Did You Know That a Water Agenda for The Mediterranean Exist?Here Is Why We Should Care About It
Source: UfM official website
By Ilaria Settembrini, 9 minutes
I bet you did not know it. Fair enough. Still, the warming of the Mediterranean Sea is one of the fastest in the world and requires fruitful engagement by the EU. As an essential and historically contentious resource, water can offer Brussels new pathways for intergovernmental cooperation with the southern shores.
We came a long way together…
2023 will mark 15 years since the establishment of a clear commitment of the EU towards ensuring water access in the Mediterranean region through a Water Agenda of the Mediterranean. The drafting of a water agenda was envisioned in December 2008 when, at the UfM Ministerial Conference on Water held in Jordan, the Euro-Mediterranean ministers promoted the establishment of a Water Expert Group (WEG). This group was set to provide a space in which states could gather information to develop shared goals for the future Agenda. Finally, it was in 2017 that the Malta Declaration mandated the finalization of the Agenda’s financial plan.
On this matter, the Agenda and its financial plan represent the culmination of a progressive rapprochement between the shores after the first Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Water held in 1990 in Algiers. However, the establishment of such an Agenda enabled a more equalitarian partnership with the southern Mediterranean countries: the EU first promoted it but later ideated it in the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) intergovernmental framework.
… for the Water Policy framework for Actions 2030.
Adopted in late 2018 with the mentioned financial plan, the 2030 Agenda recognizes, in particular, the intersectionality that such a water provision intervention brings with regard to other fields, such as climate change or migration. For this reason, the water agenda-related policy framework revolves around 4 multi-level pillars that embed different types of actions, from training to multi-partnerships, vis-a-vis the interlinkage of factors:
Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem (WEFE) Nexus: it recognizes the cross-sectoral integration between food poverty and hydric access problems and their repercussions on the ecosystems. In the framework of the Agenda, the EU Commission and the EIB (European Investment Bank) will support the Desalinization in the Gaza Strip. The envisioned project will allow the 2 million Palestinian inhabiting the land strip to have drinking water, which nowadays accounts for less than 3% of the hydric resources at disposal. At the same time, the intervention will also allow for a reduction of East Mediterranean pollution.
Water-Employment-Migration (WEM) Nexus: this pillar is set to change the regional dynamics regarding the dependency that local economies and market labor have built on water. WEM-related projects want to create more efficient economies to produce equilibrating changes in the socio-economic systems and face the ultimate Mediterranean challenge: migration. The EU’s commitment to the water agenda becomes a tool to fight against the root causes of migration.
Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Nexus: under these lenses, future cooperation aims at reinforcing the institutional capacity of local governments and municipalities to offer sanitary services.
Water and Climate Change Adaptation (WCCA) Nexus: last but not least, this pillar revolves around the fight against the interdependence between water allocation and climate change. In the background, each project will try to work for a reinforcement of the autonomy and governance of the Mediterranean countries in terms of water management.
Taking action becomes imperative:
The international community generally agrees that the Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the rest of the world. Such a picture is exceptionally critical for a region that is already fragile and whose ecosystems are already affected by drought and food insecurity. The following data about the Mediterranean set the record straight:
The expected rise of temperature by 2.2° in 2040 is set to reduce precipitations by 10-15%.
In light of the hydric resources reduction, the water demand is expected to double, if not triple, due to the uncontrollable population growth in the Mediterranean.
Results? By 2040 more than 250 million people will be water poor in the Mediterranean Basin: half of the current population in the region.
When putting aside the negative effects of global warming, today's disparities over clean water in the region are already a constant. This is caused first of all by geological reasons: the water productivity of the area, in general, is almost half of the world average. Especially in North Africa, the region is threatened by floods and drought with a certain regularity. Such disparities exacerbate when we focus on the gap between urban and rural areas. Data gathered from the east to the western Mediterranean express this regional vulnerability. Already in 2019, 70 percent of Lebanon's population faced water shortages, while in 2022, Morocco experienced the worst droughts in 4 decades.
On top of this, the political component of water plays a relevant role. Hydric resources have always been a divisive element. They commonly threatened political stability and social security, from the Middle East Peace Process in Palestine to the tensions that historically have developed between Egypt and Sudan/ Ethiopia over the Nile Basin.
However, cynically, what should Europe's stance be on this? Pollution of the Mediterranean, migration, and last but not least, climate change touch upon the northern shores of the Mediterranean and require a common challenge approach by the EU on the base of this interdependence between the shores. Such water availability rollbacks do involve, for example, the European coasts. The 80-177 m3 of water per capita reserved annually for the MENA Region are similar to the 120 m3 per person at the disposal of Malta.
Do positive prospects open up?
Climate change is recognized as one of the ground-breaking priorities of the von der Leyen Commission and its Green Deal. This also applies to the EUs' external actions. In that sense, the Agenda becomes an essential tool to fight climate change, given the intersectionality of the Mediterranean issues.
On the one hand, the Union for the Mediterranean’s framework becomes an essential tool to reinforce Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in terms of water management. The Agenda and its financial strategy have been prepared in consultation with local stakeholders and private sectors, enabling effective communication between the shores of the Mediterranean. At the same time, sharing best practices for establishing a common and accessible Water Knowledge Platform can facilitate harmonization efforts. Cooperation strategies can build upon existing EUROMED information-sharing projects for hydric development (PRIMA Project 2018-2028). Also, at the sub-regional level, the Agenda provides space for policymaking to pass through dialogue roundtables. For the EU, it means integrating the water strategy in the arenas furnished by intergovernmental forums associated with the UfM, such as the Western Mediterranean 5+5 Dialogue.
On the other hand, considering the already mentioned polarization that water management causes, the cooperation framework by the Agenda can intensify cooperation within MENA Partners themselves. A strengthened collaboration could translate into new intra-regional horizons to share best practices in the South Mediterranean. In summary, the Agenda could have positive decentralizing effects since it can reinforce an already intricated South-South Cooperation. The promotion of common approaches and technology transfers could pass through the experiences that Tunisia and Morocco, as the southern partners who have developed their own 2050 Vision in the past two years, can share with the region. In summary, the Agenda becomes a vital aid for increasing Southern Neighbourhood’s ownership of the policy process on the line of CLIMA-MED (2018-2020). This EU-funded project engaged southern Mediterranean partners in shaping the strategies and proper technical assistance to elaborate sustainable and tailored national systems.
In conclusion, since water scarcity is a warning alert for both shores of the Mediterranean, the UfM Agenda becomes a vital tool for damage control. However, aside from an emergency approach by the EU, the fragility of the Mediterranean should push for substantive changes not only because it is a necessary step but because it can create positive spill-over effects for international cooperation.
