 Good morning, my name is Jumaina Saviki, I am the Senior Program Officer for South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace. I'd like to welcome you to today's event, Contested Waters, Flashpoints for Conflict in Asia. I am, you know, this event has been a long time in the making and we're delighted to have an esteemed panel of speakers to discuss these critical issues, including our report author, David Mickel. But before we begin, I'd like to introduce to you our latest addition to the USIP family, Tegan Blaine, who is our Senior Advisor on Environment and Conflict. Prior to joining USIP in 2020, she served as the Vice President on a climate change initiative at the National Geographic Society. She also led the climate change team at USAID's Bureau for Africa for over a decade, where she developed USAID's strategy and investment plan for its climate change work in Africa, and built a lead a team that provided thought leadership and technical support to USAID's Africa mission. Tegan, over to you. Good morning. Good afternoon and good evening wherever you are. I'd like to welcome everyone today to today's event, Contested Waters, Flashpoints for Conflict in Asia. As Jemina said, my name is Tegan Blaine and I recently joined the US Institute of Peace as the Senior Advisor for Environment and Conflict. The United States Institute of Peace is a national, nonpartisan, independent institute founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical and essential for US and global security. Today's event is part of a new effort within USIP to deepen our understanding of how environmental conflicts, especially conflicts over shared natural resources critical for food and water security, contribute to fragility. Although these conflicts have the potential to destabilize society, they may also provide an important entry point to promote dialogue and cooperation. The USIP field operations have addressed conflicts over resources for years, including conflict over water. USIP is now consolidating learnings from its field experience and establishing a platform for research and increased engagement in environmental peace building. We are greatly looking forward to today's event on water, including both a discussion around a paper written by David Mitchell as well as presentations from individuals from the field who are working directly on conflicts around water. David writes in his introduction, by 2050 the combined effects of socioeconomic pressures and climate change could result in as many as 1.3 billion additional people facing too little water to meet their daily needs with severe consequences for livelihoods and economic growth, not to water and food security. I look forward to engaging with all of you on a discussion about how we can address those conflicts peacefully and with a better outcome for all the people who depend on those resources. With that, I'd like to hand it back to Jamina to introduce today's speakers. Thank you. I just wanted to talk a little bit about USIP's work in Asia, which focuses on a broad spectrum of themes related to peace building, but our primary approach is to work with and support local partners to prevent, mitigate and resolve conflict to reduce future crises and the need for costly interventions USIP also works with governments and civil societies to build their local capacity to manage conflict peacefully. We pursue our mission by linking research, policy training, analysis and direct action to those and so to support those who are working to build a more peaceful and inclusive world. To this end I'd like to introduce our esteemed panel of speakers who share their perspectives on water conflict and diplomacy more broadly, as well as drill down and discuss specific country examples. David Mickel, the report author is a senior researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. He previously served as a senior manager with the Stockholm International Water Institute. He has over 20 years of experience working with government civil society and the private sector to build cooperative solutions to policy challenges posed by global environmental change. I've also the pleasure of working with David in a previous life. And so I'm delighted that he's able to share his insights with us today. Nangra Zakun from Burma, her only strategy with the Nian Foundation. She started her peace journey with Nian late in 2000 as a peace building trainer and facilitator. She's also served as the Secretary of Ethnic Nationality Mediators Fellowship, a network of ethnic mediators from a number of states in Burma including Kachin, Kaya, Karen, Mon and Chin states. She's also worked with her in partnership with the International Union for the conservation of nature and the building river dialogue and governance organization she's involved in creating dialogue spaces for the sustainability of river basins and the of the Ayurvedic and Amit Ranjan is a research fellow with at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of two seminal works on South Asia one is contested waters. He has trans brown river water disputes in South Asia, and India Bangladesh border disputes history and post colonial LBA dynamics. He has also edited three books, partition of India post colonial legacies, India and South Asia challenges and management, and water issues and Himalayan South Asia internal challenges, disputes and trans boundary tensions. His papers have been published in a number of well respected journals, including Asian Survey Asian Affairs and Economic and Political Weekly. And last but not least, we have Abdullah Jazz, who's a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at Indiana University Bloomington. His work focuses on the role of rivers in the making a modern Punjab. Over the last 10 years he's written published extensively on the Indus River Basinist politics, as well as hydro social relations and the Indus River. I am delighted that you'll all be able to hear their perspectives, and I will now turn it over to David who will start us off by talking about the report that he has written for for us IP. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jamina and taken and to us IP I'd like to thank us IP both for this occasion today and for the opportunity to have produced the report on which this this conference is taking off as a springboard. And I have prepared a short PowerPoint presentation to back up my remarks so please bear with me for a moment. Well, I start the PowerPoint, and please also allow me to thank all of you. Thank you for joining us here today. So again, my name is David Michael I'm a senior researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the author of the paper on water content pathways and peace building strategies on which we're going to discuss today and begin by highlighting the extent to which water is essential to modern society I don't think that I need to persuade you that water is the key to managing so many aspects of modern societies and economies from administration and agriculture to energy and ecosystem services, also including sanitation, public health, and managing of weather extremes such as floods and droughts and that these water uses are all interrelated and interconnected that water can be used to grow food. But that food products can also be used as a biosources for energy or water can be used to generate hydro power, and that hydro power in turn can be used to pump water so that I don't think that I need to make the case to you that the stakes around water management are extremely high and that these different uses are interrelated and that priorities and choices have to be made about their use since they are tied together at both the global level but also the regional and local levels as well. Now, however, water resources are under significant stress in this global map you can see the number of months per year in which combined blue water withdrawals that service water and groundwater resources exceed the available water resources in that in that area for five, six, 10, 12 months a year. And around the world, some 3 billion people now are living in regions where water supplies do not meet the total demands for four months of the year and a half a billion people live in areas where total blue water that's surface and groundwater demands. That demands exceed available resources all year round so water resources are under considerable stress today and climate change is making these pressures worth calculations by the World Bank suggest that in their business as usual