1. Climate change and water
security: Impacting decision-
making processes on water
management in the Equatorial
Nile Basin?
Nina Hissen, PhD Researcher

2. Outline
• Research Interest
• Water Management in the Nile Basin
• Embedded Case Study: The Equatorial Nile and
the Mara River Basin
• Theoretical Concepts
• Research Questions and Methods
• Preliminary Results
• Research Limitations
• Conclusions and Outlook

3. Research Interest
• Unravel decision-making processes of
transboundary water resources management
• Implications of water security and climate
change for water management in the Nile Basin
• Improve climate change adaptation of water
resources management

4. Water management in the Nile Basin
Owen Falls Dam, Jinja, UG
Photo by Malcolm McCrow

5. (World Bank, 2000)

6. The Equatorial Nile Basin and Mara
River Basin
Lake Victoria, Kampala

7. Lake Victoria Basin, (World Resources Institute,
2002)

9. Theoretical concepts
• (Environmental) Governance (Biermann et al. 2009)
▫ Integrated system of formal and informal
institutions
▫ Multiple levels of institutions relevant for decision-
making (local, national, international)
▫ Constructivist approach: Actors and institutional
structure mutually influence each other and
decision-making

10. Theoretical Concepts
• Climate Change Discourse (CCD) ( Hulme, 2009)
▫ “specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and
categorization that are produced, reproduced and
transformed in a particular set of practices and
through which meaning is given to physical and social
realities” (Hajer, 1995)
▫ Physical impacts of climate change vs. perceptions of
climate change
▫ Relevance of policy discourses for political decision-
making:
 CC on regional policy agendas: e.g. NAPAs, CC
strategies
 Interest in climate adaptation funds

11. Theoretical Concepts
• Water security (Grey and Sadoff, 2007)
▫ Availability
▫ Quantity and Quality of water
▫ Water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems,
production
▫ Acceptable water-related risks (people,
environment, economies)
• Securitization of water resources (Brauch 2009; Buznan et
al 1998)
▫ Water insecurity results in the securitization of the
resource i.e. making water a matter of national

12. Research Questions
and Methods
Masai Mara Reserve, Kenya

13. What is the relationship between water governance and water management decisions in the Equatorial
Nile Basin (EQNB) in the context of water securitization and climate change?
!
$%"# How are emerging
discourses around water
security and climate
change taking shape in the
EQNB?!
$&"# How does the ' "# How could water
! "# How does the management
interaction between discourse on water
decisions relate to
transboundary and security and
water security in
national institutions climate change
the context of
shape water influence water
delivering
management decisions management
adaptation to
in the EQNB?! decisions?!
climate change?!

14. Methods
• Semi-structured interviews
• Institutional mapping
• Q-sorts (small N)
• Focus group
• Observations

15. (Preliminary)
Empirical Results
Mara Basin Office,
Mulot

16. Climate Change Discourse
• Dominant policy discourse presents climate change as:
▫ CC impacts are already felt today
▫ Therefore climate change adaptation and mitigating
future impacts is essential
▫ Most water managers did not distinguish between
adaptation and mitigation
• Strong link to Green Growth Paradigm
▫ Tension between sustainable development and
optimal climate change adaptation/mitigation
▫ Development paradigm is dominant over climate
change adaptation

17. Climate Change Policy
• Large gap between discourse on climate change
and policy implementation
▫ Climate change adaptation is still in its infancy
▫ Regional differences in development and
implemenation of climate policies
▫ Climate change financing as a key concern
▫ Climate change policies a mere lip service?

18. CCD and water management in the
Nile
• Climate Change as a proxy to access funds
▫ Current state of the Nile Basin Initiative: future
uncertain
▫ Main funding from the World Bank ran out this
year
▫ Hightened talk about climate change adaptation
and mitigation among NBI officials
▫ Focus on accessing climate change adaptation
funds

19. Actors’ map of Mara River Basin
Civil society
WRUAs
ProMara (TZ)
CARE
Int. WRUAs
(KE)
GLOWS
WWF
Sustainable WRM
Private Tourism water A
State
sector industry management USAID
Steering NELSAP
Committee
Mining
Industry Key actors
Basin
Large-scale LVBC Committee
farmers (TZ)
Primary actors
Secondary actors
12.09.2012

20. Research Limitations
• The results are so far only preliminary. A
thourough analysis of the data needs to follow.
• Interviews were conducted mainly with experts
and policy makers. Hence there is a bias in the
research towards the policy level.
• Very small N for the Q-sort based interviews.
▫ Difficult to motivate interviewees to participate.
• The discourse analyzed is a highly specialized
discourse amongst water experts, rather than
the broad public climate change discourse in the
region.

21. Conclusions
• Gap between climate change experts and water
management experts
• Water managers know about climate change but
often the causal links are not clear
• This poses a threat to successful climate
change adaptation of water resources
• Despite that, no evidence for climate change
increasing political conflict over water in the
EQNB!

22. Thank you!
Lake Victoria, Uganda

23. References
• Biermann, F., Betsill, M.M., Gupta, J., Kanie, N., Lebel, L., Liverman, D., Schroeder,
H. and Siebenhüner, B. 2009: Earth System Governance: People, Places and the
Planet. Science and Implementation of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth
System Governance Project Report, Bonn: IHDP.
• Brauch, H.G. 2009: Securitizing Global Environmental Change. In Brauch, H.G.,
Oswald Spring, Ú., Grin, J., Mesjasz, C., Kameri-Mbote, P., Behera, N.C., Chourou,
B. and Krummenacher, H., editors, Facing Global Envrionmental Change.
Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health and Water Security Concepts, Berlin,
Heidelberg, 65-102.
• Buznan, B., Wæver, O. and de Wilde, J. 1998: Security: A New Framework for
Analysis. London.
• Grey, D. and Sadoff, C.W. 2007: Sink or Swim? Water security for growth or
development. Water Policy 9, 545-571.
• Hajer, M. A. 1995: The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization
and the Policy Process
• Hulme, M. 2009: Why we disagree about climate change. Understanding
controversey, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge.
• World Bank 2000: Nile River Basin Map.