Water Wisdom: Joint Israeli-Palestine Workshop on Transboundary Water Issues
Israeli and Palestinian - Average Rain Gradient (in mm rain/year)
With the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians reawakening, water issues began to reappear on the regional political agenda. Ten years ago, during the "Oslo" peace process, modest progress was made in resolving contentious water issues, but critical controversies remain unresolved and water quality deterioration continues. Today more than ever, technical and institutional solutions exist for solving "water conflicts" and water management should be an area which builds confidence between the two sides. Indeed, for the most part, each entity's community of water experts are quite capable of working together and reaching practical solutions that could be integrated into a final status arrangements regarding a host of issues. The "Water Wisdom" project therefore offers future visions of frameworks and mechanisms for facilitating the sustainable shared management of water resources that might be integrated into a final status agreement.
The “Water Wisdom” book has as its ultimate goal to offer a "blue print" for the next phase of negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis in the water field. The overall objective of a complementary workshop is to enhance the visibility of the report and lay it "on the table" among decision makers. Asa result of a high-level conference that convened in Amman, in which authorities from each country come together to hear the specific suggestions and discuss them and their implementation, is important to the project's success.
Therefore, a three-day workshop, was convened in Amman, Jordan in April 2008, in which the specific issues and chapters were presented and discussed by participants, was conducted. The participation target was set at 30 participants – divided evenly between Israelis and Palestinians, with few additional international participants as observers (such as Jordanian students and American journalist). Dr. Abed-Rabbo from Beithlehem University served as co-chair of the conference organizing committee along with Dr. Alon Tal from The J. Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.
Participants were selected in consultation with the relevant government agencies and umbrella groups for non-government organizationsThe conference also invited a selected local water experts and government officials to serve as facilitators. The final sessions was devoted to attaining a consensus on those issues which appear likely to produce clear and meaningful agreements for the future.
The "Water Wisdom" project reviews the technical issues that need to be addressed in resolving a variety of water management issues: sewage treatment, drinking water standards, desalination, "water culture" and "water rights", groundwater management, agriculture and water, civil society involvement, water legislation, supply and demand and much more -- towards better understanding of the areas of agreement and disagreement existing between the Israeli and Palestinian perspective on the subjects.
Source: Israel Hydrological Service