scenario, which we don't take significant measures to mitigate the impact of climate change on water resources that the stresses could reduce GDP by 2050 by 6% or more across much of Asia and much of Africa, and even in Southeast Asia, although the shading is somewhat difficult to see on this slide. And economic impacts could cut GDP and Southeast Asia by 1% to 2%. So the stakes are high, the pressures are great on water resources not only in Asia but around the world. And a number of observers policy makers policy analyst practitioners and pundits to question the impact on peace and stability that competition over water resources might might generate the United Nations defines water security as the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of simple quality of water for sustaining human well being socioeconomic development for ensuring protection against waterborne pollution and water related diseases, and also for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and stability and water conflict can arise around any one of the elements of this water security equation, whether it be adequate quantities or adequate quality of resources, whether it be what is used for socio economic development, or whether it be questions about maintaining police and stability. A number of studies that have tackle this question have looked specifically at the impacts of climate change on water resources availability, asking how shifts in precipitation patterns or in whether in the geographical or temporal distribution of water resources might generate tensions or contribute to conflict risks. But I would argue that we need to take a broader view of water conflict potential and the different causal pathways in direct mediated by a number of factors that could lead from water related resources management to potential conflicts in. So I've developed in the pieceworks report, a number of pathways or a typology of pathways that could link water resources to potential conflicts and they do include environmental pressures on shared water supplies that might arise from climate change and the Sahel is an example of that, where a drought and diminished rainfall in the late 20th century shifted the range in the growing conditions for crops and grasses and leading to the endomatic herders who are seeking pasture for their livestock to graze on the lands of farmers, generating tensions between those farmer and herder populations and periodically escalating into into violence but there are a number of other pathways and as well, we've seen water disasters and governing responses to to floods and droughts and whether those responses are perceived to be adequate and actual by the affected populations. Water is a tool or a target of wars we've seen in the case of Syria and Iraq where forces on all sides governmental and and ISIS and anti government forces have have targeted water infrastructure and water supplies as a means of controlling territory or populations and then again there are potential disputes over water services provision as the so called water wars in Bolivia. In the late 20th century demonstrated when the city of Cochabamba privatized auctioned off its water services and populations in that city, fearing that their traditional rights to water sources would be infringed, they would lose traditional access to their water supplies demonstrated and a state of siege was declared in that city before public order was ultimately restored and the the water services were again taken over by the public authorities. And then again, in cases that we'll see today in in Asia the cases of the in this, for example, and in cases of Myanmar, a couple of other pathways that we should note are those of the construction or operation of infrastructure on shared waterways to benefit from water systems. populations need to construct water storage facilities irrigation schemes other means of managing those water resources and when those infrastructure schemes are operated to the potential detriment or were the perceived infrastructure may affect other populations that depend on those water resources conflicts can arise over the management and use of those infrastructure services. And finally, two other pathways to highlight are the possibilities that the groups in society that control access to water resources whether it's because they control the land surrounding the water supplies or whether it's because they control decision making about managing or utilizing those water supplies may expropriate or dispossess populations, communities from those water supplies, leading those populations to contest the way those sources are managed to contest the way that they have been excluded from those resources. So, the takeaway here that particularly want to highlight is that, although environmental pressures such as climate change are changing the dynamics of water management through increased variability in precipitation and increased volatility in water supplies in shifting the distribution of water supplies. It's important to note that a number of mediating factors intervene and prevent there being a direct deterministic cause and effect relationship in between environmental pressures and potential conflict risks that factors such as when and where the water stresses occur relative to demand or how important water supplies are to different sectors of the economy or to different populations, and and mostly the existence and the efficacy of coping capacities, including infrastructure management mechanisms financial material resources all these influence the nature and extent of impacts on societies, and therefore the extent to which these pressures might give rise to political aggravation or grievances, making management structures making governance, one of the key intervening factors, and one of the key variables in looking at the development of conflict risks. And so it's, it's, it's fair to say and important to say that, although the severity and conflict risks may be influenced by changes in the physical availability and access to the water resource. Very important ingredient and conflict and I would argue a more important ingredient in potential conflict is the unequal or allocation or the inadequate to decision making and management and governance decisions around around the resources more important than inequity or unavailability of the physical supply. In the cases that we're going to look at today and discuss more at length with the other panelists manifest these these different causal pathways. So the Indus, for example, is an example of the conflict type around construction or operation of infrastructure on a shared waterway, the Indus Basin, the light green area which I hope you can see highlighted by the cursor on this map this is the Indus Basin but the international borders cut right through the Basin, and most importantly cut through the six main branches of the Indus flowing from India into Pakistan, such that downstream Pakistan fears that the operation instruction management of infrastructure by India on the upper stretches of the Basin might interfere with or disrupt its water supplies in in its portion of the Basin. And that this is a significant question for water availability and for water resources management that already we can see that the long term available supplies in the Basin are increasingly outpaced by long term available demand and that this place is increasing water, water pressure on managers to to make choices and prioritize decisions. And one of the resources which many riparians in the Basin which develop is hydro power capacity in the region where hundreds of millions of people lack access to electricity. So the operation of that infrastructure would potentially affect downstream flows in the Basin, potentially disrupting or being perceived to disrupt availability for the lower riparian in this case, Pakistan. So this is the, the main dynamic of water conflict, or potential water conflict in the Indus Basin. Likewise in Myanmar, Myanmar is a country that has ample abundant water resources and contrast to the Indus Basin where we saw the rising demands, increasing the outpacing the available supply in Myanmar. All of Myanmar's water demands are met by less than 3% of its available water supplies. In Myanmar, the government wishes to develop hydro power as a source of energy to electrify the population and to extend the electrical grid to all consumers across the country and also as a source of revenue from trading hydro power generation with the surrounding