counterparts and we have brought the Foresight report to the attention of the EU donor and co-chair of the water sector working group with the Palestinian Authority. I reiterate that our immediate focus remains to bring the parties back to peace negotiations. However, my noble friend Lord Palmer urges us not to wait for the political process before advocating co-operation on water.

My noble friends Lord Alderdice and Lord Palmer emphasised how much Israel can contribute through its technological expertise—a point also emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I agree that the use of technological solutions may well be one of the key ways to address water shortages. Individual, practical and immediate water management measures should not need to wait for political negotiations to be completed.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, posed a series of challenges, which showed his very deep knowledge of this area. I hope that the authors of the report respond to those challenges, and I should be extremely interested in knowing what those responses are.

My noble friend Lady Falkner wondered whether DfID would consider working in waste water management in West Bank territories. There are currently 30 donors, NGOs and agencies working on water issues in the West Bank, and DfID has therefore decided not to focus on water issues because of this good coverage. However, as I said, UK officials have brought the report to the attention of these groups. Nevertheless, we would be happy to host a round table meeting on the challenges of conflict over water in the region and all noble Lords will be encouraged to feed into this.

In conclusion, I again thank noble Lords for their participation in this very important debate. It has highlighted the issues of water and conflict, and the need to identify innovative and new approaches to address some of the challenges that they will increasingly pose in the future. We have a shared interest in preventing conflict, promoting constructive dialogue between nations to manage scarce resources and ensuring a sustainable supply of water to all populations. We therefore very much commend those who are working to develop ideas on how best to achieve this.

House adjourned at 5.47 pm.