Welcome everybody to what is our second seminar in our Friday seminar series here at the centre at Oxford.
Today, we're absolutely delighted to be joined by Dr Hussain, who's going to be talking about the politics of water scarcity in the case of Jordan.
This is something that's going to last for an hour. I think Hassan is going to speak for about 25 minutes, maybe half an hour during the talk.
You're very welcome to add questions into the chat.
Chat will be monitored by Michael Willis, who's also joining us today.
Let me just say a few words about Sam,
because I'm sure many of you know that the theme of this term seminar is environmental politics in the Middle East of Africa,
and I think it's safe to say that we have got to deal with this.
Probably the most pre-eminent scholar of environmental politics of the MENA here in Oxford,
Hassan is currently a department lecturer in international relations in DPR.
He's also an Oxford Martin Fellow in water diplomacy.
He's a member of the Middle East Centre, and he's the Fulford Junior Research Fellow at some of Somerville College.
If any of you follow him on Twitter, I encourage you all to do so.
You'll probably also know that he's also he's just recently won.
Several prises has got several new affiliations to add to his already very significant and illustrious list.
I know that Sam has just been appointed as a fellow to the World Economic Forum,
so really, Sam is a very, very senior and serious scholar on this topic.
Just browsing through his publication record,
I felt very intimidated by the fact that he has already published four international peer reviewed articles in 2021 alone and published nine in 2020,
all looking at this kind of interface between the environment, politics and questions of sustainability in the MENA region.
Just just an incredibly prolific and productive record of just enormously impressive otherwise.
Hassan obtained his Ph.D. in international development from UEA here in the UK.
He's got numerous other affiliations. His fieldwork has been funded by really important institutions active in the region.
I think we're really, really lucky to have him here with us today. Hassan the floor is yours.
I'm really looking forward to your talk. Thank you very much for coming and joining us.
Thank you very much, Neal, for this very kind introduction, and thank you very much for the invitation.
It's really a pleasure to be here today and also I'm very happy to see that, as Neal mentioned,
the Middle East Centre decided to choose the environment as a theme for these for the seminar series of this term.
I guess you can also see my presentation, so without further ado, I'll start.
So the presentation today will discuss topics around the politics of water scarcity in the case of Jordan.
The research problem that I focus on is Jordan's water scarcity,
and I chose Jordan because he's said to be the second most water scarce country in the world and the Middle East and North Africa,
and the MENA region is the most water scarce region in the world.
In addition to being the second most with this great country in the world,
Jordan has also several challenges, as we would see in today's presentation.
Firstly, Jordan's groundwater resources are decreasing in terms of quantity and quality due to overuse and over obstruction and destruction,
especially in the northern part of the country.
Over 35 percent of Jordan population is formed by refugees, as we will see also, you know, sheds light.
Over 90 percent of Jordan's food products are imported, and about 50 percent of Jordan's water supply goes to agriculture.
So the water food nexus is quite of an important issue, and we will discuss also this topic.
And these reasons are the reasons why I decided to to to investigate the Jordanian
water sector and in particular the political economy of Jordan's water sector.
And I use the discourse analysis and the discourse of water scarcity as an entry point
to unpack and better understand the political economy of Jordan's water resources.
And this research,
while obviously is contextualised in the literature of water politics and discourses of water scarcity and construction of scarcity,
is the main goal for me was to better understand the issue and the problem of water and
water scarcity in Jordan in order to try to support and bring a change of positive change,
a policy change towards a more sustainable use of water resources in Jordan.
So environmental degradation, which already mentioned groundwater resources, and there the abstraction is rapidly increasing,
resulting in a decrease of water quality and quantity, which is impacting all the users of water resources.
Relying on aquifers, this means mainly small farmers and the farmers of the northern part of the country of the Highlands.
And the other aspect that we need to consider is also not only groundwater resources, but also surface water resources,
which are used especially I mean, we will mention them, the Jordan River and the Jordan River Basin, which has been over the years.
I mean, the water of the of the Jordan River had been pumped out of the basin and also within the basin for
especially agricultural use by all the 14 countries or most of their opinion countries in particular,
who say Syria, Jordan and Israel.
And this has been as a result over the years inadequacies of the floor of the lower part, in particular the Jordan River, by 97 percent.
And this has also resulted in related issues, such as a decrease of the biodiversity by 50 percent and the lower.