countries that are also seeing their electricity demand to arise. So already in Myanmar today, they're almost 60%, more than half of the power generation in Myanmar comes from 29 hydro power plants and the government plans to further expand this resource and has almost no use or agreements with other countries, foreign corporations to develop those resources. But in Myanmar, the lion's share of hydro power, the viable hydro power capacity is located in border states within the Union of Myanmar. Sean, Karen, Kacin, those three states alone hold two thirds of the available hydro power capacity. And in order to develop this capacity, the central government of Myanmar has resorted to a militarization of the zones where hydro power is available to force the displacement of populations to Caesars of territory, which is feeding into long standing regional ethnic based insurgencies that originated in the formation of the Union of Myanmar, more than half a century ago. So here we can see the correlation, the co-location of hydro power development, the green, the red triangles that you see on this map of Burma and conflict instance, all of the orange and yellow spots, circles correspond to a certain number of conflict instance, many of them violent, many of them fatal. And so you can see the correlation here between areas of hydro power development and militarized conflict as the state of Myanmar employs the military to seize the land or to take over the land needed to build hydro power facilities, to build reservoirs that will enable the operation of hydro power facilities. So these two examples highlight the nature of water conflict possibilities being mediated by management structures management decisions and governance structures and we'll delve into these cases I think more in detail with the with the panelists but I think we can springboard from this brief introduction to ask what does this suggest about the future of water as a potential conflict flashpoint in Asia. And the pressures on the resource water resources are going to continue to grow on been under these three scenarios that were developed by Yasha the international Institute for applied system analysis in Austria. Even under sustainability scenario that you see in the upper left here one of the more favorable management scenarios, water demand is going to rise by 20 to 30% by mid century in these different scenarios. So there'll be a pressure from growing populations growing economies to meet those demands to the shared water resources. Climate change is also going to continue straining water supplies around the world. In these global graphics, you see increase in water stress by the end of the 21st century, indicated by the the red areas that show the rising demands compared to available supplies in many basins around the world. Due to the pressures of climate change and governance structures are in many cases inadequate to meeting these pressures. In looking only at international basins and those river basins where treaties are in place to govern or manage or to make choices about shared water resources around the world. Many basins are not covered by international agreements, where those international agreements exist. They may not have mechanisms to allocate shared water resources between the parties, they may not have mechanisms to to address variability and available water resources, they may not have conflict resolution mechanisms or they may not cover all of the riparians as in the case in Indus Basin where the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan doesn't include Afghanistan and China the other two riparians in the basin. Pressures demands on water resources are growing climate change strains on water resources are growing in governance structures to address those challenges are in many cases inadequate, and this this inadequacy of institutions at the international level is replicated in many cases at the national level as well. So, in an estimation by UNEP looking again at trans boundary river basins, a number of rivers across Asia, as well as elsewhere in the world are proceeding to be particular hotspots for potential stresses strains conflicts do not only to the environmental demands the environmental pressures and socioeconomic demands from rising populations and drawing economies, but also from the lack of adequate institutional mechanisms to to tackle these challenges cooperatively. This is not to say that I would foresee overt violent conflict over water resources in Asia or elsewhere around the world, but I think that there are reasons to be concerned about the strains that rising demands and institutional inadequacies are placing on shared resources and the possibilities that these problems could lead to frictions tensions grievances between parties at local national and regional levels. So just to conclude, I will note that there are many strategies, many approaches to help address these these strains in Asia and elsewhere and they include building preparing appropriate appropriate infrastructure to manage water resources, the sharing of information and data about the strains on shared water resources in order to inform policy, but also particularly strengthening institutions and management systems to address issues around shared water resources. And so, in the spirit of the the report, and in the spirit of us IP is a new program to address environmental conflict through peace building measures. The report itself concludes by asking a number of questions that can help orient efforts by third parties whether it be governments or whether it be CSOs or organizations like us IP questions that can help third parties promote cooperative water diplomacy, promote cooperation between riparians, between water users dependent upon shared water resources. And so the takeaway that I would like to leave you with today is that water conflict pathways are exceedingly complex that they arise, not only in fact not mainly from environmental strains on water resources but mediated through societal and institutional factors that governance is an extremely important key variable in addressing potential water conflict and the governance is also the main area in which we should try and develop potential solutions or strategies for addressing water conflict. And that this is an important area for for us diplomacy for for organizations like us IP in that governance questions are perhaps the hardest to address, unlike other peace building strategies for intervention in midst of conflict or of trying to send in mediators or diplomats for example, when societies are on the cusp of conflict, building institutions is a long term process and needs to be worked at beforehand. Before conflicts arise is a better approach than to try and bolster participatory and inclusive management and governance systems once a conflict has begun. Thank you very much and I look forward to to your questions and conversation. Thank you, David. And speaking of questions, you can ask your questions on the US IP website where you're viewing this event so please, we've got a number of questions already. Please keep them coming and with that I will turn it over to Nangra. Thank you. Hello. Thank you very much. Good evening. Good morning. Thank you very much for this opportunity to to discuss as a panelist here on this very great occasion of US IP and to share my insights and my experience in a in a brief period. I really want to acknowledge the author of this report, bringing the lessons from three case studies and the commendations on the water governance and water diplomacy. And I think the water from the depending on where where where on the globe. Some may face water scarcity and some may face with water related to the management how the governance. And so I, as I look at the report. And before I talk about the case study of Myanmar, and I look at the water governance, and there's a set of questions, how to, you know, how to get involved, how to formulate the top body water diplomacy engagement. And when I look through the questions, some of the, the questions are very much relevant to the, to the Nisong Dam in this case. Of course, there are many problematic dams, but in this case is missing them and I think many of the points that have to consider in the assessment are directly related directly related to the Nisong Dam. Having said that when I look at the study there are some points missing, although the recommendation of the question guide mentioned but in the case study of Nisong, Nisong, Myanmar, Nisong Dam case, I