Care UK
September 25, 2008
HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
EUMENA Water and Energy Community:
A Regional Commons for Human Security
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a great honor and pleasure to speak once again to the dedicated people of CARE, which after sixty years remains one of the world’s foremost humanitarian agencies, providing assistance to more than seventy countries. It is to your lasting credit that CARE continues to pursue a multifaceted approach in addressing the underlying causes of poverty through both emergency relief and sustainable development. CARE is truly a beacon of interdependence and hope in this disjointed world.
When I accepted the CARE International Humanitarian Award in 1995, I noted the world’s contradictory progress in tackling absolute poverty:
Humanitarian aid that treats symptoms while
ignoring or obscuring causes is worse than no
aid at all, for it propagates the idea of inevitability.
The public comes to believe that human suffering
is inevitable, and so inured, ceases to care about it.
Now, thirteen years later, having felt the full brutal impact of economic globalization at our local levels, I think we are beginning to recognize another factor in our fight against poverty -- the unconscious assumption that our social organizations are always working with us and for us, and surely not against us
From State Security to Human Security
We know from our dusty books of history that the development of human civilization in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and pre-Columbian Mexico and Peru became possible only through the management of regional water systems. By increasing the food supply through large-scale waterworks for irrigated farming and flood control, administered water sources allowed tiny villages to grow into towns and cities that could support large non-farming populations. That’s the good news -- the antiquity lesson we largely remember. The bad news is that water management in many of these early governments required absolutist control by a political monopoly. We too easily forget that a despotic social system of state violence and slavery was the price that many of our ancestors were forced to pay for the personal security of water, agriculture, and civilization. [1]
I’m reminded, too, of John Davis’ poignant essay, “The Anthropology of Suffering”, which suggests that our social organizations are unable to account for the human pain that results from social disruption.[2] As you are aware, there is a tendency today to view the sources of affliction and suffering in the world’s poor nations as externalities which fall beyond the bounds of our own harmonious social systems. The present multilateral arrangement of sovereign reciprocity encourages us to believe that no one is ultimately responsible for poverty or extremism in this world, that these conditions are somehow unaccountable. When discrimination based on ethnicity or gender takes place in foreign nations, for example, we rationalize that our own state bears no responsibility to intervene in human rights violations, emergencies or conflicts that occur across sovereign borders. World hunger, disease and social displacement are thus dismissed as part of the unfortunate but necessary collateral damage that litters the historical road from political subjugation to modern democracy. We have vast libraries of studies proving to us that failed states are simply a matter of the poor of the world lagging behind the development curve, lacking capacity, good governance and the rule of law becausethey do not build viable social networks.
I am humbled, almost embarrassed, especially before experts such as yourselves, in challenging this tautology. But with respect, because of the urgency of our situation, may I suggest that we all take a fresh look at what is occurring in front of us. Humanitarian assistance agencies have long maintained that individuals must be directly involved in their own development. This seems self-evident -- by now it’s become an axiom -- that ‘people must stand up for themselves, harness their own energies, maximize their potentials, and build their futures through self-reliance’. But I think it’s time we asked, how is our self-participation in development truly possible when national jurisdictions and institutions rarely line up with the actual geographical regions that contain our ecosystems, social and cultural groups and diasporas, leaving us without effective rules to cooperate in the management of our common areas where human and social development typically occurs? How can we take part in our own development when the public and private sectors restrict our use of the material, environmental, genetic, social, cultural and intellectual goods that rightly belong to every one of us?
There are many types of common resources that become endangered when sovereign states and property owners exclude or prevent their shared supervision. And when the local users of resources are not organized, do not communicate, lack trust, and have no effective means of changing the rules of resource oversight or administration, a tragedy of the commons results. Resources become overused and degraded, which leads to acute social problems, marginalization and breakdown. That’s why people around the world who are connected to the local commons on a daily basis are recognizing that the protection and regeneration of our common goods is not a matter of sovereign claims or private ownership -- it’s a matter of survival.
We are now reclaiming the commons as a wellspring of authenticity and resilience in this increasingly ‘flat, hot, and crowded’ world.[3] In the face of uncertainty and despair resulting from social oppression, we maintain our well-being and social cohesion by remaining together and celebrating the cultural and ritual uniqueness of our common relationships. Despite the personal hardship and exclusion caused by the enclosure, commodification, and degradation of our resources, we preserve our cultures and ways of life through the distinctive fabric of our common spaces. And, even now, through the drought, hunger and displacement brought on by global warming, many of us are restoring our social bonds through the careful stewardship of our resources, sustaining those shared customs and practices which remind us of what it is to be human.
