Regional Stakeholders Conference
New Regionalism in South Asia: Interdependence in Water and Climate Change
This Regional Stakeholders Conference, organized by the Council for Strategic and Defense Research in partnership with Hanns Seidel Stiftung, India on 1-2 December 2021 at Indian International Centre, New Delhi, presented an opportunity for stakeholders to deliberate on the above questions and address the larger theme of New Regionalism in South Asia. The programme sought to bring together a wide range of experts from India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan to deliberate on South Asian interdependencies in water resources management and climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in order to reflect on the question of what South Asian regionalism might look like in the next decade.
A trifecta of issues endemic to the South Asian Region (SAR) breeds challenges in transboundary water management and hydro cooperation. It is one of the most densely populated regions, with rapidly expanding development needs and ever-increasing freshwater scarcity. According to a 2017 report of The World Bank, per capita water availability in the region is 1106 m3, way below the international standard of 1,700 m3 and dangerously close to the water scarcity threshold of 1,000 m3. Estimates suggest that by the year 2025, South Asia will be facing extreme water distress owing to inefficient water use.
In addition, water led migration has a significant likelihood of emerging as a point of concern in the mid to long term future. Already, deterioration of river-dependent livelihood opportunities, compounded by natural disasters like cyclones have caused massive human migration. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre pegs this figure close to 4 million people in 2020 for India alone. India and Bangladesh which share the Brahmaputra River basin and witness some of the harshest floods in the monsoon season are among the top five countries witnessing highest environmental migration according to the Migration Data Portal with 3.9 million and 4.4 million internally displaced people respectively. Compounding these brutal impacts on countries in the SAR are water intensive agrarian practices, mounting energy needs which demand massive hydroelectricity infrastructure and the climate change crisis.
Post-pandemic South Asia presents foundational conditions for climate cooperation. India’s Vaccine Maitri mission helped many countries in the global south to gain vaccine access and made the logic of cooperation more evident in India’s immediate and extended neighbourhood. This opportune moment can be seized to impact not only how South Asian countries manage climate change situations independently but also how South Asia manages it. Given the severity of transboundary climate change impact, regional cooperation is pre-requisite for the success of any attempts to mitigate and adapt.
Efforts are on at the national, regional and international level to mitigate and adapt to these new realities. However, there are zones of tensions and dilemmas on which more dialogue is necessary. As development priorities undergo a transformation, the nature of geopolitical relations change and the role of non-state actors becomes more significant- South Asia can begin to imagine a new kind of regionalism. This conference facilitated a regional dialogue to respond to this impetus by reflecting on interdependencies in the region on transboundary water management and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Download the detailed report here.