Water as a Force for Peace

Sundeep Waslekar, president of the Strategic Foresight Group and noted figure in conflict resolution, recently authored a piece in Project Syndicate advocating the “Blue Peace” approach to water management.

“With collaborative management underpinning collective protection, water, often a source of competition and conflict, could become a facilitator of peace and cooperation,” Waslekar argues, pointing to Congolese President Sassou-Nguesso’s leadership of the Blue Fund for the Congo Basin as an example. The project, named as one of the four key ideas that could transform the continent by the 2016 Africa Action Summit Fund, will help to mitigate climate change, create new avenues of river-based employment, and promote collective security in an unstable region.

Waslekar stresses the need for similar funds to protect all of the world’s 263 shared river basins and lakes. “It is a huge challenge; but, given the power of water to sow conflict and support peace, we must confront it head-on.”

The full article is available here.

Photo by Julien Harneis I CC 2.0