Transboundary Water Cooperation & Climate change Some important points

Setting the stage Nile Basin – Governments have to deal with many issues and CC has to find its place in the priority order (MDGs, Poverty…) – Institutional issues are constraining transboundary cooperation (Cooperative Framework Agreement, NBI transforms to a River Basin Authority ? ) Zambezi Basin – Institutional issues – ZAMCOM is about to be established and will be a vehicle to implement IWRM (incl. CC considerations) – Water resources issues in Zambezi are more quality oriented than quantity oriented

Setting the stage Regional Climate Change Programme (SADC) – Sub-regional priority mapping based on population pressure, economies, institutions, infrastructure and CC parameters – CC is an important fator in regional security Mekong Basin – Integration of national and regional CC adaptation strategies needed – Important to share information and knowledge – MRC is a vehicle for sharing

Setting the stage Egypt’s perspective – Egypt depends totally on the Nile, which has a high sensitivity to CC – Uncertainties in application of Global Climate Models is large – predictions for the Nile flows ranges froma 30% increase to a 78% decrease

Key note addresses DIIS Research on 5 small basins – Local level conflict studies indicate that the number of conflictive and cooperative events are almost the same – at the moment…but CC may change this – A trusted mediator is important in a conflict situation

Key note addresses Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) – The need for more emphasis on DRR is intensified by CC – Opportunity costs following a non-DRR approach need to be brought out clearly – Droughts are the most important natural disasters in economic, social and environmental terms

Key note addresses UNECE experience – laid down in Guideline – Information management incl. joint information generation and uncertainties – Financing systems are essential incl public and private adaptation funds, insurance, sharing of costs and benefits basinwide Floods - migration as a CC adaptation – Strategies necessitated by ”higher global population, environmental degradation increase incl CC, increase in national disasters” – Important to understand the factors leading to migration looking for other means of living

Group discussions Three themes were discussed in terms of Lessons learned (looking back) and Recommendations (charting the way ahead) – Institutional roles in relation to CC – Policy development at transboundary level to address CC – Actions and tools for CC and DRR Discussions were reported in plenary followed by plenary discussions and a panel discussion