Brewing conflicts over water in South Asia are not new to the readers of the New Security Beat. Violence due to variations in the monsoon season , high tensions over water and energy diplomacy, and pressures stemming from mismanaged groundwater stocks in the face of burgeoning population growth have all been reported on before.

“Water conflict is not just about an international river basin and it’s not just about conflict around a well. There’s a whole spectrum of water conflict that we try to get into,” says Sandy Ruckstuhl, senior social scientist at the Center for Complexity Analysis, LLC. Ruckstuhl also teaches a course on water and conflict at the George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution.

Many students drawn to her course have backgrounds in human rights and approach the topic from a “right to water” framework. Ruckstuhl’s course is designed to expand their views. “This discussion is much broader than a debate around rights. There are all sorts of dimensions to water conflict, to water management, that have to do with different levels of governance, different physical challenges in dealing with the resource, different cultural contexts—there are all sorts of factors that are at play when we talk about an issue like water conflict and water cooperation,” she said.

Ruckstuhl takes her students on an exhaustive journey through 10 case studies, touching on cross-cutting topics, such as environmental security and climate change, and their impacts across a range of critical regions, from deserts in the Middle East and Darfur to the Altiplano in Bolivia. Ruckstuhl’s students also benefit from guest lectures presented by water practitioners and experts in the field, including ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko, Ambassador John McDonald, and the Henry L. Stimson Center’s David Michel.

Persistent drought, heat, electrical brownouts, and overconsumption have forced the government of Bangladesh to militarize the distribution of water in its capital of Dhaka. “Deployment of military for water distribution is not a permanent solution,” said Abdur Rahim to the Financial Express, as he waited for water. “We want a permanent way out. The government must rise up to the occasion as it has become a national crisis.”

The Bangladesh military will be assisting the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewage Authority’s (WASA) tanker truck operations and ensuring security as they distribute their water throughout the parched city. Due to the sensitivity of these critical operations, commanding officers have been assigned to monitor each water district.

In 1998, Peru and Ecuador settled a long-running border dispute in the Cordillera del Cóndor mountain range that had killed and wounded dozens on both sides in 1995. In addition to pledging renewed cooperation on deciding the final placement of the border, the agreement, the Acta Presidencial de Brasilia, committed both sides to establishing extensive ecological protection reserves on both sides of the border: A peace park of sorts was born.

In March, Uganda’s cultural landmark, the Kasubi Tombs, were destroyed in a suspicious fire. Tensions spilled over when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni paid a visit to the Bugandan site and found his entrance blocked by an angry crowd. According to an independent newspaper, soldiers accompanying the president opened fire, killing three civilians.

With ethnic-tinged unrest and student protests in Kampala, as well as cross-border conflicts in the north and east, Museveni, who has led Uganda since 1986, is facing a potentially serious test as elections approach early next year. The country’s demographic profile, and in particular the lack of opportunities for growing numbers of young people, will add to the country’s challenges, as I argue in a new case study of Uganda’s demography.

Uganda has the youngest population in the world, with 77 percent of its people younger than age 30. Women in Uganda have an average of 6.7 children each and 41 percent of married women have an unmet need for family planning. The population of Uganda is currently growing by about one million people per year, and given the force of its demographic momentum, Uganda’s population is likely to almost double by 2025 even if fertility declines.

Population Action International has found that countries with age structures like Uganda’s are the most likely to experience internal strife and autocratic governance. Between 1970 and 2007, 80 percent of outbreaks of civil conflict occurred in countries in which 60 percent or more of the population was younger than age 30.During that same period, 90 percent of countries with an age structure like Uganda’s had autocratic or only partially democratic governments.

Demography alone does not cause conflict. Most governments, even those with youthful populations, do not become entrenched in internal violence and upheaval. But age structure affects a country’s vulnerability to conflict, due to the demands a government faces in providing for its growing numbers.

In Uganda, young people face diminishing prospects in agriculture, the primary industry, as plot sizes shrink with each successive generation. At projected population growth rates, land density may increase 350 percent by 2050, from 122 inhabitants per km2 to a possible 551 inhabitants per km.

Only one-quarter of students who enroll in primary school reach the final grade, and even those with university degrees find few jobs. A reported youth unemployment rate of 22 percent is even higher in urban areas.

After 25 years in power, President Museveni will stand for a fourth official term in 2011. Despite growing dissent among his constituents, he appears confident of keeping his seat. Regardless of what happens next year,Uganda’s leaders must firmly commit to addressing their country’s demographic issues.