think there are at least like four perspective, which is missing. Number, number one is the cultural social perspective. Actually, in the, in the case study it mentioned about Myanmar's cultural heritage. But actually, it is about the, the ethnic people in that area, the Jingpo, the Kachins. The place, Nisong, the confluence is the ancestral domain of the Kachin people. Whenever they talk about where they, where they're coming from, and, and where, where are the, where they are now, they usually talk about that place. They cannot omit that Nisong area, the triangle area of this Malik and Maika. So, and also this becomes the hot land of Kachins. No, now Kachins are not, not moving around much with Kachin state is there, but it's still, again, this is the landmark of Kachin state. The confluence itself is the landmark of Kachin state. Maybe every people in Myanmar, maybe they might not have been to Kachin state, but they know the confluence. And then it is Kachin state. So because of this cultural social perspective is not, is not just in this paper, it's also in the process of this construction or then MOU process this was totally neglected. And because of this, this reason, they have been many, the villagers themselves, and other Kachin leaders in other townships also opposed before the MOU was signing. There has been one point and another is the political perspective, which is related with the, the armed struggle, the armed conflict in Kachin state. So if you look at the timeline of those, that decade, it is under, it is happening during the ceasefire period. The KIO, the, the ethnic armed organization, have a ceasefire agreement in 1994. And then there was like, when the dam construction was started, and we, all the people know, and of course, the KIO also knew about it. But nobody has a complete information. Like, there were certain letters sent to the, to the senior general Tan Shui that was the top leader of the army, and also written to Chinese authority. And so it's like after two times of writing, trying to stop the dam. There was no discussion. So there have been no discussion on this. On top of that, there was the state army offered the KIO, the armed organization, ethnic armed organization, this border guard force agenda. If you look at the before that in 2018, there was a constitution. No, there was a constitution to 2008 constitution was to endorse and KIO was with the endorse it with the hope to get involved in the political party to take part in the 2010 election. But what they gain was that to to change them into the border guard force that was in 2009. So these are the some of the consequences or some of the reasons that these political perspective cannot be neglected. And another point is historical perspective. And people at the end, the ethnic region are very much afraid of dams. So there was a first large dam, the Mordir dam in Geyas, Geyas and Shan border. And that cost over 10,000 people displaced, the Korean people displaced. So, and, and they have never got this electricity, those electricity, electricity just in just distribute to the central part of the country and the major cities. And these are, and so that is also historical history of the dam construction. There's no trust because of lack of transparency where this, where it will no economic perspective that is related with the agriculture. And many of the agricultural lands are totally depending. I mean, from, from the central part of the country where it's a dry, dry region, they have to totally depending on the era would be for their crops. That's why what I'm trying to say is the missile dam is not just because of the, not just need to deal with the people there, not just because of KiO started fighting. It is kind of there, there's a much complexity that has to be stopped. So from the economy status or economic perspective, there was some the people in the, in the dry zone also very concerned that they might not have enough water if there is a dam when they need the water. So, and also, you know, there are other, other points that people becoming more is concerned about the negative impact of the missile dam. Yes, of course, at that point of time, I think I have to add fifth perspective, which not also put here is the legal framework of Myanmar. In those periods in that period, there have been no water policy national water policy was approved in 2014. And the water framework directives just approved in 2015. So, and water law was in 2017, although these laws and policies are not really reflecting the situation. But now there is, there are policies that we can start walking on it. At that time in 2006, eight, or 11, when the time a lot of things saying stop the dam, there have been no legal framework, reliable legal framework at all. And these are the things and I'm very much would like to discuss also for the water, water policy engagement as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Amit, for you please. Thank you. And thanks, David for such a wonderful report you have to do. Beside climate change, I just want to add one more thing that is increasing population, especially in my area that is South Asia, that is creating a lot, making lots of burden on the existing water supply. So, even if you have water and the population is more than that is creating a burden on the distance. And if you look by the country, why is the demand of water is likely to be two times more than the supply in India by country country one Pakistan is already under part of Pakistan is under a high water stress while other parts are also facing the stress. Then the case is different in case of Bangladesh, Nepal, and one Bangladesh has enough water, but the problem is, but the problem is that the most of the water is fresh water it has is contained with arsenic that is causing lots of pollution and health concerns also. So, then Nepal has water but it has a issue of management how managing Bhutan one of the richest in terms of per capita amount of water, but the problem is that as the people are located in a different part of Bhutan. So, they are not getting access to much water, whatever they need for even for domestic purposes, although Bhutan is not a great industrial or agriculture country, but people are not going. If you look at all such issues and then look into the problems they are facing that is somewhere leading to competition between the trans boundary leading to competition to get more and more water from the trans boundary regions, especially if you look at the case of India and Bangladesh, if you look at the China and India, although China I don't consider China to be a part of South Asia, political South Asia, but it is a part of hydrological South Asia because most of the water, river water, they have their origin in Tibet and they depend almost all South Asian countries depend a lot on China for water. So, they are creating lots of tensions also. Then, in terms of water infrastructure you talked about, that's perfect but many of the countries South Asia especially the case of Pakistan, the case of Nepal, the case of Bhutan. They do not have enough resources or technologies to build water, effective water management infrastructure. So, what they are doing, they are calling up the countries from outside countries or taking help of multilateral or international institution. So, if you look at the case of Pakistan, most of the dams like Indus Cascade under CQC, they are being built by China. In Nepal, India and India and China are contesting competing with each other to get the hydro structure project, then in Bhutan it's India. In Bangladesh, there are few projects which are being taken up by China and there are some other projects which have been taken up by India. So, it's like all such competition and the political tension are creating much more, making the water issue much more complicated and it's not water per se, it's a political equation also. If you look at India-Pakistan, Indus Water Treaty or Indus River system, it's more than a political than something we have to deal with hydrologically. Since 1960 Indus Water Treaty has been fixed in both India and Pakistan, a large number of people. Still, it is existing. In 1999, first time after Karthik Irwad, there was a huge demand from Indian civil society, why not we stop the IWP. Then in 2008 after Mumbai attack, there was again the demand. Then for the first time in 2016, the Indian Prime Minister said that terrorism and water cannot flow together. So, that was one of the major events because earlier whatever happened, political