I mean, the Jordan River is the source of water that arrives to the Dead Sea, which has consequently decreased by about one metre a year.
And the overall, as you can see in this picture, in this slide, we have already lost about one third of the nets of the surface of the vaccine.
I mentioned earlier the transboundary water resources, which are key,
especially in the Middle East and for Jordan, especially in the Middle East, because most of the water resources,
transboundary water resources in the Middle East and North Africa are originated outside of the Arab region and for Jordan are particularly important
because 40 percent of the water resources are shared are shared with neighbouring countries and therefore given the water crisis for Jordan,
obviously transboundary water resources, which are 40 percent of Jordan as water sources and supply are very are very important,
and therefore the management and the governance of those water resources has been key over the years in this drought,
in their planning of strategies and policies for under Jordanian water sector in particular.
In this line, we can see, I mean, a map of Jordan. We probably or know where Jordan is.
But the interesting thing is that I highlighted the the years in which the latest
agreements with neighbouring countries over the Shire water resources have been signed.
So we have in the 1987.
So the main water resources that are shared with neighbouring countries in Jordan are the Yarmouk River in the northern part of the country,
which is also which is shared between the borderline to some extent and is shared between Syria and Jordan,
and then Jordan and Israel in the north western part of the country.
And the river is one of the main tributaries of the Jordan River, and the Jordan River is the second is the other transboundary river that Jordan has,
which is shared with the Jordan River, is shared between Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine and Jordan.
But when it comes to the lower part of the Jordan River, we have Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
And finally, we have the DC aquifer, which is the groundwater resources, non-renewable and so non-fossil in technical terms,
the groundwater resource, which is shared between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
These three agreements that have been signed are important because they give clarity on and
they provide details on how much water every country can use and also some other details,
such as which kind of uses can these water sources to be used back?
In particular, the 1987 agreement between Jordan and Syria on the river is very interesting because it only discusses the Yarmouk River and so the
surface water resources without including provisions on the groundwater resources which are connected with the with the river.
And therefore what happened over the years was that Syria and Jordan kept attacking and
accusing each other by saying that the other country was not respecting the agreement.
And this was the reason, according to the different parties,
why Jordan was not receiving the amount of water that Jordan would have expected from the river.
But in reality, so while Jordan was accusing Syria,
emphasising the fact that Syria built many small dams and diverted parts of the Yarmouk River and this, according to the Jordanian officials,
were the reasons why the flow of the Yarmouk River decreased in Syria instead emphasise that it was due to climate change and not low precipitation,
rather than to those violations and construction of dams.
But in reality, the latest research of a few years ago found that the main reason was that the
treaty only discussed the surface water resources without groundwater resources.
And what Syria was doing was to use groundwater resources from the same basin, which decreased the flow of the river.
The 1994 agreement in state between Jordan and Israel is on water is part of the peace treaty between the two countries.
And so, I mean, it discussed both the surface water resources of the Yarmouk of the of the Jordan River,
but also of the Yarmouk River, and also had provisions on on providing new types of water to Jordan.
So not from freshwater, but not from the river, such as, for instance, from this land ization.
But the issue was, I mean, one of the issues was the financial aspect of who will pay for them producing these new water resources.
Finally, the 2015 agreement between Saudi Arabia and Jordan is quite interesting because is one of.
Very few agreements that we have in the world on shared groundwater resources, I think they're only probably five agreements.
And it's interesting because it discussed the uses that these two countries can make of the groundwater resources of the DRC.
And they decided that the groundwater resources of the desert can only be used for domestic or industrial domestic, but not for agriculture.
And therefore, following the 2015 agreement, as we will see large farms and agri businesses that are based in the southern part
of Jordan had to be closed by the Jordanian government in order to respect this
agreement and also to make to try to shift and pump water from the southern part of the
country to the northern part of the country where most of the population lives in.
So our is in fact in the north and the urban. And that's where most of the population of Jordan lives.
In this light, we can see the water resources and how these water resources are used,
which reflects what we were speaking about in the earlier slides.
So we can see, firstly, that the water resources in 19 in 2017, which is the the graph on the bottom left.
Shows that 59 percent of water resources in Jordan are come from surface water sources,
so from the two rivers that I mentioned, Yarmouk and the Jordan River, as well as from the smaller Zarqa River.
Instead, we have and then we have about 27 29 percent.
That is ground water resources. And then 14 percent treated wastewater, which has been decreasing, has been increasing in the past decades.
