1. Regional Groups
Odeh Al Jayyousi, Regional Director of the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN)
A number of regional water entities and programmes like Arab Water Council
and the Arab Water Council for Arab Ministers and a set of regional water
programmes (UN, IUCN, FAO, UNDP, UNU, ACWA, GTZ, USAID) all attempt
to address water challenges in WANA from different perspectives, i.e. supply
side, demand side, institutional, legal, and human dimension. It should be noted
that water in the last three decades was perceived differently by policy makers,
civil society, private sector and donors. These divergent perspectives resulted in
different policies to address water as an economic good with socio-economic
benefits on one hand a new perspective which looks at water as a human right.
These two perspectives from market-led perspective to a civil society perspective
should inform and enlighten a new WANA discourse to water in a changing
world and in a globalized economy. For WANA, water for the rural poor, water
for responsible development and water for human-centred development should
be the principled approach to view water management; an approach that strike a
balance between people, nature, and economics.
There are a number of regional entities in the WANA region (Arab League,
ISISCO, GCC, ROPME, and PERSGA) and a set of international organizations
such as UN agencies, inter-governmental organizations like IUCN, regional civil
society organizations, media, and donors who influence policy setting and
formulation of policies related to sustainable development. However, the region
is constrained by a multitude of factors that induce institutional inertia that limit
the transformative role of regional entities to shape and construct a shared vision
and reality for the region. These constraints include: first, the defining role of the
“nation-state” model which is a legacy of the post-colonial era which preempts
the role of an agreed-upon region (MENA, West Asia, Middle East, WESCANA,
ESCWA) in terms of forming a unifying vision for sustainable development;
second, the competitive nature of the fragmented state model which was
obsessed by national identity, food sufficiency, security and conflict; third, the
limited ability to harmonize and articulate a compelling regional vision and a
meta-narrative that link water-energy-food-environment is a globalized market
economy; fourth, the poor governance systems in the region which limits
2. accountability and transparency and the positive role of media, education and
civil society.
However, regional grouping in WANA can adapt and adopt the European
model which is based on common interests (a community of coal and steel) to
provide an enabling environment for articulating and developing a “common
sense” and pragmatic vision that celebrate unity within diversity. The key
principles for harnessing the role of these lie in the following attributes and
principles: emphasis on the core competencies for each country and the
comparative advantage, framing and devising an agreement of regional
integration model on natural resources (water-energy-food), infrastructure
(regional WANA transport system), and complementing and sharing the returns
and results from science and technology and the commercialization of patents
and investing regional ICT and informatics with a region as a unit of analysis.
