According to a report by the Asia Society, a group of experts based in New York, reduced access to drinking water in South and East Asia "will have a profound impact on security throughout the region". The report, published on 17 April, is entitled "Asia’s Next Challenge: Securing the Region’s Water Future" and asserts that the situation will have a "cascading set of consequences" on this part of the Asian continent, including lower agricultural production, the loss of livelihood security, an increase in migratory movements, and rising geopolitical and economic tensions. Tensions could resurface between India and Pakistan, and emerge along the Mekong, which travels through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Kampuchea and Vietnam.

The report highlights the fact that the Asian continent already faces many water challenges. South and East Asia contain half of the world’s population, but have very little renewable resources per capita – 3,920 m3 of water per year.  As a result, climate change and the strong demographic pressure exerted on the region could highly exacerbate an already strained water situation. Indeed, it is estimated that the population of the countries in question will increase by 500 million people over the next ten years, and the urban population will grow 60% between now and 2025. 

Water already represents a major issue for this part of the Asian continent, in which Asia Society estimates that one person in five, some 700 million people, does not have access to drinking water, and half of the continent’s population does not have access to basic hygiene.

However, the New York group of experts considers that "the majority of water problems in Asia today are not attributable to shortages but are rather the result of poor governance".  They can be solved via better governance and management of water resources.

Consequently, the authors of the report have set forth ten recommendations directed towards the various Asian governments:

  • Develop national policies designed to secure water and the development of preventive diplomatic policies between national governments;
  • Integrate water into national defence plans by ensuring direct communication between the various water agencies and defence authorities, and improved regional co-operation;
  • Encourage investment in water management technologies such as desalinisation methods;
  • Support public-private partnerships;
  • Adapt agreements pertaining to greenhouse gas reduction in order to anticipate the consequences of climate change on water resources;
  • Utilise Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data on water and climate change in order to develop early warning systems;
  • Develop tangible instruments for transposing regional agreements and already existing declarations;
  • Expand the Water Financing Partnership Facility initiated by the Asian Development Bank in order to provide financial resources and technical support in key areas of rural and urban water services;
  • Harmonise the Millennium Development Goals that pertain to water under the aegis of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific;
  • Endow the United Nations with a data-collection capacity on the quality of water in the world, similar in scope to the data collected on nuclear issues by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

These recommendations are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to provide an indication of the efforts required of South and East Asian governments in order to meet the water challenges facing Asia. In any case, it seems very probable that hydropolitics will play a growing role in the future security of these States, and by extension in international security.

 

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