However, when we compare this with the sources of water supply,
we can see that there's a bit of a mismatch because we can see that most of their water resources are being used for.
The water supply in Jordan are coming from groundwater resources and only 33 percent from surface and 13 percent from treated wastewater.
I mean, No. 14 percent. But the interesting thing is that most of the water sources that are being used
there with the supply comes from for the water supply comes from groundwater.
And the reason behind this is that as we saw, most of the surface water resources are shadowy neighbouring countries.
So there are treaties and agreements that regulate how much water Jordan can use.
And therefore it's easier politically for Jordan, given the increasing demand,
as we would see to ensure water security and provide water to all citizens by overusing and over extraction,
extracting their groundwater resources across the country. So not only from the DRC, from the South, but also from the northern part of the country,
resulting in a decrease in the quality and quantity of these aquifers.
So in the short term, it's probably a solution, but in the long term, it's not sustainable because this groundwater resources are going to prom.
I'm not saying these appear about probably 50 70 years.
This might be the case that the quality and quantity of the groundwater resources in the northern part of the country
in particular is going to be at a certain at a point that will not be we will not be able to use them anymore.
And that's more or less what also happened in the Osirak basin in the north eastern part of
the country where we used to have a large wetland linked with the with the with the aquifer.
However, years of years of both locally local use for farms,
but also pumping this water off the base into amongst the growing demand resulted in the wetland almost disappeared.
I was there a couple of weeks ago, and I mean, if you go to John,
I really suggest it will go and visit the wetland because it really shows you that they did then.
The level of the crisis of the water crisis over the over the years and particularly today in Jordan.
And finally, it's very interesting to see how the water resources are used so we can see that about 50 percent,
52 percent, about half of the water resources are used for domestic use.
And this has been increasing in the past years, in line with an increase in the population of Jordan about forty seven eight six more or less,
four fold between 45 and 50 percent of water and in Jordan goes to agriculture.
And the only very small percent is about three. Four percent goes to industry and industrial sector.
So keeping in mind that that numbers and comparing them with this slide, I think it's it really shows and hints to the the topic of today,
the politics of water and the locations in Jordan,
and we can see the role of agriculture in Jordan didn't from a GDP perspective, is not very important.
Only three percent, obviously, some people might disagree.
I mean, that's different data and statistics on the role of agriculture in terms of of GDP and
really pent up on how we define our agriculture and what we include in this percentage,
whether we also expanded to include the supply chain of the agricultural sector or not,
which however, would probably arrive to 15 20 percent and also the labour force.
Same same issue for labour force as we were mentioning for the GDP,
but only a very small percentage of the population in Jordan is employed in the agricultural sector only three percent more or less.
And even more striking, probably if you compare these numbers with the fact that we,
the centres on the right that says that Jordan imports more than 90 percent of the food consumed nationally.
Which means that most of the of the water, I mean, about half of the water in Jordan is used by farmers.
However, the food they produce is not really used to for the national food security,
but they're usually exported to the Gulf countries or to neighbouring countries, or also to some European countries,
benefiting only those that are obviously in the in the in the business of especially large,
large agribusinesses that produce these products for for export and from a water perspective.
That is the concept of virtual water, which says which basically is the amount of water embedded in any product or service.
So and according to this concept of which are water,
many water professionals would argue that water scarce countries should try not to
export beautiful water so not to export products and goods that are rich of water,
which basically means they are that required a lot of water for their production by standards should try to import these kind of products.
And these kind of products are usually food products meet in particular about wholesome vegetables such as tomatoes,
but also fruits, bananas and watermelon, for instance, instead of producing them and then exporting them.
So this would not make sense for I would for the second most for this country in the world to export these kind of products.
Instead, they should try to import them.
Instead, it would make more sense to export products such as dates for olives because for their production, they are not.
Much water is required. And also it's important to also look at what kind of water we are talking about.
Is it ground water resources or is it an agricultural that is Rainford for?
Yeah. So if it's rain fed, also fresh water or in the case of Jordan, is that emphasised?
The problem is really in the groundwater resources which are decreasing due to exploitation.
And so we should probably rethink which kind of products we have in the agricultural
sector and who is benefiting and which kind of water we are using for their products.
And maybe also which kind of products would probably be better suited to be used and produced in the country.