Age structure can become a window of opportunity if youth are engaged in society and couples can choose the number of children they can support. But in Uganda, that window remains far out of reach.

Three new case studies from Population Action International on Haiti, Yemen and Uganda examine the challenges specific to countries with very young age structures and recommend policy solutions.
Elizabeth Leahy Madsen is a senior research associate at Population Action International (PAI). She is the primary author of the 2007 PAI report The Shape of Things to Come: Why Age Structure Matters to a Safer, More Equitable World.

Photo Credits: “Atanga.pater.uganda,” courtesy of flickr user Kcarls.

Can demobilized ex-combatants help improve water resources in post-conflict countries? Last fall, the Global Water Institute (GWI) held a symposium in Brussels to find out.

Seventy representatives from the African Union, the United Nations, civil society, research institutes, and EU water policy advisors discussed ways in which former soldiers could be employed in the water sector to create peace dividends, bridge divided societies, and improve water security in countries recovering from conflict.

GWI, which is headquartered in Brussels and led by Valerie Ndaruzaniye, formerly of the Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy’s Global Water Program, hopes to use the water sector development to meet multiple objectives in post-conflict reconstruction, such as:

• increasing environmental security,
• reducing the likelihood of future conflict over water,
• enhancing security and stability, and
• employing demobilized ex-combatants to create peace dividends.

“The GWI’s suggested strategy is to exploit the enormous potential of demobilized forces who had made war,” said Ndaruzaniye at the symposium. “GWI proposes to re-channel this potential force for development of water programs and protection of the environment.” While this is a tall order for even the most established of organizations, GWI is already ahead of the game by recognizing the synergies between these issues.

While disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), is a fairly new process in post-conflict settings (the first program took place only 15 years ago), it has progressed rapidly in recent years, moving from a primarily military exercise to one focused on reintegration. Reintegration has also shifted from its exclusive focus on the ex-combatants, which often caused resentment in conflict-affected communities, to include women, children, youth, and the elderly and disabled, as well as the affected communities.

Reintegration is still the most difficult stage of any DDR program, not only for budgetary and political reasons, but also due to the processes of transitional justice and reconciliation. Through experience in the field, practitioners have realized that such programs are not simply technical exercises and must be better linked to wider recovery efforts and development programs for more sustainable results.

By supporting sustainable development in the water sector, and simultaneously contributing to reconciliation and peace dividends by involving ex-combatants in community development work, GWI can offer a substantial contribution to the reintegration process.

“Making the link between water management and DDR is a novel idea. GWI is a good example of integration of policy areas in order to build peace in some countries,” said Catherine Woolard, the director of the European Peacebuilding Liaison office.

Adrienne Stork is currently working on natural resource management and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs jointly with the UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery and the UNEP Disasters and Conflicts Unit in Geneva, Switzerland.

Photo Credits: Flickr User ISAFMEDIA, 080816-N-8726C-019

As record-breaking snowstorms blanketed Washington, D.C. this winter, I took advantage of the citywide freeze to read Cleo Paskal’s new book, Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map. In it, Paskal makes a compelling case for why the West should care about the geopolitical shifts—already underway—that will be exacerbated by climate change.

Paskal eloquently explains the science behind climate change in layman’s terms, breaking down incredibly complex issues and drawing connections across seemingly disparate challenges, such as rising food prices, degrading energy infrastructure, and growing water scarcity. She is a skilled storyteller, using memorable vignettes (and at times even humor) to effectively illustrate these climate-related complexities.

“It was pretty much a normal day in Afghanistan on Monday.

“A couple of civilian casualties caused by insurgents. More investigations into corrupt former ministers. The opening of six new projects in Herat Province by the Italians and the Spaniards, which are the NATO countries in the lead in western Afghanistan. All right, not six, projects, but two or three, and the Spanish announced a pistachio tree-growing program to replace poppies. Pistachios, poppies… maybe pine nuts will be next.”

— At War: An Airborne Afghan Folk Tale, Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, April 1, 2010

Though only earning a glancing mention in The New York Times, it is heartening to see a response to the environmental and economic loss of Afghanistan’s once abundant wild pistachio forests. As a result of wide-spread environmental mismanagement and war, the past 30 years have seen a dramatic decline in the wild pistachio woodlands native to Northwestern Afghanistan.