Water and Violent Conflict - Issue Brief

Related reports: International Water Law

Title :

Water and Violent Conflict - Issue Brief

Author :

OECD-DAC (drafting of report led by the United States Agency for International Development)

Type :

Issue Brief

Date :

2005

URL :

http://www.oecd.org

Description :

This issues brief aims to provide an introductory understanding of the relationship between water and violent conflict. It outlines lessons learned and recommendations for programmes seeking to prevent and mitigate water-related conflicts.

Building on the Overview of the Links Between the Environment, Conflict and Peace issues brief, it complements other environment-related issues briefs on land, forests and water. .

KEY MESSAGES:

• Water is indispensable to human survival, livelihoods and most forms of economic production.
• Access to water and water allocation and use can become the focus of tensions, which may potentially spill over into conflict, within or between states. Direct violent conflicts over water are most likely on a local level, for example, over the privatisation of drinking water or access to a water point.
• On the international level, tensions between countries that share a river basin may hinder sustainable development – thus indirectly driving poverty, migration and social instability. They also have the potential to exacerbate other non-water-related violent conflicts.
• A mutual need to share water may be used to help forge peaceful co-operation between societal groups.
• Support for stakeholder dialogue and improved customary and formal governance can assist confidence building among societal groups over water resources (e.g. helping to allocate rights, resolve disputes and ensure equitable compensation). Sustainable Water governance hinges on long-term, demand-side management.
• Between states, the development of shared data, information systems, water management institutions, and legal frameworks helps to sustain efforts to reduce the risk of conflict.

• Water and Conflict OECD issues brief 2005 .pdf