So the guiding question for unpacking the water,
the political economy of water scarcity in Jordan for me was how is the discourse of water scarcity constructed in the case of Jordan?
So really a qualitative methodology trying to look at the written documentation on the topic from media to a governmental report?
So that's one of the strategies, policies,
but also donors and international organisations report the academic literature on water issues in Jordan and then also textbooks.
As we mentioned later, this was combined with the results of interviews to those producing these with the material and commendation,
but also to policymakers. And finally, an observation of how people talk about these topics and also focus groups.
In this light is basically the main funding, so what was the then the discourse of water this in that found in Jordan?
And what I found was that there that while everyone agrees that there is water scarcity in Jordan,
they disagreed on the nuances and on the causes behind this, there was a scarcity crisis.
So I funds mainly two different groups.
One is the dominant one because it's the one day you would probably be exposed most to like when it comes to mass media or textbooks or reports,
and emphasise that there is a problem with water in Jordan due to water insufficiency.
So we have limited water resources. And the main four reasons behind the limited resources are firstly, population growth, immigration, refugees.
So emphasising here that why Jordan had a population of about a half million people in 1946 when it became independent,
it then growth to seven million in about 15 years ago.
And today we have a population of about 11 million people.
And so this increase of population obviously also means an increase in the demand of water resources, especially for domestic reasons.
And the emphasis is often on the immigration and refugees.
So it's not on the natural birth rate of the Jordanian people.
But it emphasises, for instance, the latest crisis in Ukraine, Syria that resulted in two or three millions,
depending on figures and numbers, obviously of Syrian refugees.
And before that, we had Lebanese, we had the Iraqis, Palestinians.
So according to and as we know, Jordan has been quite stable since 19.
I mean, since I mean the past two decades, especially compared with the situation in the region.
The other reasons are unfair sharing with neighbouring countries. So depending on who you talk to,
some people would emphasise that their agreements with neighbouring countries on water resources were quite unfair to Jordan.
Some people emphasising the one with under Yarmouk, with Syria, others things said, pointing to the one with Israel.
And finally, climate change. So the nature and the environment. So on the one hand, climate change is an additional pressure.
We are probably all aware of this challenge, as well as aridity and precipitation.
So we all know that Jordan is in the Middle East and they perceive the Middle East as being part of a desert region.
And Jordan is quite often the vertical region and therefore is quite natural and normal to have to have water scarcity and low precipitation.
So we will see that because I mean, the people behind this water use efficiency narrative are mainly the government, governmental actors and actors.
They are aligned with the with the government. So mainstream mass media and also some academics, especially based in the country.
And instead, we have also a smaller like another narrative which is a bit smaller because it's not as dominant as the other one,
which I call the water mismanagement narrative or some of these course.
And they basically argue that there is water scarcity and this is due to mismanagement.
So if we simply had a better management of water resources, we would not have this situation emphasising no revenue,
water due to leakages and physical losses, not adding new water due to illegal wells,
illegal use and now sustainable agriculture water use, which already hinted at earlier and therefore here the solution I mean for those actors,
is that we should simply better manage their water resources.
And those actors are mainly NGO, environmental NGOs, donors, international organisations,
diplomats and some academics, both in the country, but especially based abroad.
The solutions. I mean, these nights are very important, very powerful because they are able to open and to lead towards certain solutions.
So the water insufficiency one argues that we have limited water resources, population is growing,
we demand is growing and therefore we need to increase the supply, to meet,
to meet and to match the growing demand and the solutions that are mainly suggested.
We will look at them in a second are the infrastructure projects such as that at that canal and the DC Canal or treated wastewater.
Instead, we have their water mismanagement narrative that leads towards mis towards demand, so better management of water resources.
And we need to decrease the demand, decrease the demand to market oriented solutions such as staffing and removal of subsidies,
more efficiency in agriculture and non-revenue water closing, illegal waste and illegal campaigns.
Finally, we have also own conservation solutions and we will look at them also in a second.
So we maybe can go directly to the these these solutions so the red that cannot be properly heard of it.
It has changed several times in its shape, but the main message off I mean, the main idea behind these kind of this project is that Jordan,
Israel and Palestine would collaborate with a regional project to try to design ice water in the Red Sea area in Aqaba
and then pump part of the rice and water and salt water to the Dead Sea and then from the Dead Sea pump water to Amman.
And this realised water in Aqaba would also go to Israel, and then Israel would sell water to the West Bank.
