"The Last Drop? Water, Security, and Sustainable Development in Central Eurasia"

International Conference, 1-2 December 2006, ISS/CESTRAD, The Hague

Water is now universally accepted as central to sustainable development. Academics and policy makers alike emphasize the urgent need to protect increasingly scarce water resources and the necessity to create effective and equitable distribution mechanisms. However, the social scientific literature on water scarcity remains poor. While water is widely acknowledged as a finite resource, existing analyses do not adequately explain or theorize the complex political, socioeconomic and cultural processes that create water scarcity and mediate its societal perception. Contemporary research and debate on the role of water in economic development and national security often relies on two troubling assumptions. First, in what can be described as the ‘just add water’ approach, policy makers expect increased availability of water to be a panacea for myriad economic, political and social problems. Second, the growing scholarly and strategic literature considers real or perceived water scarcity to be an unequivocal threat to national security. These two assumptions are over-simplistic and need to be reconsidered in light of the growing body of critical cholarship claiming that water scarcity is not simply a natural and apolitical outcome and that it need not automatically and inevitably lead to militarized conflicts. The ‘Last Drop?’ conference aims to contribute to current debates and policy analysis on water, security and sustainable development, by focusing on Central Eurasia. Covering a vast tract of space that includes, among others, Anatolia, Western China, Southern Russia, the Caucasus, former-Soviet Central Asia as well as parts of the Middle East, this region is of great importance in contemporary politics of resource use. Its rich yet unevenly spread supply of water, as well as its wealthy oil and natural gas reserves, place it at the heart of a number of ongoing inter- and intranational conflicts. Peaceful resolution of these conflicts and avoidance of similar future tensions is a prerequisite for sustainable development in Central Eurasia and a requirement for lasting international stability. In view of these considerations, the conference aims to:

• Build upon and consolidate the growing critique of the dominant approach to the study of water, which considers scarcity as an inevitable outcome of economic development and an unavoidable cause of militarized conflicts.
• Demonstrate the possibility of an alternative paradigm that sees water not as a source of violent conflict but as a tool for achieving regional peace and development.
• Provide an alternative entry point into the current debates on political stability and security in Central Eurasia.
• Explore the parallels between the politics of water and other scarce resources, e.g. oil.
• Evaluate the role of water in achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction by taking part in discussions about the Millennium Development Goals, such as the role of institutions and processes in shaping national and international water policy goals.