Water Ethics Perspectives in the Arab Region PDF

Keywords

Water ethics, integrated water resources management, Arab Region, water ethics in Islam.

Abstract

Water ethics has only recently emerged in academic and development arenas as an independent field of professional discussion. Concerns over water conservation and adequate access to basic needs of water and sanitation pose a difficult ethical dilemma that should be addressed based on societal and ethical frameworks. Issues such as water allocation and pricing, privatization of various water services, and efficient water management need to be contested within an ethical framework according to principles of equity and social justice. This paper presents the basic integrated water resources management (IWRM) in the Arab Region, which suffers from one of the fastest growing water deficits in the world. The deteriorating status of the water resources situation in the Arab Region is no longer tolerable due to the high costs in terms of negative environmental consequences and deteriorating livelihoods of of poor populations associated with lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Nevertheless, most of the national efforts for IWRM implementation in the Region have been dominated by neo-liberal economic policies stressing privatization of various water services, cost recovery through different pricing and tariffication schemes; as well as sectoral water (re)allocation. However, many negative impacts due to the shift to neo-liberal market-led economies have surfaced throughout the developing world in the past decade and a half, especially with respect to the increased levels of poverty and worsening environmental degradation. It is therefore, critical to adopt IWRM approaches in the Region within an ethical framework that takes full consideration of all social implications regarding the poor, and that could be used as a means to achieve water-related international goals of poverty reduction. Finally, the paper also shows that there is no contradiction between Islamic beliefs, which constitute the chief cultural and ethical source of most Arab societies, and worldwide accepted IWRM principles and associated ethical frameworks.