Stockholm International Water Institute » transboundary waters

SIWI seminar to be broadcast on “Kunskapskanalen”

Sanna — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:54:50 +0000

The seminar “Shared Water – New challenges for Peace and Development” that SIWI and Swedish Water House arranged together with Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI) in December will be broadcast on “Kunskapskanalen” 6 February 4.20-6.20 p.m. and 7 February 4-6 p.m.

To watch it on the web, search for “Dela Vatten” on urplay.se.

Visit Swedish Water House website to read more about the seminar.

SIWI’s new strategy just launched!

Sanna — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:03:49 +0000

SIWI has just released its new strategy! The strategy and its objectives and outcomes will guide SIWI’s work for the five year period of 2013-2017. SIWI has identified five thematic areas, as strategic and cross-cutting for the work of the organisation, that our future work will be organised around: water governance, transboundary water management, climate change and water, the water-energy-food nexus, and water economics.

SIWI’s niche is largely between policy and implementation, often bridging the two, and as such promoting networking and interaction. SIWI’s vision is that of a water wise world. In essence, that is a world aware that it would not survive without cherishing water, as the fundamental resource underpinning economic and social development and as a human right. SIWI’s mission is to generate and promote knowledge, solutions and tools leading to water wise decisions for sustainable development.

It is SIWI’s intention that this strategy shall not only act as guidance for us but also be valuable to anyone who is interested to learn more about SIWI and how we intend to make a difference in working towards achieving a water wise world.

Click here to download the strategy!

SIWI Implements Baltic Sea Project

Sanna — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:38:43 +0000

Stockholm, Sweden (December 12 2012) – The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) is implementing a project to enhance civic action with partners in Russia, Kaliningrad Oblast, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. The aim is to increase investments into good management of the transboundary rivers in the Eastern Baltic Sea Region and promote smart and green growth.

The project is implemented by SIWI in partnership with the Northern Dimension Foundation (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia), the Institute of Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia), Global Water Partnership (Poland and Lithuania) and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (Sweden), with support from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

The health of the entire Baltic Sea ecosystem is severely degraded. Pressure from agriculture, energy production, industries and maritime sectors have severely compromised the sea’s health, with most areas now affected by eutrophication, hazardous substances, and degraded biodiversity. Collaboration between the EU member states and Russia on its shared river basins is critical to tackle the deteriorating state of the common Baltic Sea, but collective action in this part of the Baltic is lagging behind.

The transboundary Neman (Poland, Lithuania, RF Kaliningrad Oblast, and Belarus) and Pregola (Poland and RF Kaliningrad Oblast) are two river systems draining into the Baltic Sea where multilateral cooperation is poor and investment in their management limited. In previous work undertaken by the partners (2009-2011) the need for improved water management in this part of the Baltic region was clearly identified. There is scope to achieve major economic gains in multiple sectors, improve ecosystem services while also reaching regional cooperative gains.

Civic action through NGOs and academic institutions can play a major role in building the political commitment for collective action. NGOs and academic institutions can bring skills and knowledge into pre-planning processes and provide a safe space for dialogue together with government officials. Such dialogue is non-committing and non-binding and should be based on sound knowledge and expertise.

This project aims to build an informal and professional partnership to formulate water and environmental management priorities and investments into an economic framework, recognising green and smart growth potential.

The intention is to facilitate official dialogue, cooperation and investment on the shared river basin systems between the Kaliningrad Oblast, Poland, Lithuania and the broader Baltic Sea community of actors, providing incentives for stakeholders to seek more information on how to transform degraded water resources into opportunities. Both EU and Russian regulations offer opportunities for joint management. Further arguments and clear investment frameworks need to be developed to stimulate formal cooperation based on best practice and good data.

The project “Building a framework for collective action in the management of the transboundary waters in Kaliningrad, Russia, Lithuania and Poland (Baltic Sea region)” is funded by the Swedish Institute and will be implemented over three years (2012-2015).

Related publications

Managing and Development the Water Resources Assets in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, in Support of Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability. Granit et al., 2011.
Collective Action in the Baltic Sea Region – Options for Strengthening Implementation of the Environmental Pillar of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. Granit and Walline, 2011.

For more information, contact:
Ms Birgitta Liss Lymer
Programme Manager
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
Email: birgitta.liss.lymer@siwi.org
Phone: +46 8 121 360 89

World Leading in Five Thematic Areas by 2017

Sanna — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:50:42 +0000

Stockholm WaterFront No.4 2012 article

With its vision for a “water wise world”, the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) recently produced its 2013-2017 strategy, placing its various programmes and activities within five thematic areas: Climate Change; Transboundary Water Management; Water Governance; Water, Energy and Food Nexus; and Water Economics. In this article, we highlight why we work with these themes and the key services we provide under each theme.

