Tag Archives: Kosovo

Carefully managing water resources to build sustainable peace

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by Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain in Sustainable Security

Carefully planned interventions in the water sector can be an integral part to all stages of a successful post-conflict process, from the end of conflict, through recovery and rebuilding, to long-term sustainable development.

Does the better post-war water resource management contribute to peacebuilding by generating legitimacy within a society and for the state? Research has become increasingly interested in the potential role of natural resources, especially freshwater resources in war affected societies, because the misuse of natural resources is increasingly being seen as one of the key challenges for sustaining and promoting peace. This link has of late received serious traction in research and policy circles as the international community stresses the significance of environment for the peaceful societies by including both in the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Water Management after War

Post-war countries are among the most difficult policy arenas for international agencies and domestic stakeholders. The challenge is not only to bring an end to the war and prevent violence from reoccurring, but also to help countries reset the dynamic among their internal actors on a peaceful path. The long-term adverse effects of wars further amplify this policy challenge.

Read on at Sustainable Security.

In Kosovo, Post-War Water Faults Show Challenge of Balancing Political With Technical

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Rivers have shaped the Western Balkan Peninsula’s characteristic landscape and played an important role in its history. Following the violence of the Yugoslav secession wars in the 1990s and the creation of six new nations, the number of transboundary river basins doubled from 6 to 13. In Kosovo, where independence remains a question, the water sector is a microcosm of tensions between ethnic Serbs and Albanians. The challenge of water resource management exists not only over the province’s contested national boundaries with Serbia, but between divided ethnic groups within the territory.

In recent research published in Cooperation and Conflict, I show how the international community, choosing a highly technical approach to reconstruction of the Kosovo water sector after the conclusion of violence, has frequently clashed with political realities in this landlocked and disputed territory. The United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), which assumed trusteeship of the territory in 1999 until it was replaced by a European Union mission in 2008, was caught in continuous tension between technical ideals and the limits of what politics would allow. Empirical analysis shows UNMIK’s handling of the water sector in fact impeded the peace process.

Read on at New Security Beats the blog of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program.