leadership of India at least they never said that we are not going to do that. Because in 2008, despite lots of noises about Indus Water Treaty is happening, Manmohan Singh, when he was talking about Manmohan Singh, he said, no, we are not going to touch this IWP. So, in 2019 once again, India said that we are going to stop the flow of eastern flowing rivers, which flowed part of Pakistan after passing into India. So, such a complicated issue and most of the hydrological projects, if you look at the hydrological projects at Kashmir, you find that if I just finished a paper for India review which is going to be published maybe by 2021 January issue. If you look at the hydroelectricity potential of the region, it means that we can, if we pop it, India and Pakistan pop it, we can become an export hub of hydroelectricity. But you know what happens that you go, there is a permanent Indus Water Commission they used to do annually. But the problem happens that sometimes India raises questions, sometimes Pakistan raises questions. So, almost all hydrological projects, it takes more than years to get clear and then come into effect. With China as a factor, with China as a upper period, the problem has become much more dangerous because of going India-China tensions also, engagement of China and Pakistan also. So, all such things have complicated more and more water, means it's not water. For example, I just give you one more example on this, that the Thista water that India and Bangladesh entry agreement signed and agreed into 2011. The problem is what, when they signed this agreement, and then when, and they won't fit to implement the Union government of India, they said that we are ready to implement but the state government says no, we don't have water. We don't have water to supply to Bangladesh. So, from where I am going to get such things. And then Thista is constructing one of the highly burdened river in that region. So, this is going to be a problem also and then in 2026, India and Bangladesh which signed Ganga water between 1996 that will come to 30 years and that was signed only for 30 years. So, in 2026, we have to look at in such situation whether India and Bangladesh agree again to go with that treaty or signed a new treaty or make some amendments in that treaty. And given the relation between Bangladesh and Bangladesh, although it looks very good, but the political issues between India and Bangladesh which has popped up in 2016 with this NRC and CA. And it is, it looks very deep, there is a very deep situation that they are going to agree on the same treaty. So there may be some serious informant and issues of who is going to make compromise, whether India is going to make compromise or Bangladesh is going to make compromise. That we have to. Thanks. Thank you, Amit. Over to you, Ajaz. Thank you, Jemaina and thank you USIP for giving me this wonderful opportunity to read this amazing report and take extensive notes as I like my dissertation. So, it was, it was a great, great read actually thank you David for putting together this timely and wonderful report. And what I wanted to say has been already said. I think Nangra and Amit did an amazing job of pointing to some of the most significant aspects that the report itself highlights. And also, you know, the discussion adds to that I just wanted to quickly talk about three points that I think are I found that the report flags but does not have time to kind of build on and I find them important as a, as a human photographer, I work with like, you know, at the smaller scales at the village level and I think that the smaller conflicts also kind of add up to these larger conflicts and it's important to kind of think about the question of scale and the conflict, for example, within Pakistan, and within provinces that lead up to a larger configuration, a larger political configuration that sets up a scenario in which conflict seems a possibility, especially in the wake of climate change and other pressures on the watershed arrangements that India and Pakistan already have. So the three points that I want to highlight are the question of class, number one, the question of exclusion and particularly along gender lines. And the third is the question of knowledge. What kind of knowledge governs the management of water and different parts of the world. I think the report does a wonderful wonderful, you know, taking a one size fit or solution or methodology I really appreciated the comparative methodology of the report and it's iterative and participatory and scientific, and recommendations at the end. And however, I think that there's an important question of class that requires us to think about the simultaneity of water surplus and water scarcity at different scales. As in between India and Pakistan conflict and cooperation exists simultaneously. Similarly, I think, and various parts of the world, various parts of the industry itself surplus and scarcity exists simultaneously. So before, before the start of the pandemic I was doing my ethnographic free work in a canal colony village in Punjab. And in that village, while there was ample water available to irrigate rich people's sugar cane fields, there was no water for poor peasants subsistence farming. So there's, and many people like Danish Mustafa and my doctor and others have pointed out repeatedly pointed out that Pakistan might not be entirely waters case in general but scarcity is produced through distribution. So there is ample water for rich people's lawns and gardens and golf courses but not enough water for the everyday household needs for the poor so how to think about those smaller conflict is the question that I want us to kind of keep in mind. And related challenges the challenge of the question of exclusion and especially along gender lines in my fieldwork again goes often as young as five or six would make multiple trips on foot or donkey carts to access the two water pumps located almost two miles outside of the village. So it was their daily routine. What is case T I think impacts women and girls this disproportionately and in ways which are not considered high politics, and not address with the same urgency as some other water related questions so I guess, while we think about the question of crisis and conflict, how to think about, you know these differential impacts along gender lines or class lines in the third point that I just wanted to make was the question of knowledge in the wake of climate change and the consequent waters case T. The idea of scientific management of water has gained so much support and credibility that it is treated as the ultimate truth. So scholars of critical hydro politics have already pointed out that how scientific techniques and concepts like integrated river based in water result in the exclusion of indigenous peoples. And evasion of cultural understanding of water as Nandra was pointing earlier, and the hegemony of scientific ideas of water results in an attitude of what scholar Grim vine has called this responsible civilisation where people tend to leave water control and management in the hands of experts and engineers. This results in a disconnect between the people and the policy in the places like Pakistan where the politics of knowledge also maps on to the politics of language. It becomes difficult for the managers and peasants to communicate in the same idiom even. So the larger point that I want to make here is first to question the hegemony of scientific discourse, and second to emphasize the importance of finding out ways to value and incorporate indigenous issues, especially the cultural, spiritual or religious uses of water and water bodies. I think doing so is critical if you want to build a more inclusive water management as the poll as the report suggests, and avoid conflict in the long run. And addressing this model conflict I think might have a cumulative effect on how to manage or address the larger conflict. And that's that's my take on it. Thank you very much again. I love you for your wonderful insights. We appreciate also the questions that are coming in through the website but I will take the moderators prerogative to ask a few questions of the panel, given that the based on the report and their comments. So first to David to you, the report discusses public awareness is a peace building strategy for water resources conflict. Could you elaborate on that. Public awareness campaigns have been done on the national level they're being done on the global level with as we see with