The shape has changed, and currently the idea is that Jordan is going ahead with the Jordanian only projects or
desalination water in Aqaba and pumping this water to our man and the north in the north,
where Jordan needs most water. Another project that was another shape that it had in the past was without the Dead Sea idea was simply in Jordan.
This rising water Nakba giving this water, selling this water to Israel in the south, where Israel needs most water.
And then Israel selling water to Palestine, to the Palestinians. And also giving water from the north to Amman directly.
There's different pros and cons. Obviously, some potential benefits are new water for these countries,
especially in the parts where there are more water scarce saving that that seeing this,
especially in the beginning given, is probably to say the Dead Sea.
They should just release more water from the Lower Jordan River to the that sea and then peace and stronger region on price,
depending obviously on which lenses you have.
This can be seen as a benefit or not, depending on who you are, but also challenges challenges in terms of funding.
It's very I mean, pumping water across the country is very expensive. You need the energy in Jordan is energy poor country.
You need trust trust between countries, which is, I mean, which in the past years has not been very much,
especially between Jordan and I mean, I'm looking particularly Jordan and Israel.
And the trust has I mean, there's been many issues we can discuss them later.
Relying on neighbouring countries for their own water security, I mean,
water obviously is a key sector and reliant on other countries is maybe challenging, especially if there is no trust.
And the challenge here, I mean, in the balances between water security and food security.
So should Jordan use more water for domestic uses and less for food and rely on other countries for food or not?
The other project was the DC Canal. So Jordan, I mean, we mentioned earlier the agreement with Saudi Arabia,
and they started in 2015 16 to pump water from the DC area to our man and to the north, closing the agribusinesses in the south, which obviously.
I mean, it was a bit challenging, but we'll talk about this in a second and then treated wastewater,
this is something that which has been increasing in the past decade has been supported by everyone in in Jordan in terms of the actors,
the policy actors and the donors.
And then just the only ones probably where the sceptic about this and still are not supportive are some farmers, especially in the Jordan Valley,
because they're getting more treated wastewater and the quality of the treated wastewater
is actually different than the one off fresh water they used that they used to receive.
And therefore they are a bit concerned with the fact that their water is being pumped into our man and
instead they're receiving treated wastewater from not drinking water has always been quite a challenge.
Former minister husband, also minister of water, tried to to to to launch a campaign in order to in order to to close these illegal wells.
However, illegal workers are mainly in the north of the country, small farmers and we will see these in a second.
The role of farmers in Jordan is quite important,
so it's not easy to go to the rural areas for four for the government and try to enforce the closure of illegal wells.
This is quite an important line because it looks set another solution on the demand side.
So yeah, I mean the the previous line, the focus on the non-revenue water,
which I mean Jordan has been trying to work on but has not really managed to successfully solve it.
And this slide focuses on another type of demand side solution.
So terrific system subsidies, removal and regulations on what type of crops we can have and farmers can have in the farms.
And also, this one needs quite of another. It's another demand side solution that Jordan, the Ministry of Water,
try to implement, but it did not manage to, and this links back to the farmers again.
So donors try to push for subsidies removal since the 90s, especially US aid.
And in 1997, they managed to have water tariffs low, which decrease the quota to the quota system.
So basically the the long story short today,
the goal of this law was to give on the free quota for a small amount of water for
agricultural uses and then all the quota above was charged quite expansively.
However, while they want this, I mean, this law was approved in 1997, a few years later.
There was huge opposition in the parliament in particular that resulted in an amendment of the of this water law,
which basically changed completely the sense and the idea behind the basically simply by increasing the quota to a very high amount, the free quota.
And so this really shows that the farmers and their lobby lobby behind the farmers,
these is really powerful and also in different ways by protesting in the opposing,
but also in lobbying within the parliament in order to stop policies or laws in the legislative process.
So this I mean, and I mean, the reasons behind, I mean, are in the media centre.
So it's quite we're probably all aware of the history of Jordan in the state, making the country the history and the role of the tribes,
the rural tribes that have always been mainly present in the government, in the governorates and in the rural areas of Jordan.
And that's where most of the agriculture takes place,
and therefore there is a link between farmers and the role of farmers and the tribes of which they belong to.
And then the presence of these tribes and the which represents the farmers in the parliament.
And therefore, it's quite difficult for the ministry to go against the tribes and the farmers because
it's quite likely that they will oppose it and Earth and stop such such reforms.