Lake Victoria Basin: Where Water Integrity and Sustainable Development are Close Siblings

Sanna — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 14:39:51 +0000

Stockholm Water Front No.4 2012 article

Corruption continues to undermine investments in various sectors. The water sector in East Africa is no exception.

Transboundary Water Management: Who Does What, Where? – Analysing the Data in SIWI’s Transboundary Water Management Database

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:57:33 +0000

In 2011, the Swedish Water House conducted a mapping of regional and international actors working in transboundary water management (TWM), which aimed to assist the identification of knowledge gaps and needs for further actions that could lead to more informed decision-making in water management. It also sought to promote objective decision-making, thereby helping to form a framework for resource allocation in TWM. Based on the mapping a database was created. The on-going activities of 94 actors, and more than 700 transboundary river and lake basins, aquifers and large marine ecosystems1 can be found in the database. Similar efforts made previously have focused on legal frameworks or on capacity building through sharing project information (IWLEARN, 2012; WWF et al., 2010; UNWAIS, 2012; TFDD 2007). The TWM mapping and database takes a broader focus and an actor-based approach. The complexity and significance of TWM have been reiterated by researchers, politicians and water professionals. The socio-economic disparity as well as power asymmetries between the riparian countries is one of the obstacles to cooperation of TWM institutions. The development of physical infrastructure is often a sensitive issue, but one of the main driving forces of cooperation in some cases. The primary objectives of TWM cooperation can be divided into three categories: 1) maximum utilisation of the common good (utilitarian approach); 2) conflict prevention; 3) maintaining ecological sustainability. This report analyses the findings from the database. It shows that more actors working with transboundary water issues focus their efforts on Africa than in any other region. Furthermore, most activities are located in transboundary rivers, while other basin types receive less attention. The three basins with the largest number of actors working with TWM are the Nile, Volta and Mekong. According to the analysis of three basins with the most active number of TWM actors (the Nile, the Volta, the Mekong River Basin), the utilitarian approach appears to be the most prominent objectives of the current actors activities. Activities to maintain ecological sustainability are more prevalent in the Mekong River Basin, where information management has been successful and led by the strong institutional capacity of the transboundary basin organisation, Mekong River Commission. Conflict prevention activities are not as prominent in practice as they are in academic literature on transboundary water issues. None of the actors in the database involved in the Nile, Volta and the Mekong, are focused on conflict prevention as their main objective. Actors also provide different tools aimed to support transboundary water management, often in the form of publications. Most of the tools developed are broad and cover several aspects of TWM. The most common are tools providing information on how to construct legal frameworks.

Land Acquisitions: How Will They Impact Transboundary Waters?

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:56:45 +0000

This exploratory report investigates how the current surge in land acquisitions and investments by foreign countries, sovereign wealth funds and private corporations, as well as domestic investors, will affect transboundary water management, an area where current knowledge is sparse. The majority of land deals tend to be made in places with low land lease prices, weak legislation, inexpensive labour and relative abundance of land and water and very few include regulations or agreements for water used on the acquired territories. With many of the largest land leasing countries located on the transboundary water basins, shared waters will be affected with unknown implications for regional relations. Two case illustrations in the Nile and Niger basin regions are presented to explore how land acquisitions have affected global, regional, national and local actors in those areas and point out key questions that require more research.

Report published in 2012.

Strategic Environmental Assessment as a Tool to Develop Power in Transboundary Water Basin Settings

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:51:45 +0000

This paper proposes a generic consultative process for undertaking Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) in a transboundary river basin context to bring up front environmental and social issues of major development programs into the transboundary planning, project development and investment finance processes. The paper demonstrates through an analysis of two case studies from the Nile Basin in East and North Africa how an SEA approach with a focus on hydropower development is a transparent pre-investment tool that allows for consensus building in support of transboundary and regional strategic decision making and integration. Further, it demonstrates how an SEA can guide public and private sector investors seeking to develop the power sector in general and hydropower options in particular by allowing for a first level understanding of challenges and opportunities of power development and the development scenarios preferred by riparian governments.

Published by IGI Global. Download the paper here.

Managing and Developing the Water Resources Assets in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia in Support of Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:50:04 +0000

The report demonstrates how effective water resources management can support sustainable economic development in sectors such as tourism, health, agriculture and industry while at the same time restoring ecosystem services in accordance with the Russian Water Act and the EU Water Framework Directive. The report outlines specific steps to be taken by the Kaliningrad Oblast internally and in partnership with its neighbours to achieve concrete benefits from better management of the water resources. Collective action amongst all the states in the Baltic Sea Region will be critical to reach the vision of a healthy Baltic Sea as agreed by the contracting partners to the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) and by the EU members States. The report is prepared in partnership with the Nordic Dimension Foundation in the Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia with input from experts from Lithuania, Poland and Sweden.

Whose river is it, anyway?

admin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:49:22 +0000