Competing for Water: Conflict and cooperation in local water governance

Background and objectives
Recent years have witnessed an increasing focus on water as a source of conflict. So far, much of the focus has been on the risk for transboundary water conflicts. Our current knowledge on local water conflicts has, however, been more limited, and has tended to be based mostly on sporadic accounts of local water conflicts rather than on systematic empirical evidence. At the same time, the extent and nature of local water cooperation has often been overlooked, just as we know little about the particular role of the poorest in water conflict and cooperation.

The lack of such knowledge jeopardizes current initiatives taken in many developing countries to ensure a more efficient and equitable water governance. Therefore, the Competing for Water research programme set out to provide a more systematic knowledge base on conflicts and cooperation in local water governance and their consequences for the poor.

Research activities
In five districts – Tiraque district in Bolivia; Douentza district in Mali; Condega district in Nicaragua; Con Cuong district in Vietnam and Namwala district in Zambia – the following main research activities have been carried out:

Comprehensive inventories of water-related conflictive and cooperative events taking place between 1997 and 2007
Household surveys which enable the analysis of the relationship between household poverty and access to water for domestic and productive purposes and to institutions involved in water governance
In-depth case studies of the processes and relationships through which water-related conflict and cooperation are played out.
Hydrological studies of water supply and demands.

The results of these research activities are analyzed in the context of current efforts to reform water governance in the five countries.

For more detailed descriptions of the Competing for Water programme, please see:

Programme description – in English (pdf 317 KB)
Descripción del programa – Versión en español (pdf, 325 KB)
Descripción breve del programa – en español (94 KB)
Brève description du programme de recherche - en français (10 KB)

Download a poster presentation of the research programme (pdf 670 KB)

For more information about the Competing for Water programme, please contact Programme Coordinator Helle Munk Ravnborg

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