And so basically, when it comes to the allocation from the agricultural sector to urban artists in terms of water use,
has it been easier for for the government instead of trying to close the wells in the south, in the north or to change?
Yeah. The tottering system or that it will introduce regulations on the type of crops that have been just easier to close for large agribusinesses in
the southern part of the country and to pump water from the from the deceased or to them to the northern part to our man in the northern part.
Why? Because it was simply closing for larger businesses instead of closing hundreds and hundreds or thousands in northern Jordan.
Conservation solutions That's another way that has been supported by everyone,
basically convincing and raising awareness on the importance of using less water.
I published on this topic examining in particular the role of textbooks,
how the ministry used textbooks in order to raise awareness and change the behaviour of the students and the younger generation in the country,
but also initiatives such as Water Journalism Academy. So trying to evolve and the mass media and journalists in changing their narratives.
But also some projects on involving the religious leaders saw imams, for instance,
in trying to to highlight the importance of saving water, also from a religious perspective in their weekly sermons on Fridays.
So I mean, some concluding questions for reflections and for discussion is, I mean,
it's really important to look at what has been implemented and what has not been implemented and why this?
And also at the end, the questions that we find ourselves in front about also the government,
so increasing the supply to meet the demand or maintaining the status quo and the challenges behind this,
especially in the past decades of the so-called Arab Spring.
I mean, it's even more challenging for an Arab government to go against important segments of the society, so challenging the status quo.
But it is with or they with resources or go instead for a sustainable use of water resources reallocation from the DC returning from the high land.
We already discussed this and also which interests doing that.
If no solution undermine and challenge, what should the role of agriculture be in Jordan in the future?
And how so should Jordan balance water and food security while also ensuring?
I mean, that's something that it's very important now for the first time.
But agriculture in Jordan,
the water that goes to agriculture is also important from a rural development perspective and the jobs in the rural and the rural sector.
And therefore, how can Jordan rethink itself and creating new jobs in the rural sector and then in
the rural areas to ensure that farmers that will that might lose their job could,
instead of going to increase their urban poverty in Amman, stay in the rural areas and work maybe in and use in that new sectors.
And finally, what discourses and narratives will need will be needed to allow sustainable use of water
resources and also this shift of the economic paradigm of Jordan end of the water sector.
So to conclude, we really need a holistic understanding of the problem in order to be able to solve it.
We need interdisciplinary research to complex problems.
So looking, for instance, that the Water Energy, Food Nexus votes or rural development, jobs and migration,
and today probably was a bit of a different presentation coming from political science about trying to bring together also geography,
development studies, and that's probably what we really need going forward.
And then we need to contextualise water issues within the political economy and also the regional politics.
As I mentioned the role of farmers, but also transboundary issues.
And how should the Jordanian economy look like in the in the in the future?
And how can we facilitate that transition towards a more sustainable Jordan?
Looking at different sectors, thank you very much. I'm happy to answer any question the public might have.
Rick, thank you so much. That was absolutely fascinating.
I have a shopping list of questions that I'm going to ask you and I'm going to abuse my chest prerogative of the moment to do so.
But before it, before that, let me just remind everybody and encourage everyone to pose questions to Hassan through the Q&A function.
If you could. I'm very conscious we've got 20 minutes left, so I'm taking some of the dinner after this.
So it might be that I won't get through all the shopping list now, but just very quickly.
And this is really, really thought provoking stuff.
Clearly, there's there's a kind of water diplomacy issue. I mean, you talked about transboundary water governance.
Could you just say something very briefly about the situation in neighbouring countries?
Because clearly this is going to have important implications for the incentives of these
actors to participate in these schemes and the kind of the stories that the accounts,
for example, of water desalination because it seems increasingly that Jordan is having to go it alone,
in particular just out of curiosity, I was really interested in how the conflict in Syria has implemented.
We'll see how the conflict in Syria has impacted water scarcity in in Jordan.
I was also curious you obviously you've done this really lovely,
fascinating qualitative research where you identified these kind of two latent topics or two discourses, one around inevitable scarcity.
And what about management and trying to be more efficient and wastefulness?
And I wondered, given the kind of the really, you know, this distribution of 50 percent of water is used by agriculture,
and agriculture only produces 10 percent of food consumed in Jordan.
I wondered. What is agribusiness sits in in these two discourses, are they suggesting this is just inevitable?