coven, but we're still seeing spikes in coven so how, how do you envision these public awareness campaigns in the various countries that you're looking at to be effective, because citizens don't have, especially when they don't have confidence in their government governments to provide accurate information about any number of issues, so if you're going to elaborate a little bit on that I would appreciate that. Thanks to my I would, I think two aspects of potential public awareness building efforts and. And now I'm not just have actually hit upon elements of these. One is the question of audience and reaching audiences at the local level or the regional national level at the appropriate level for the scale of the problem that is being addressed. And as we've noted those scales are complex and overlapping, and they are politically determined in highlighting the importance of governance and management in my remarks, I could have also been using the word politics it is a political decision of how to frame the problem of how to determine who the stakeholders and the actors are. And one of the critical issues in building public awareness is identifying and reaching the public so language is an issue. Not only technical language or scientific language, but literal language whether it be India Maharshi or Urdu in the case of the Indus or other languages that often the the the knowledge that is being built or acquired or sought in in some particularly the scientific technical community is is not made available to to other stakeholder communities or user communities. So that's one aspect of building public awareness is targeting identifying reaching the public, but then that arrow also goes in the other direction to your question particularly about building trust and and that is that the stakeholders what users consumers. And at whatever level that be the highly localized or the larger community and regional levels are also participants in building up the knowledge base in building up the awareness of the issues as they are framed so that local users can be critical sources of demand patterns for example their needs, including not only their physical needs or economic needs but as I pointed out the cultural meanings of the resources and the access to the resources and decisions about the resources. The stakeholders those actors are well positioned to know what their needs are what their claims are, who else with what other stakeholders, they are interacting, but also to supply environmental information. That in it's a it's a fact that in many water basins around the world, we lack local level observations because the areas are remote because water gauges were not in place or functioning just to take that one example. So that local level observations and what is now in certain schools is thought being called participatory research can be a counterpart to participatory decision making and calling upon local actors and stakeholders to not only take part in the management decisions through participatory technologies, but to take part in building the knowledge base and building the political awareness of the issues by being given the tools to monitor meteorological variables for example or hydrological variables that technologies like for example the mobile phone make increasingly possible so in those public awareness campaigns I think it's important we incorporate both of those elements the, the aspect to which we need to reach the right publics, but also the aspect in which publics are part of building the knowledge and awareness that then can be deployed to address the challenges. Thank you David. Nangra for you, because continuing on the conversation about the report itself. One of the recommendations that David mentioned is third party diplomacy as a way to mitigate conflict on water resources. However, I think globally we're seeing the reduction of the confidence of third party diplomacy or even the willingness to get in for third parties to get involved in this more broadly. Given the increase of foreign investment and infrastructure in your country. Is there a role for third party diplomacy to mitigate and resolve conflict over water resources until now. It's a contestant area for Myanmar. If you even look at the peace process, the current peace process, the government doesn't want any intermediary, the official intermediary role. Although they are the government, the government meaning the former government that things in government and the current government and the government also doesn't. It doesn't seem that they would welcome the, the international intermediary role, the third party role in the peace process, even in the peace process, although they welcome the consultants for to process to advise to get advice in the process. So given that situation, understanding that situation, it is quite a challenging. But who knows, everything can change. If the third party diplomacy effort without a third party diplomacy effort. Now that this that the case we are talking about them is so damn is we, it will go anywhere, it won't go anywhere. So it, how can we stop or how can we continue. There's something, something, something that we, we never used to do has to happen in this case. So that's why it could be a try, there should be a try on that and as, as I study the what the report of David and I'm very much looking forward that if, if the the try is a timely, it's timely, and very kind of sensitively, the package should be sensitive. And then there will be a possibility, because I'm saying this because there have been several ideas already floating how to continue or how to stop. There are some ideas how to stop. And like, you know, there is a, when we talk about me so there is another small damn which is, which name never mentioned but it is in the, it is already part of this deal. So that could be the, the checkpoint damn, which is already running could be one, one alternative that we can start negotiating or start working on it. And there have been some idea, start giving that to change that that confluence around that conference area now it's some, there have been some, you know, this is already done some, what do you call this. We have, let me say just try some of the nature. So how can, whether we can change it into a peace park for ecotourism or something like that. So there have been some that means that is for to stop the damn. And he says that, okay, what about renegotiating out of because it started at a seven cascaded cascaded damn. What about building two dams upstream, where, which are less social, social, economic and environmental impact, which is less impact on those area and with high efficiency. So, these ideas are already floated. The thing is whether if the party diplomacy initiated the transparency of the MOU is very important. So until now we're talking about me so damn and nobody have seen the MOU and we don't know what is the deal inside. So, and that there was a commission working on it and there is no report public report until now. So it's kind of a mysterious process mysterious things happening so if the top party diplomacy can start working on it. So that that is something that we, we are hopeful. Let's go on like this, because, because we know that there is a belt and road initiative and under this area is really fenced until now, although the construction is stopped it is fenced and some things are going on inside nobody knows. So because of that, we don't want to continue like this. I mean we want to do something. But, as you know that the internal, the people, the groups inside is very, is almost impossible to to walk on it. So this is something that international community should try. Thank you very much. Thank you. And lastly to a myth and a jazz. I feel kind of silly asking this question because given the politics between both India Pakistan but whether in this water treaty. There is water cooperation around these critical environmental and climate issues between the two countries or, you know, I'm an optimist so I'm thinking, despite how much vitriol there is in between the politics between the two countries. There are critical issues are facing both countries, for example the smog and both the Punjabs. This is something that they could easily work on together. Even if there isn't right now, what do you think could be the way forward, you know, in a year or two down the road, even though a year or two down the road might be too late given the drastic climate changes and shifts we're seeing already in the weather patterns in the smog and