This article is based on virtual exchange held on 16 September 2026 with a focus on Water Security and Cooperation, jointly by DPO, DPPA, and the European External Action Service. It brought together UN Climate, Peace and Security Advisors, EU Environmental Advisors, the AU Climate, Peace and Security Advisor, and OSCE Climate, Peace and Security focal points to reinforce experience-sharing and collaboration.
Water does not stop at political or administrative borders. Rivers cross frontlines, aquifers extend beneath neighbouring countries, and communities can depend on the same water sources even when political relationships are strained.
Pressure on water quality, quantity, and access can contribute to competition, displacement, and insecurity. Although around seventy is covered by water, only about 2.5 per cent of it is freshwater. Incidents in which water has been a of conflict have also continued to rise. In 2024, the number of such incidents was 18 per cent higher than in 2023, according to the Pacific Institute.
But there is another side to this story. The fact that water must be shared can also make cooperation unavoidable. of the world's freshwater flows across borders and is shared by 153 countries, yet only 43 of those countries have operational arrangements covering most of their shared waters, and more than 20 have none at all. As Tanya Merceron from UNOWAS put it during the Climate, Environment, Peace and Security discussion on 16 September 2026, “beyond the political arena there is a potential to sit together, if we take natural resources as the key convening point.”
Water can create an entry point for dialogue, cooperation, and trust-building. In politically divided and conflict-affected settings, practical questions about leaning water’s condition, who gets water, when, and how, can bring people together to exchange information, solve shared problems, build capacities, have agreements, strength institutions, and build confidence.
Experiences across different institutions, and at national, regional and global levels, suggest that we should therefore look beyond water solely as a security risk, and instead recognise it as a practical tool for peacebuilding.
Lessons from West Africa: Water diplomacy across borders
In West Africa, every country except Cabo Verde shares at least one water body with a neighbouring state. Cooperation is therefore not optional. It is essential to sustainable development, livelihoods, and regional stability.
The interconnected challenges communities experience across the region makes cooperation important. Communities across the region face water scarcity, drought, land degradation, recurrent flooding, and border tensions. Women and girls can face greater exposure to violence when they must travel longer distances to collect water, while control over water access and use can be instrumentalised by armed groups.
Yet countries continue to cooperate over shared water resources even amid broader political and security tensions. That persistence matters. It shows that water can provide a reason to keep talking when other political relationships become difficult. Seven transboundary basin organisations have been established in the region. Some have existed for more than 50 years, while newer organisations are still emerging. This creates opportunities for newer organisations to learn from established ones and for countries to maintain channels for dialogue even when political tensions arise.
The region is also paying attention to water diplomacy future, including preparations around international and regional water gatherings; UN Water Conference and ECOWAS Regional Water Forum on Water Diplomacy in Abidjan.
These initiatives reflect growing recognition that shared water resources can help unite countries and communities, even when tensions exist amongst them.
Building confidence through water cooperation in Georgia
Georgia offers a different example of how practical water management can support confidence-building across parties.
The Tbilisi-administered territory?and the occupied breakaway region of South Ossetia share transboundary water resources that are vital for both agriculture and drinking water supply. Water management is challenged by infrastructure disruptions, seasonal drought and?occasional?tensions, making it a key area for dialogue and confidence-building.
Within?its?monitoring mandate,?the facilitates?dialogue on transboundary water resources within the?Ergneti?Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) framework,?and?through?technical meetings focused on?irrigation.?On the technical level, the mission proactively?monitors water volume and water flow through a mobile device application at strategic locations, and shares?data?and related communications with both parties. Through its hotline, the mission also supports communication between the Tbilisi-administered territory and the occupied breakaway region of South Ossetia during periods of heightened tension, including over water shortages.?Looking at the past season, the transboundary water?cooperation?has?proved to have positive impacts on local populations, as it?has?reduced?tensions and improved?water?access?for all parties.
These initiatives may sound technical. But that is precisely their value. Where political questions are highly sensitive, actors may still be able to cooperate around a concrete problem: whether water is flowing, where it is going, and whether communities can access it. Sharing reliable information can reduce uncertainty. Regular communication can help prevent misunderstandings. Over time, repeated cooperation around practical problems can contribute to confidence between parties.
Data and partnerships can open doors
The experience in Georgia also points to a broader lesson: data can provide a relatively neutral starting point for dialogue.
Water monitoring and early-warning systems can help stakeholders establish a shared understanding of what is happening, particularly when distrust makes agreement on broader political questions difficult. Experiences from Somalia similarly highlight how gathering and sharing water data can do more than improve analysis; it can create a practical reason for different actors to work together. As Christopher Hodder, CPS Advisor to the UN in Somalia observed during the exchange on 16 September, “Somalia offers a lot of learning and a lot of data”, as one of the world's longest-running cases on how climate security can serve as a platform for collaboration and engagement, with lots of data from SRATA, Geoguard and other platforms to assess and understand hotspots.
But data alone is not enough. Cooperation also depends on the relationships and institutions that allow information to be shared, discussed, and acted upon. Rather than creating new structures from scratch, organisations can build existing partnerships, institutions, and mechanisms. Long-standing experience in transboundary water cooperation already provides valuable entry points. Integrating climate and environmental considerations into existing analysis, planning, and operations can help these institutions anticipate and address emerging risks more effectively.
There are real constraints. In conflict-affected settings, water data may be incomplete or inaccessible because of insecurity, restricted access, or limited institutional capacity. Field missions and organisations may also face constraints related to mandates, priorities, resources, and expertise.
But these limitations should not stop us from looking for practical entry points.
Looking ahead
As climate change reshapes water availability, the relationship between water, security, development, and peace will become increasingly difficult to separate.
The lesson from practitioners working in these environments is not that water automatically produces either conflict or cooperation. It is that the institutions and relationships built around water can shape which direction communities take.
Across regions, governments, regional organisations, international partners, and local actors are already implementing different approaches, from monitoring and early-warning tools to transboundary basin organisations and local dialogue mechanisms. Their experiences deserve greater attention, not because one model can simply be copied from one context to another, but because they demonstrate something important: shared resources can create shared interests, even where politics divide people.
There are several areas for further exploration, including how water security can be better integrated into institutional discussions and mandates, how existing water-management mechanisms can support conflict prevention, and how monitoring and early-warning systems can be strengthened in conflict-affected settings.