Or are they trying to suggest ways in which this could become more sustainable through a more efficient use of of water?
And finally, this question about this question about food security in India, and this is more of a comment on the question.
This balance that you kind of constantly referring back to about food security versus water security,
if 90 percent of food in Jordan is being imported, I would say that Jordan doesn't have food security by any way, any by any normal measure.
And I wonder whether that's whether that's kind of acknowledged or whether this this question of food security
is actually just a discursive tool used by agribusiness to try to justify this disproportionate use of water,
given a scarcity of resources or have these locations. If you want to answer those, or I think maybe Michael is organising the question,
suddenly, Michael, do you have preferences about how Hussain responds? Yes, Neal, happy to be Hassan.
To go to those questions we can come to. It's going to be Q&A once and encouraging everybody.
Please do if you do have a question to Typekit, as Neal says in the Q&A function.
But Hassan? Thank you. Thank you for your excellent questions.
The very broad question, so I'm sure we will be discussing them later, but just to answer some of them so.
Situation in neighbouring countries. From a water perspective.
Yeah. I mean, this man station obviously has changed the situation since the early 90s to today, especially in Israel,
which has been using this ages and a lot and has like the most advanced technologies when it comes to the sanitisation.
But this has not really changed the allocation between countries.
And yeah, I mean,
that could be also one of the reason why Jordan could try maybe in the future to re discuss a transboundary agreement both with Israel,
but especially with with Syria. I mean, the situation, as you mentioned in Syria, has changed in the past 10 years.
The power relations between Jordan and Syria have changed. So there used to be.
Much more powerful in economically and also in other dimensions compared to the Jordan,
the situation now has been changing and therefore I wonder whether Jordan will try in the future to sit at
the table with the Syrians to renegotiate the agreements or to update their agreements on the Yarmouk River.
That doesn't mean that. Don't know, we'll get more water bites just to better manage their water resources together
and the impact of the Syrian crisis on Jordan in terms of water scarcity.
It has definitely negatively impacted Jordan, especially because Jordan had a very nice national water strategy that was there was approved,
I think, 2009 right before, I mean, a couple of years before.
And in theory, in the DC project and the red that canal where project that were going to save the Jordan.
Then with the problem of Jordan for decades, however,
what has happened was that Jordan had to accelerate on the DC Canal and the DC Canal became just a
coping mechanism to ensure water security for the northern part of the country and the refugees.
So basically, what has the impact of the Asian crisis, I would say,
has been mainly on transforming the long term plans of Jordan in certain plants and having Jordan to to to to have to rethink the sustainable,
the sustainability of the water sector and the new long term plans and new ways to do that.
The agribusinesses, I mean, it's difficult to say, but overall,
the tendency is that agri businesses would strongly support and argue that there is water scarcity in Jordan
due to limited water resources due to refugees due to either Israel or Syria and due to climate change.
And therefore we just need to decide on ice water. We need this on ice water from then south, which would not.
I mean, keep in touch the current allocation of water resources, and therefore there are benefits, at least agribusinesses in the south.
I haven't spoken with the ones in there in the I mean, sorry in the north,
and I spoken with the ones in the south, which have been closed, at least most of them.
And it's like a very politically sensitive topic. So it was very difficult, difficult to access this access and food security in Jordan.
Yes, I mean, really depends on how we define food security.
I mean, food security. I mean, as long as Jordan manages to ensure food to all their citizens, I mean,
all the people living in Jordan, then that's a way to ensure food security.
Obviously, it's not. It's different than food sovereignty. So food serenity when the food is locally produced,
but the situation of food security and or lack of food security by relying on food imports is very similar to most of the countries in the region.
If you think in particular on the DCC countries, but what has been what some countries have been exploring in the decision was buying, I mean,
so-called land grabbing or investment of land in terms of in in other continents and other parts of the world,
especially, for instance, in some African countries such as Sudan.
And so by buying land there and ensuring that the country has some agriculture, even if overseas,
at least that can ensure that some food products will be, I will arrive safely and cheaply to that country.
So, yeah, I mean, it's really about, I think, political decisions that need to be and vision of which,
which kind of economy and we want to have and on which sectors we want to.
Yeah, I mean, from where we will ensure water resources and the food products for the people of the country and that supplies to obviously Jordan,
but also to any country in the world. Thank you so much.
And Sam, we do have a question coming in from a very good friend of the centre, Matteo Renzi.
