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Dr. Khadija DarmameDr. Khadija Darmame

Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO)Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO)Amman, Beirut and DamascusAmman, Beirut and Damascus

Environmental Change and Forced Migration Environmental Change and Forced Migration Linking water scarcity and uprooted peopleLinking water scarcity and uprooted people

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Aims Aims

1. To understand the empirical links between water scarcity impacts and uprooted populations in different geographical, political and economical contexts

2.To analyse the public policies done by the governments

3.To investigate the uprooted experiences

4.Solutions and recommendations

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There are several practical questions that have to be resolved to deliver the adequate strategies which covers institutional; legal, technical, economic, social, etc.

What does mean uprooted?

Is there a distinction between uprooted, refugee, migrant, displaced ?

Why it’s important to tackle the issue of the uprooted within water scarcity?  

  

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• According to anthropologist Liisa Malkki the term uprooted likens humans to plant populations and implies an attachment to land and place where nourishment including water is essential to their thriving.

• Hence we can deduce that people need their settlements for food and water security and loss of place would mean a plethora of losses including basic needs but also emotional attachments to place and identity.

• Being uprooted is losing home, family, shelter, livelihood and dignity. It’s a matter of social justice for many communities.

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International law does not recognise the term uprooted, it is merely employed as jargon. Legal implications are attached to migrants, refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) but nothing employs the term uprooted in a legal context.

The terminology used by the UN and most experts/researchers is “environmental refugees defined as people: “who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life”.

The United nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report issued in 1985 defines ´environmental disruption´ as any physical, chemical and/or biological change in the ecosystem (or the resources base) that renders it temporarily or permanently, unsuitable to support human life”.

 

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The complexity of causal factors of displacement

Is water scarcity a direct causality for population displacement?

The cumulative changes such as desertification and water shortage are natural processes existing at a slower rate which are interacted and advanced by human activities, while the natural disasters like floods, earthquakes cyclone are usually characterized by a rapid onset.

The linkage is much more indirect. Certainly, water scarcity and drought are driving forces contributing to human displacement but in most cases, they are often filtered through social, political and economic contexts such as rapid population growth, economic decline, inequitable distribution of resources and lack of institutional support.

Water scarcity can be triggered by political interests and conflict. We can take as an example the threat by Turkey to restrict the flow of the Euphrates to Syria and Iraq in order to pressure Syria to discontinue its support of Kurdish separatists in Turkey, and the destruction of irrigation systems during conflicts in Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.

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Why it’s important to tackle the issue of uprooted within the water scarcity?

It is not new that people move in search for resources, it is a natural phenomenon that governs people and animals alike. However, the novelty of this issue and the reason it should be tackled by this WANA forum rests in the fact that the people of this region are increasingly facing crisis situations concomitantly with blockages and obstacles to their movement.

People of the WANA region are increasingly encountering wars, conflict, disasters, poverty, economic crises, political unrest, corruption, inequity, deficiency in resources, institutional failure and are met at the same time with more borders, checkpoints, visa constraints, in brief lack of hospitality and open gates in richer countries and even in neighbouring states. Although the dominant rhetoric of globalisation is salient, the reality is that people of WANA face the most, constrictions to their mobility.

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• By 2007, the United Nations estimates, the number of people displaced passed the 26 million mark; they haven’t crossed an international border, so they’re not protected by international refugee law (UN: 2009). Their needs are frequently neglected by their own government, they’re subject to abuse, discrimination and neglect in their own homelands.

A very challenging for the host communities and to the capacities of local and national governments, making more difficult to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of 2015. In many places, the existed infrastructures are deteriorated, failing to provide acceptable level of services such as access to a potable water, adequate sanitation, health facilities and food.

Furthermore, the media attention on displaced population due to water scarcity and drought is not sufficient, unlike the natural disaster like floods and earthquake. They are refugees too, but they don’t get the exact reporting to make it as serious public issue.

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In Iraq: The collapse of ancient underground aqueducts, triggering severe water shortages, has driven over 100,000 people in northern Iraq from their homes in Dohuk, Ninewah, Erbil, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyah

Part of Iraq’s cultural heritage, Karez were designed specifically for arid climates to remain productive during dry spells.

