Can Water Cooperation Be a Model for Middle East Peacemaking?

by Sigurd Neubauer,Foreign affairs specialist, 31 January 2011

As the only surviving organization of the "Oslo Accords," MEDRC was established as a research and capacity building institution in 1996 to share expertise on desalination technologies and clean fresh water supply with the people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the most arid region in the world. While emphasizing how the converging of interests brought the opposing parties together in Tel Aviv, the MEDRC director noted that "cooperation beyond water is just a matter of political will.

"

Given the region's political complexities coupled with Palestinian infighting, MEDRC's principal challenge remains the parties' resolving the issues regarding the supply of scarce water resources by desalination and reuse of waste water.

Full article