Community Based Problem Solving on Water Issues: CROSS-BORDER ״PRIORITY INITIATIVES ״ OF THE GOOD WATER NEIGHBORS PROJECT

This publication describes the efforts of the Good Water Neighbors project team to identify environmental challenges and provide feasible solutions for “Priority Initiatives” in the participating communities.

Project Briefs outline the current state of affairs with respect to threats and opportunities to the environment and water supply, the objectives that each proposed response aims to achieve, and the steps required to advance each Priority Initiative. Each Project Brief is designed as a roadmap to guide the efforts of stakeholders through project activities and as a tool for informing government decision makers and international donor organizations about the Priority Initiatives.

September 2012

“In 2001, EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East
(FoEME) launched the “Good Water Neighbors” (GWN)
program to raise awareness of the water problems
shared by Palestinians, Jordanians, and Israelis. The
program identifies cross-border communities whose
mutual dependence on shared water resources is
utilized as a basis for cooperation on sustainable
water management. The project has created real
improvements in the water sectors of participating
communities. A decade ago, the project struggled
to identify 11 communities who would agree to
work together. Today, it boasts 28 communities with
further expansion requested but limited by financial
constraints. Communities are grouped not only by a
shared stream or spring, but also according to larger
shared watersheds and aquifers, with 14 communities
sharing the Jordan River / Dead Sea Basin, and 14
communities sharing the Mountain and Coastal
Aquifer and Coastal Streams Watersheds.

“FoEME works with municipal staff and residents in
each GWN community to identify and address sources
of pollution, advocate for increased water supply, and
to find ways to answer the needs of our cross-border
communities through projects that protect the
shared environmental heritage. The GWN project’s
constituency of community residents, including
adult and youth activists, mayors, and municipal staff,
exerts enormous ‘bottom-up’ pressure on national
decision makers in order to generate the political
will needed to advance solutions at the national and
regional level…..

“Over the last ten months, FoEME staff reached out to
stakeholders, decision makers and funding bodies to
identify the priority projects needing advancement
in each community. In the first stage of this process,
FoEME brought together a core group of veteran adult
activists in each community with other stakeholders
to identify Priority Initiatives that respond to the most
immediate water and environmental challenges
facing the community. Special consideration was
given to issues relating to cross-border water and
environmental concerns and Initiatives that are likely
to reduce sources of tension between neighboring
communities and which promote efficient
management of shared water resources.”

available from: http://foeme.org/www/?module=publications&project_id=32