the pollution. I'd love to get both of your insights on what could be the way forward. Yeah, if you look at the Indus water treaty that there's an article seven under which which talks about the cooperation and how to increase the friendship between the two countries over the Indus River system. Then there is the article 12, 4, which says and 12, 3, which is categorically mentioned that no country can militarily scrap the treaty for that also you have to have a treaty to scrap it. So it means, but they can make amendments but given the situation if you look at the relation between the two countries, especially after 2014, with the rise of water nationalism and India growing anti Pakistan sentiment in India. Majorityism means I am not as optimistic as you are, at least for now. So maybe by after 10 years or 15 years or 20 years there may be some, I may become optimistic if the situation improves but if you look at the present situation, they are talking terms, although the Indus Water Commission meeting which was suspended in 2016 by India then in 2017 March India agreed that okay so we will go and participate in at Islamabad then there was inspection has to be carried out in Indian side of the Indus River system area of the projects but that didn't happen because of the active and the two foreign minister from two countries India and Pakistan was supposed to move, but they didn't and that affected the so politics has affected so much to Indus Water to India and Indus River system that it becomes, I have, I don't have much optimism, I'm not very much optimistic about it. Otherwise, my solution is that if we have to have some cooperation, then we have to just remove political aspect from the water aspect and let people, people dialogue and let the people from catchment areas, because sometimes what happened that people from Chennai who does not have anything to do with Indus Water to India and then they also come out and say that no, we have to scrap Indus Water to you all, we have to stop water to Pakistan, they did not have to do anything in Indus River system. So that has to, you just have to divide between what is the political angle and what is the water. So we have to look into entire Indus River system as a water and then we have to make policies, engage people, engage the stakeholders, engage the people who are working on environment, people, the local locals, people who are affected, and then we have to go into drought and floods. So unless you do, and if you leave everything on political leadership of the two countries, I do not think they are going to take any elements in this situation. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. I think I want to locate my kind of theoretical position in between Jumaida's idealism and Amit's kind of more practical realism. I think when it comes to Indus Basin Water Treaty, I totally agree with Amit that there does not seem to be any hope at least in the near future. But on the other hand, Indus Basin Treaty is the only institution where India and Pakistan have long cooperated with each other. So it's kind of an interesting institution and there is a need to build on that. And I think, I mean, you know, between India and Pakistan anything can happen at any moment. So who knows, like, you know, tomorrow things get better and they can start working on that. I think the better approach would be to like start with smaller steps. And you mentioned this idea of smog, which is kind of really, really bad in Lahore and Delhi and it's like really impacting Punjab on both sides of the border. So, in a way, I think the ideal solution would be to build a kind of a practical working group between, you know, people. A practical working group on both sides of the border that kind of interacts. Those two groups interact with each other occasionally, and they are comprised of both like the technical people and also like the people who are actually impacted by it and the peasant who are supposed to be the cause of it. And they kind of managed to hammer out a solution there, and they can take lessons from there to kind of expand their cooperation. So we need to, I think, to find out, like the areas of corporations where which have a shorter or no history of conflict, that would be the right way to go. And of course not entirely, you know, hopelessness. Nothing's going to happen. Definitely there'll, something good will come out of it. Amit, you might have unmuted, might have something to say, I was going to say maybe is this a rule for third party diplomacy. Is this something that, you know, someone, you know, from another country can not sure if the UN is the right organization or not. I have some questions about the role of the UN. But again, between India, Pakistan, the UN has not had too much success in other areas. So, but Amit, please. So World Bank was World Bank. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. World Bank is already there. It was mediated the Indus Portability and on behalf of World Bank, its vice president signed on a few annexures and provisions. If you look at this Kishan Ganga project on over which India and Pakistan they went for to the court of tribunal and then order came up. Then again, India started building its own side of KHEP Pakistan have their own argument over the Kishan Ganga. They were also reports in India media that during this building of the KHEP Pakistani army fired some shells near the project site. And although it didn't affected the people who are working there and the project itself, but still they feel that it was an attack on Indian projects by the Pakistan. And afterwards Pakistan went to World Bank, knocked the door. Then after two meetings or three meetings, the World Bank also released the press statements, but it has not effectively done anything to just make India and Pakistan sit together and say that this is the Indus Portability mediated by this thing. And then you have to cooperate and the cooperation part entirely depends on India and Pakistan. China or any other country China means more than any other country China has its state because it's upper period to most of the IRS system. So even with India, it doesn't share at present a good relationship. We have tensions over the water. So and China has its own water concerns. So it's very difficult for anyone to get into India Pakistan over the IRS system and looking at this situation present situation in India and Pakistan. Abdul, as correctly said, but I am, in fact, a few years back I had some hope that you know at the end of the India and Pakistan people sit together, find some cooperative way to cooperate over this in the water. And the sharing and working on similar projects. But after a few years, since after three or four years, and the way the politics has affected this entire water discourse in India and Pakistan and the nature of freedom society, which has changed after 2014. So, because if you, if you go for cooperation, you need two things, you have to make compromise and you have to make adjustments. And we can, means India can make adjustment to Bangladesh, India can make adjustment on compromise with Nepal. But in case of Pakistan, it's entirely difficult, even the political leadership knows this thing that the moment they are going to make some adjustment or compromise they even they talk about it. It is going to backfire. So it's very difficult for them to make anything. And the growing water nationalism if you look at the Indian media after 2016 militant attack in Kashmir or in 2019 militant attack. The Indian media, which is very especially the regional media that is in India, they read the surf and they say no we have to step in this water to be an expert who have never written anything on in this water to be or I don't know whether they have seen in the sewer system they came over to the media and keep on saying that okay so we have to do the same situation. I mean, if you look at the Pakistani side also, so they may be there are scholars who work on this entire industry system they also feel that okay, no, it's our own water for property attitude you need you have to accept that this is not a sovereign property of any country and you have to cooperate in between the two countries or other transponder or other transponder countries to make more and more effective use of the available water resources to give more and more water to people who need it for domestic consumption for industrial purposes and for agriculture. So, this is a situation. I don't have more to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. Do