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TRANSBOUNDARY WATER MANAGEMENTtentionally result in favour of the stronger party – thus entrenching astatus quo that in the long run may be disruptive for effective, just andsustainable cooperation. The authors maintain that it is important tostrengthen the weaker parties in a region so that all actors can interacton equal terms with each other when negotiating the management ofa shared resource such as water. In this way, creating an equilibriumbetween all riparians within a basin means to establish the enablingenvironment necessary to achieve higher levels of cooperation andcoordination – an assertion shared by Zeitoun and Jägerskog. 11Notwithstanding the challenges posed by an uneven distributionof power within a basin, there are new challenges on the horizon.The impacts of climate change are profoundly evident throughouthydrological systems. From the transboundary perspective,increased climatic variability is greatly concerning. In certainregions climatic variability will result in an excess of water duringcertain parts of the year contrasted by a deficit during others.Unfortunately, few transboundary agreements (where they evenexist) have been designed to compensate for increased variabilityas they are often restricted by a rigid definition of water allocationexpressed by volumes of water and not according to percentagesof flow which would allow for greater flexibility. Thus increasedclimatic variability will result in an increased pressure on, in manyinstances, rather weak agreements. 12 Another important challengerelates to the increasing investments in land by foreign capitaliststhat are being made primarily in Africa, but also in Latin Americaand parts of Asia. 13 Often the agreements guiding these investmentsare ‘water blind’. They do not always include provisionsfor water and, where they do, it is not made clear whether thatwater is derived from national or transboundary sources. It canbe presumed that in cases where the investments will draw ontransboundary waters this will adversely affect the hydro-politicalrelations in the basin. 14 Part of this equation also relates to the‘water, food, energy’ nexus where ‘virtual’ trade-offs(for example, as manifested through trade in virtualwater 15 ) between water for food production as well asenergy production are outlined. 16 This also has implicationsfor transboundary relations – in particularwhere there is a lack of water resources and the tradeoffsare ‘real’.At present, the promotion of transboundary watercooperation is underfinanced within the internationalsystem, and mechanisms to fill the financialgap are scarce. Development partners are generallynot programmed to finance processes withouta clear result and timeline. Generating cooperationin transboundary basins largely consists of promotinga process of building collaborative structures andinstitutions, commonly at both national and regionallevels. This process is inevitably time-consuming andoften means taking two steps forward and one stepback. For a development partner to engage in buildingsuch cooperative structures in a shared river basin,patience and the understanding that this process mostoften transcends the lifetime of a single project areprerequisites. Process financing is often what is neededto secure, deepen and improve water-related collaborationin transboundary basins where the parties havelittle or no history of such collaborative efforts acrossother sectors of mutual interest. 17Transboundary waters in the Middle EastThe Middle East represents a region rife with politicaland ideological conflict throughout history. Tothis day, many conflicts remain unresolved and thereStakeholder action and interaction in the development of transboundary water managementResearch, AcademicDonors & IFIs – developingnew concepts often basedon the solutions developedby the WR communityWater Resource Community –managers and users of water;developing pragmatic solutionson the groundPoliticians – allocating valuesin society, protecting stateinterest, sovereignty, rights etc.Co-opt and support ideas from theResearchers: on their termsSource: Earle et al, 2010[ 51 ]