Now, I'm not very much mistaken. Matteo is joining us from the beautiful city of Venice, which has a water problem.
But I think a water problem with a rather different type than Jordan has.
And having had rather too much of it and very good to have you join us as always, Matteo and Matteo,
this question is an international relations question from an international relations person, he says.
What would you say has been the impact of water, if any, in bilateral relations with Israel and its other neighbours?
Is it actually a factor? Now you've touched on that a bit,
I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about that and some about particularly the relationship with Israel.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Vagrancy, for this question.
So now that's a very good question. And I who say that water resources are very key factor in the bilateral relations with neighbouring countries.
In fact, the peace treaty itself of 1994 had an annexe focussing only on extremism, not on focussing only on water resources.
And I would say that ensuring the stability of Jordan and therefore ensuring
water security for for Jordan is a priority for many countries in the region.
Also for geopolitical political reasons. So ensuring I mean, for Israel,
it's a priority to ensure that Jordan will stay stable and therefore will not be not will not run out of water and therefore will,
I mean, has been in the past decades supporting Jordan from the perspective.
And when Jordan requested additional water to Israel, this water was usually provided, and the reason behind is really that Israel,
as we all know, has the longest border in its longest border, is with an external border, is with with with Jordan,
and therefore ensuring that the eastern border is secure and therefore Israeli security cooperation
and stability of the neighbouring country on the eastern side is really a priority for Jordan,
as well as for Saudi Arabia. So ensuring that from a Saudi Arabian perspective, the stability of Jordan is is these has been key in the past decades.
And therefore this is why also the 2015 agreement came to be between Jordan and Saudi Arabia because Saudi
Arabia had and also if you look at foreign aid and funding coming from Saudi Arabia and also from the US,
but like those are the two main partners that Jordan has has had in terms of funding,
and therefore it really works with, I mean, foreign aid with with with water in order and the means a political reason.
So the political one is really the ensuring the stability of the Hashemite Kingdom.
Thank you, Sam.
Now that question from Lucy Maneesh asks how important and then she puts it in inverted commas is maintaining a certain degree of sovereignty.
And the quotes in the area of water food sovereignty to the Jordanian government.
Is this a narrative that is coming up or not? So much so a degree of sovereignty in this?
Yes, very good question and very current one, because this topic came up in the past year,
in a month when when the issue of energy and energy imports.
I mean, we know that Jordan is very energy poor and therefore has been relying on labour on other countries for their energy security.
And I mean, currently an extensive part of of energy is imported also from, I mean from Egypt, but also from Israel.
And when the discussion on the gas deal with between Jordan and Israel, I mean, it was a companies technically,
but I came up one of their arguments and that it was was really this the one of whether can we rely on on Israel,
which many people in the public opinion in Jordan do not see as a reliable country or partner and came up also when the issue of the border?
A couple of years ago was discussed in Jordan. So that's a small territory on the border between Jordan and Israel, technically Jordanian.
But according to the 1994 agreements of the peace treaty,
Jordan decided to to rent it to for a certain amount of years from now, around 25 years, two to two Israeli farmers to Israel.
And yes, this clause, however, also mentioned that then the two parties had to decide whether to to renew it after twenty four years,
five years or not, and Jordan decided not to, which was pursued and received not very well in in Tel Aviv.
And then the reaction was a few months later from Netanyahu not to approve a right away, an additional amount of water that Jordan had requested.
And therefore, that's when Jordan felt a bit water insecure and the discussions on whether could we rely on Israel for
the Jordanian water security or other strategic sector came up in the public discourse as an artist,
at least in conversations.
So yeah, I think that's a very good point and that every now and then come up, especially when it comes to water, food and energy.
Great, thank you so much.
I don't think I think we've now answered all the questions, and this is perfect timing because we now just about to reach six o'clock.
So with that, let me thank you so much for coming and giving us such a stimulating talk about water scarcity.
And Jordan is a super important topic and a really good start. Well, series on environmental politics in the region.
On that note, maybe I can also plug or talk next week with J.M. Furness from the University of Edinburgh.
[INAUDIBLE] be talking about the Blue Cloud Finnick authoritarian environmentalism in Tunisia and its afterlife.
I really hope that everyone in the chat can join us then.
And with that, let me just thank him again for his excellent talk and thanks everybody for joining.
And for that you have these really thoughtful questions. Thank you so much.