You and I may not live to see a borderless planet, but I believe we will soon be looking at the world’s resources from a much wider angle than we have in the past because we face a crisis now that clearly transcends the crumbling social structures consigned to us by sovereign states and private markets. Governments are incapable of managing cross-border cooperation for resources, since their mandate is primarily the allocation of public goods within their borders. International business cannot organize transborder cooperation because their province is private goods in the marketplace. Responsibility for our cross-border resources must be undertaken through the self-organization and collective action of individuals, civil society, and supra-national organizations.Unlike the world’s public and private sectors,our commons sector has deep experience in the supervision of living systems, both locally and transnationally. Whether biological or psychosocial, our ecologies require vigilance and care, and it is only through this mindful safekeeping of our common resources that we transcend the illusions of state and consumer security, restoring our dignity as civilized human beings through true human security.
Regional Social Charter for Europe, Middle East & North Africa
In this connection, I would like to propose a Mediterranean commons involving the European Union, the Middle East, and North Africa (or EUMENA). According to the World Population Prospects of the United Nations, the population of the EU region will stabilize at around 600 million while MENA will double to about 600 million by the middle of this century.[4] Other recent studies indicate that global warming is likely to undermine political stability in the MENA region, which is already vulnerable to drought, flooding, extreme weather, and reduced agricultural output, particularly where subsistence is the key to survival. A temperature increase of one degree C by 2020 would dramatically increase water scarcity. Virtually all states in the Middle East are likely to suffer from a range of problems caused by global warming, including humanitarian disasters, food shortages, social tensions, environmental degradation, the destabilization of domestic stability, clashes over land ownership, terrorism, migration, and the spread of infectious disease. This would undoubtedly lead to disputes over access to increasingly scarce resources, such as food, water, and energy. Climate-driven conflict is already affecting many people in the region.
We have a civic responsibility to engage in areas of transborder crisis where our state and private sectors have little jurisdiction, authority, or experience. As citizens -- regardless of our sovereign obligations -- we must speak for our region en masse in matters concerning the welfare of our people when it’s clear that threats like climate change are profoundly affecting our region’s carrying capacity. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights guarantees to each of us the freedom from want and fear and we must fully claim these rights. The imminent dangers of global warming to the carrying capacity of our region -- the degree to which our common resources can sustain the population -- vests us with a moral authority and social legitimacy to make transborder decisions and create a regional social charter that ensures our rights to survival and security.
To this end, I believe that citizen groups in the EUMENA region should organize a non-partisan Water and Energy Community -- an institutional framework providing new incentives for the management and protection of common resources. This calls for the support and involvement of people across the region who depend on water and energy for their livelihood or who value it dearly -- which includes practically everyone. Rules for the maintenance and preservation of our water and energy commons would thus be developed through the collective action of citizens, civil society, social networks, academics, scientists, agronomists, bilateral donors, development partners and regional organizers -- as well as national governments and the private sector. They would ensure that administrative power is decentralized from state authorities to communities or customary representatives in order to maintain local and community access to the commons and its common goods. The governance of our cross-border water and energy resources would involve three main functions:
1. A Stakeholder Consultation Process
• to form discussion groups and committees
• create forums with neighboring villages
• build associations to share information among community members
• ensure monitoring and enforcement
• develop mechanisms for conflict resolution
• identify a development plan
• create funding for administration
2. A Commons for the Protection of Local Welfare
• to recognize customary rights and ownership
• safeguard indigenous wisdom, traditional practice and culture
• draw on cultural endowments and knowledge of local resources to develop innovative institutions that fit local conditions
• create partnerships between communities and civil society or other institutions to increase support for local action
• support direct action linked to commons issues
• promote zoning of resource use
• identify land tenure concerns
• monitor human rights and create legal protections for the poor
• develop proposals for legislative reform
3. A Regional Security Organization
• to create a conference on transborder security and cooperation
• develop transborder security and stability agreements
• intervene in cross-border emergencies and conflicts
• create a cohesion fund for the region’s most vulnerable people
These are some elements of a commons approach for security and cooperation which the EUMENA Water and Energy Community could formalize through a social charter, a code of conduct, and new sources of financing to improve the quality of life and personal dignity for the people of the region.
Water: Sustainable Management and Desalination
Based on the estimated differences between available sources of renewable freshwater and the growing demand for water, many nations in the MENA region will be unable to produce enough food for their populations by 2025. Water consumption has been doubling every twenty years and clean water supplies are coming under enormous strains. It makes little sense for governments to subsidize water to grow food that is not native to the desert climate, when many of them are already challenged to develop water resources to support local farmers, gardeners and industry, as well as the daily needs of their citizens.
I believe the people of our region must build a regional institution for water management, strengthening cross-border cooperation through new treaties, laws and codes. For example, our regional community could develop agreements for the sharing of water resources, water and irrigation projects, and the sharing of expertise and data on drip irrigation, water absorption and transpiration of plants, watershed dynamics, water basins, sedimentation, withdrawal from aquifers, water storage, deterioration of water quality, expansion of irrigated land areas and increased hydropower demands.
