Water Security
Water scarcity is potentially a very stressful issue in Middle East, the most water-contested region in the world. According to World Resources Institute (WRI) rankings, most water scarce countries are in the Middle East, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, Palestine, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Lebanon. The ...
In 1979, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said that “the only matter which could take Egypt to war again is water.” That war may not have come yet, but the truth behind Sadat’s warning remains just as relevant today, and not just in Egypt. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) ...
From 2007-2010, Syria suffered the worst drought since record-keeping. Amidst corruption and mismanagement, the drought caused crops to fail and over a million farmers abandoned their land for the cities. Not long afterward, social crisis in these cities ensued and then revolution. With the support of Russia and Iran, Syrian ...
In 2016, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has experienced record-setting high temperatures. This is seen by meteorologists as part of a steady trend that will not abate and has led experts to predict that stress on water endowments and supplies in the region could in turn spur ...
At least 97 people were killed and hundreds more injured across the Oromia and Amhara regions of Ethiopia over the weekend, when Ethiopian security forces fired at peaceful protestors, reports Amnesty International. Both protest movements stem from land issues and economic, political, and ethnic tensions. Members of the Oromo – ...
As a landlocked country with three of its immediate neighbors ranked in the top four of the most Fragile States Index, it is in Ethiopia’s interest to be a force for stability in the Horn of Africa. To that end, Ethiopia partners with the United States against terrorist organization al-Shabaab ...
Ethiopia faced one of the worst droughts in decades this year due to unusually strong El Niño effects, linked to climate change. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder spoke with Ashebir Wondimu, a senior forest expert working in Ethiopia’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, about the national security implications ...
In the latest dispute between India and Pakistan, Islamabad has taken New Delhi to the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague over a longstanding water treaty. The move does not bode well for bilateral mediation between the two adversarial neighbors, and it underscores the greater difficulty of solving water ...
South Asia’s critical transboundary waterways are facing unprecedented pressures as a result of rapidly increasing populations, high demand for natural resources, and the consequences of climate change. These challenges, combined with ineffective and wasteful governmental management, are intensifying water scarcity conditions and stoking tensions in an already volatile region. The ...
The eye catching headlines are familiar. “Water Wars” are imminent or already underway in the latest drought or dam-building hotspot. Such “wars” often extend to farmers battling over irrigation diversions, but at times countries are the players. Senior leaders are often quoted suggesting transboundary water theft constitutes a casus belli. ...