South Asia’s transboundary rivers

Background

South Asia’s transboundary rivers face complex, multi-dimensional challenges. Flowing from the Third Pole down to some of the largest and most populous deltas in the world, the region’s rivers sustain billions. But these water resources and the livelihoods dependent on them are increasingly facing a multitude of pressing issues, many with cross-border impacts, such as floods, droughts, depleted groundwater systems, energy supply and demand, ecosystem deterioration, and pollution. Population growth and climate change will compound these issues.

COVID-19 has exacerbated existing pressures in South Asia and further delayed progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) – “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. In a transboundary context, achieving SDG Target 6.5 on integrated water resource management requires effective and practical transboundary coordination since 60% of the world’s freshwater flows in shared basins. A coherent and coordinated approach to shared water management is thus crucial for achieving all SDGs, including those related to health, food, energy, environment, and peace. Furthermore, mainstreaming civil society engagement processes into decision making has not been possible because of various reasons, including limited understanding of the benefits of transboundary water cooperation frameworks.

Against this backdrop, two webinar sessions will be organized to discuss resilience in South Asia’s rivers in alignment with SDG6.

Date and time

The first webinar in the series will take place on 9 November 2020.

Time: Dhaka 14:00 | Kathmandu 13:45 | New Delhi 13:30 | Islamabad 13:00 | Geneva 09:00

Objectives

• Provide an opportunity for transboundary dialogue among key regional actors and international partners on key current or emerging issues facing the region’s transboundary rivers
• Facilitate transboundary connections for improved coherence and coordination to address existing or emerging issues
• Identify transboundary frameworks and networks that can strengthen long-term governance and capacity-building on these issues and approaches, especially country-level implementation
• Support the SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework to fast-track implementation of SDG6, especially through coordination at the country level

The complete recording of the event from 9 Dec 2020 can be accessed here:

Presentations

• John Dore: Core elements of Australia’s transboundary water reforms
• Mahmudur Rahman: Regional & sub regional Co-operation for Integrated Water Resource Development & Management of the Ganges River Basin_Bangladesh Perspective
• Arun Bhakta Shrestha: River basin and transboundary landscape approaches – Could WEFE nexus bring synergy to those approaches in South Asia
• Rajiv Sinha: Integrating sediment dynamics and connectivity in flood risk assessment of the Himalayan rivers
• Jyotiraj Patra: Facilitating Inclusive Transboundary Dialogues and Action_ TROSA Insights
• Solène Le Doze: Setting the scene – Importance of regional cooperation in climate action, environment, resilience and nexus initiatives for South Asian transboundary rivers
• Iria Touzon Calle: Regional and transboundary cooperation for floods and droughts risk reduction in South Asia
• Zia Hashmi: Living with droughts in the transboundary Indus Basin
• Peter Kovacs: Flood and drought on transboundary river basins, HU experience
• Kate Lazarus: ESG Advisory – Asia Pacific Integrated Planning through Landscape-level approaches