A regional solution for sustainable supplies of freshwater must be found. At present, water reserves are being hastily exploited, resulting in the depletion of groundwater levels, intrusion of salt water into groundwater reservoirs (when the groundwater table sinks below the seawater table), and the rapid expansion of desert areas. It is evident that the freshwater crisis in the MENA region could be solved through seawater desalination. Yet current methods of producing seawater desalination require large amounts of fossil fuels and generate chemically treated water and salt brine, all of which damage the environment. If the desalination of seawater were powered through large quantities of clean energy, rather than fossil fuels, the ecological impact would be significantly reduced. There is a workable solution: the MENA countries could provide energy for desalination through solar power from their deserts, turning the shorelines of North Africa and the Middle East into an unlimited source of freshwater for drinking, agriculture and other uses.
Energy: Solar Power from Deserts
Solar radiation from deserts is the largest accessible but least used form of energy on Earth -- a virtually inexhaustible supply of solar energy. On a daily basis, the world’s deserts receive about 700 times more energy from the sun than humanity presently consumes in fossil fuels. Only a small fraction of the deserts in the MENA region could produce energy equivalent to the entire production of Middle East oil -- enough power to provide EUMENA with all the electricity it needs, day and night.
The development of desert solar energy requires two technologies. First, Solar Thermal Power plants must be created using mirrors to concentrate sunlight for steam and power generation. Solar heat by day is stored in tanks of molten salt which is then used in the evening operation of the steam turbines. Second, this solar thermal energy must be transmitted to large centers of electricity demand. Although our present grids cannot transfer large amounts of electricity over long distances, power could be transmitted to outlying areas through the production and deployment of High-Voltage Direct-Current transmission lines.
Both of these technologies are available and their markets are expanding. Solar power production would be much cheaper than fossil fuel power at present cost levels and produce more than enough power to meet the growing demands of EUMENA. With European investment and technology, supplemental investment from Middle East oil-producing states, the use of Middle Eastern and North African desert sites, and the participation of people from across the region in the governance of the project, this transition to clean power could be accomplished in 10-15 years.
EUMENA Water and Energy Community
As the EUMENA Water and Energy Community develops a coordinated framework and financing for the sustainable management of shared water and energy, the provision of other transborder goods and services should also be addressed. These include human development, education and skills, eradication of HIV / AIDS, malaria, and communicable diseases, agriculture, labour rights, transportation by roads, buses and trains, telecommunications and other utilities, infrastructure projects, emergency response and elimination of drug trafficking.
As a regional community, we have an opportunity to use our deserts and technology to develop energy, food and water security, along with climate security, while creating new jobs in the fields of water desalination, solar energy and other renewable resources, including geothermal, hydropower, biomass, wind, wave and photovoltaics. Sustainable governance of our commons would enable us to replace fossil fuels, solve our energy crisis, reduce carbon emissions and climate change, and protect the carrying capacity of the transborder area.
It is becoming clear that the mutual interests and interrelationships that connect states can create political stability through stronger bilateral ties. This would be especially welcome in the Middle East, where the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict has riven people apart, causing social displacement, extremism and untold suffering. Either we move toward regional solutions through greater transparency, trust and cooperation across borders, enabling citizens and supra-national organizations to meet community, cultural and environmental needs -- or the region will continue to drift towards chaos and war.
It is unlikely that we will ever return to the conditions of ancient civilizations, where the management of critical resources like water required that society be guided by dictators. Yet, we must also recognize that the current practice of enclosing our common resources -- whether material, environmental, genetic, social, cultural or intellectual -- has made us numb to the oppression, neglect and discrimination that exist both in stateless and sovereign societies. Rather than ameliorate human suffering, our present forms of social organization based on public boundaries and private ownership perpetuate human pain and misery through ignorance, exclusivity, scarcity, social competition, organized violence and repression of women.
As this era of bellicose individualism and moral relativism winds down, many of us are taking solace and inspiration from our commons. The commons evokes a type of relationship which honors the value of mutuality and cooperation, rather than the organization of societies around competitive consumption and conflict over resources. A regional community which generates sustainable electricity and desalinated water through solar thermal power plants and other forms of renewable energy would clearly produce substantial economic growth -- and much more. A regional commons transcending nations, cultures, and politics could bring water, energy and climate security to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. This collaboration and integration across borders could also revitalize civil society as commons organizations and lead to the creation of a social cohesion fund and new social charter, empowering the poor to improve their status and escape poverty through common welfare and human security.
There is a compelling historical precedent for the EUMENA Water and Energy Community. We remember the successful integration of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 which unified Western Europe, increased employment and raised the standard of living, created the foundations for democracy and launched the longest period of European peace in more than two thousand years. For the turbulent nations of the Middle East and North Africa, the creation of this kind of regional commons for human security could also lead to a new era of cooperation, peace and prosperity.
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