you want to add anything to the. Yeah, quickly. Yeah, I think there is definitely a need of third party here because if you look at the history of diplomacy between India and Pakistan, the agreement which were mediated by a third party. The partition of the subcontinent to the in this water treaty to touch can declaration, these are the treaties which are upheld by the states on both sides. But then on think about law or declaration or you know similar examples where the two states kind of decided to solve this, the resolve the issue among between themselves, you know, I think really kind of pan out the way they want it so I think there is, and really I think again the starting with the smaller where the stakes are less like for example, with the fog issue, a small issue, you know, the, the, it's it's much easier to kind of build a, a platform where both countries can build cooperation, and building on that they can, you know, kind of cooperate in other areas as well. Thank you. Shifting gears we have a interesting question that's come through from our audience. It just is sphere sparked by your comment about how women and girls are disproportionately affected by water stresses or surplus. They're asking more about the formal decision making I'm actually I'd like to add on to that and ask our reach our country experts to talk about how this is happening I think we know from media reports how women and girls are disproportionately affected by these water stresses or surplus is not just a but if you can comment anyone can jump in on not just the strap the impact on women and girls but also what local governments or governments can do to protect women and girls and there have been some horrible stories about, you know, women and girls being attacked on the way to get water. I think, and at least I know in South Asia, but I'd love to hear from, from Nengar as well if this is an issue that they're she's seeing in our country as well and and if there have been steps either on the local level the national level to help protect women and girls when they're trying to access resources. Just a minute sorry. So, I just you can, you can start it yet. You can. Please think I'll go ahead. Okay. I want to talk about the general in general. So, particularly with this kind of constructing dams, especially with with this missile dam, even though it is just the beginning. There have been, you know, because of the, there have been some exploratory period. For like three, three years or period and we already have the community, the local people, especially women's and girls already have experiences like sexual abuse already started, even though this. It is only in the this, the survey period. So, when we look at it, actually the government. At the end of the day we don't have national policy which really protects the women and girls. It's not just not specifically on this a foreign direct investment and also the in the normal situation in the country. So our woman. Let me see the violence against women law that we call it for our law, the permission of violence against women this is still not yet enacted, still in the discussion. So, and our in the foreign direct investments of there has been so no special clauses to protect the women and girls. So, given that circumstances for many rights defenders also have a very concerned from other experiences. So the condemn constructs when she will be like 15 years. And we don't have a proper law which will protect our women and girls in those area and many of them are voiceless. Let me see. So in this kind of situation, these are, you know, it's a fact, whatever development projects mega projects, the name it related to water or whatever. Then this is a big issue to be considered to go forward with this foreign direct investment. Jasmine David anyone else would like to chime in on this. Yeah, quickly. I just wanted to. David sorry if you wanted to go. Sorry. Yeah, I want to say apart from violence against women I think the very labor of fetching water it's like very disproportionately distributed and using water in the household. And that kind of when seen against women's participation and decision making on distribution and manager management of water. So that portrays a very sorry scene, especially I think in Pakistan, where, and you know the village I'm talking about that I'm doing my free work in the women are not part of any decision making even at the level of household. They're not made to kind of go and get water and agriculture water is is much bigger priority than household water. And that's why, because that's where men mostly confront the state. And when it comes to the level of the scale of the state on national scale. This question as I mean it was talking about water nationalism it has been so masculinized, especially after it's after building its connection with the question of Kashmir so it's like so militarized and masculinized question and women are are not part of any decision making at any scale. And, and that is something that I think is a very serious concern. And that needs to be addressed. You, David, did you anything else to add. Well, I would, I would wish to defer to their country experts. Yeah. It's almost all South Asian. Amit then we'll go back to David for the last room. Yeah, even in drought affected areas in India and almost in all South Asia we have seen the first one to drop off from this school is girl child, because they have to do all household course and then they have to go travel, maybe one kilometer to give water violence has been some cases where once and but it's not a very documented sort of thing. But still there are cases which have been reported in media houses that while going to fetch water from the river or near sources of water. There has been some violence maybe it form of physical violence or molestations. There is no such documented things I say, and it's in applied to entire South Asia it's not like only for India, because one reason we are more and more patriarchal society, more than any other region of the world, maybe Africa. Thank you, David. I just wanted to briefly emphasize the, the point that again, the gender issues the, the exposure of women and children to the impacts of water stress but also to potentially detrimental impacts of in app decision making about water highlights the need to again address explicitly address the political aspects of the governance and management issues to be direct and explicit about inclusive decision making about about acknowledging who the stakeholders and their participants are, and to think in a created fashion across all of these different scale and thematic issues that all of the panelists had raised the, the, not only temporal and geographical scale down to the household level, but also across sectors in issues from the the cultural water to the economic meaning of water the livelihoods that it supports. And just to give one example from outside of the basins that we have been discussing that we know that some of the environmental pressures the impact of climate change for example or broader causes and strains on water use have been associated with population displacements and migratory patterns whether it's populations moving from a region affected by a water related disaster, or whether it's more economically motivated to migration from an area suffering water from the stresses that are rendering rural livelihoods more difficult, for example, but one country in which we see some of these migratory patterns is Nepal. Statistically, we see large numbers of, of men moving to urban centers in search of economic livelihoods leaving women in the villages in the communities, but where the women are not in turn empowered to make decisions or participate in decisions about water management. So we need to look at the larger social and political structures and be explicit about targeting gender issues. Thank you so much we are at time this has been an amazing discussion giving me a lot to think about and taken as well I'm sure to as we work to build out our work on environment and conflict here at USIP. I just want to thank everyone again for your participation to the audience thank you the questions were excellent and we hope that this is the first in a series of events over the next year that we will hold on various aspects of water environment conflict and natural resources. So please watch this space and we'll send out more information about future events. Thank you very much and have a wonderful rest of your day.