For past two days, all eyeballs have been set on the constant breaking news cycle, given fears of conflict on the eastern border. While the propaganda machines on both sides are busy in jingoistic chest thumping, a huddle of academicians and technocrats held in Islamabad instead focused on a different conflict, simmering on our western border with Afghanistan.
The changing climatic patterns in the Kabul river basin (KRB) ticks all boxes of a disaster waiting to happen, unless both sides begin cooperation based on the principles of benefit sharing. That was the key takeaway from the daylong consultation session, organized by LEAD Pakistan, a centre for advocacy focused on consensus building in areas such as climate change and SDGs.
At a time when water scarcity challenges have taken centre stage in domestic media, the complete absence of any discourse on water governance mechanism between AfPak is telling. So, for those obsessed only with developments east of Indus, it may come as a surprise that the Kabul River contributes up to 20 percent of total surface water available to the lower riparian. Moreover, early flows from the river are crucial to sowing of wheat crop and off-season rice crop in Sindh.
Research indicates that climate change may raise temperatures in the basin by up to 7 degree Celsius and decrease precipitation by up to fifty percent by the end of century. To put this into context, the Paris treaty hopes for global temperatures to not rise beyond two degree Celsius during the same period.
Given the forecasts of one of the most extreme weather changes in our backyard, one would assume that defining rights and entitlements in the KRB would be top agenda for our national security strategists. After all, the river is the sole source of potable water for three million residents of Peshawar and Nowshera valley, and supports irrigation in regions of Tank, D.I. Khan, Bannu, and the two Waziristan agencies (Read “Looking westwards for water”, published in this section on November 20, 2018)
https://www.brecorder.com/2018/11/20/453678/looking-westwards-for-water/
Yet, unlike the Indus river basin which dominates popular imagination (even as our rights to its water are theoretically guaranteed under a multilateral treaty), no such resource sharing agreement exist with Afghanistan. So why does KRB not feature in Pakistan’s list of immediate issues with its western neighbour, both real and imagined? (Read “Looking westwards for water (2)”, published in this section on November 27, 2018)
https://www.brecorder.com/2018/11/27/454998/looking-westward-for-water-2/
A less charitable yet understandable analysis of our short-sighted priorities would be to look at the percentage of population immediately impacted by any freak weather events in Kabul basin; and juxtapose it with the impact of 2010 floods in the Indus basin. For a state that put up with terrorism for over a decade before finally springing into action, the cost is nearly not high enough to engage a hostile neighbour.
For a state that is in a habit of looking at international relations only from a win-lose lens, diplomacy with Afghanistan has been a one-way street for over three decades.
It hinges on virtual alignment of Afghanistan’s foreign policy with ours. Given this paradigm, as lower riparian, any engagement with the current hostile Afghan state is fraught with the possibility of upsetting the poker face Pakistan has maintained since 9/11. And for those following the US-Taliban negotiations, the game is finally turning in Pakistan’s favour.
Yet, it will be a long time before the dust settles in Kabul and Pakistan is able to make a final assessment of the extent of its leverage over any future Afghan setup. Whereas, if the experts from LEAD’s consultation conclave are to be believed, threats to the water security of the basin are far more urgent.
It is okay to play hardball when the victory is near; but engaging the largely agrarian and water stressed Afghan economy need not necessarily be from a place of weakness. If Pakistan opens dialog now on benefits sharing in KRB, it will not be caught with its pants down in case thefuture Afghan setup turns out to be less friendly than imagined.
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