A single karez could potentially provide enough water for almost 9,000 people and irrigate more than 200 hectares of farmland " in northern Iraq were

Only 116 of 683 karez were in operation at the end of 2010.

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In Syria:

According to the UN reports and international humanitarian organisation in 2010, Syria is facing one of the “largest internal displacements in the Middle East in recent years”. More than 800,000 people to lose “almost all of their livelihoods and face extreme hardship in Qamishli and Hasakeh.

The Kurdish and Bedouin population of 220 villages in the Kurdish region were driven to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities due to consecutive years the consecutive years of drought and mismanagement by the Syrian governmental policy of water resources and land.

It’s not only an issue of food insecurity but also an issue of social justice and dignity in one of the most rich area in Syria. The Kurdish population claim that they suffer from segregation laws, which make them very vulnerable.

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The photo shows one of many areas covered by tents of families living in deplorable conditions in what it described as “tents of hunger and estrangement”.

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The daily life of uprooted

The pictures were first posted on a Facebook group called “No to the injustice and the neglect of the Syrian Jazeera area”.

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Occupied Palestinian Territory

Two hundred and ninety-four livelihood and services structures- mainly water cisterns- in the West Bank were demolished by Israeli authorities in 2010 affecting over 12,500 Palestinians, according to OCHA.

This infrastructure is mostly funded by international donors, and we know the particularly constrictive mobility situation facing Palestinians, who if from Jerusalem for example cannot move to the West Bank and vice versa and we all know Gaza’s prison-like situation.

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Deciding to leave: the uprooted experiences requires deep understanding and analysis

How do they cope with the situation? What are their alternative strategies?

What kind of social networks do they build?

Are those affected by water scarcity involved in the decision making?

How is the level of coordination for prevention and awareness-raising of the government ?

We need to understand the alternative strategies developed by people and to their trajectory or move. How people make the decision to leave within a context of vulnerably, and economic or social crisis.

We need to bridge the gap between population and public institutions and theirs policies.

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How migration is managed today?

What are the policies implemented to tackle this issue?

What is regulatory framework targeting the condition of the uprooted applied locally, nationally and regionally?

States adopt reactive rather than preventive or planned strategies.

The sectoral approaches within the national framework have largely failed in the past.

The lack of statistics and figures reflecting the actual

The existence of over-exaggerated discourses not necessarily reflective of

the actual situation and rather alarmist and fatalistic in some cases

The sectoral approaches have largely failed in the past.

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What should be done?

Advocating a holistic approach that emphasizes the three goals of economic development, social welfare, and environmental protection that (i) integrates management of all horizontal sectors that use and/or affect water, (ii) coordinates efforts between local, regional, national, and international water user groups and institutions, and (iii) sets up a rigorous data collection and distribution for multiple physical and socio-economic measures.

It’s making Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) into practice. IWRM emphasizes the key concepts of Integration, Decentralization, Participation, and Economic and Financial Sustainability.

However, IMRM is an illusion without an effective governance and institutions

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Some recommendations:

Identify the basic factors and indicator to predict the displacement of the population and “repulsive zones” that would instigate migration.

Implement measures to reduce environmental degradation and social vulnerability.

Indentify the short term emergency steps that governments need to take to prevent migration.

Preparing a returnee reintegration programme for the temporary displaced and programme of integration in the cities.

Take into consideration the diversity of the community contexts and the causes of displacement in the elaboration of strategies.

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Developing project portfolio to improve livelihoods of farmers through integrated and participatory approach.

Raising public awareness through social medias.

Strengthening natural resource management following local models and indigenous knowledge. We should map all the traditional methods of resource management in the area such as Hima and Aflaj, and strengthening what exists, give it confidence through policies, friendly policies to indigenous populations.

The current sedentarization projects are not all necessarily productive, because movement has a reason, again the concept as relationship between humans and resources are not different from that of animals and resources

 

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We never know the worth of water till the well is dry

Thank you for your attention