Theme/Relevant Ministry:

WATER GOVERNANCE:
M/o Water Resources; M/o National Food Security & Research; Provincial Agricultural Departments

Project Brief:

The ongoing transboundary water conflicts in the Kabul River Basin (KRB) are narrowly conceptualised in terms of quantitative water distributions leading to win-lose situations, which are exacerbated due to ongoing insurgencies, climate change, growing industrialization, and urbanization. The existing trans-boundary water mechanisms are state-centric, bilateral, exclude other actors, and disregard the broader biodiversity & ecosystem services (BESS) of the river basin for enhancing human well-being. In our existing research endeavour, we have tried to explore a novel idea of using the BESS concept to bring together multiple stakeholders across the KRB and transform the water sharing conflicts by enabling a re-definition of the water management problem in the context of green water economy and evidence of shared environmental benefits. For the said purpose we have market-based valuation services to estimate the provisioning services of upstream area (Chital) of KRB on the Pakistani side. This is a working paper, and we are not presenting the full-blown study results. This study is based on 403 randomly selected households. The result of the study reveals that the total economic value of the provisions of ESS of river Kabul is significantly high with an average economic benefit per household of 1605243.61 PKR/YR ($8026), Which is higher than the economic benefits obtained from Pakistan’s high-elevation Kurumba National Park (893250 PKR/HH/YR, Din et al., 2020). The study shows that ESS provided by river Kabul are vital for livelihood of the residents as the ESS provided are the main source of income for the localities.

Public Policy Relevance:

This enduring study has policy implications, though the study is not complete, but the results on the Pakistani side of KRB suggests that the natural flow of water is a win-win situation for both Afghanistan and Pakistan and certain ways and means should be explored for cooperation between the people of both the country for the mutual welfare of this region.

Status:
In progress 90%

Unedited Working Paper and Policy Brief prepared for the Second RASTA Conference can be downloaded from the link: https://pide.org.pk/rasta/2nd-rasta-conference/