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Just over half the world’s population shares a river or lake basin with at least one other country. To sustainably manage those water resources for the health of people, ecosystems and economies, neighboring countries must work together.
However, many countries have been less willing to cooperate in recent years, even to protect a resource as vital as freshwater.
This trend away from multilateralism isn’t unique to water. The world is seeing a decline in the general willingness of countries to jointly solve many interstate, regional and global challenges. It shows as countries, like the U.S., pull out of the global institutions, such as the World Health Organization, and drop their support for global climate goals.
The breakdown in cooperation can have severe consequences. If one country takes more water than agreed upon, and builds dams or pollutes the water, its neighbors and their people, cities, agriculture, energy production and wildlife can suffer. That can ultimately destabilize local communities, deteriorate relations between countries and endanger regional peace and stability.
Water flowing into Africa’s Nile River affects several countries. A large dam being built by Ethiopia has led to concerns and disputes in the region.
We conduct research and work with governments and international organizations on environment and water law, policy and governance. The shift we’re seeing away from multilateral cooperation and rules-based order to more nationalistic tendencies, in which a country prioritizes itself to the detriment of all others, is raising concerns about the future.
Thousands of years of water cooperation paid off
More than 4,000 years ago, two Sumerian city-states – Lagash and Umma – were engaged in a fierce war over a strip of fertile land and a canal fed by the Tigris River in what today would be southern Iraq.
The conflict ended in 2550 B.C. with the first known precursor to an international water treaty. The Mesilim Treaty included payments and agreements on collaborative water use. It didn’t hold the peace permanently, but it created a model that lasted.
Conflict still occurs over shared waters; however, since the late 1800s, and particularly since the end of World War II, cooperation has been the dominant interaction between countries in the world’s 313 surface water basins, 468 transboundary aquifers and more than 300 transboundary wetlands.
In Europe, for example, countries have worked together through treaties, data sharing and joint projects to improve water quality, including in the Rhine and Danube rivers.
Nine countries work closely to protect the health of the Rhine River, which each depends on. In 2018, that cooperation became essential as water levels dropped to levels that interrupted ship travel.
Having cooperative processes in place also helps when disagreements arise. In Southeast Asia, negotiations and technical exchanges between countries that share the Mekong River have helped to ease tensions over the construction of dams in Laos.
Unilateralism is rising
Despite the proven benefits from cooperating over water resources, we’re seeing a troubling trend: Countries are increasingly taking actions that undermine water cooperation.
Even in the Columbia River Basin, often considered a model of cross-border cooperation, the status of an updated treaty between the U.S. and Canada is in question after the Trump administration paused talks in March 2025.
Since 1964, the U.S. has paid Canada to control the river’s flow to prevent flooding and to serve U.S. hydropower plants. The updated deal has been agreed to in principle, but is not signed. That’s raising questions about what will happen if the interim agreements expire in 2027 before the new treaty comes into force.
Another example is in the Zambezi River Basin in southern Africa, where countries increasingly disregard agreements to notify one another before building projects that will affect the water flow. Similar behavior happens in the Nile and Aral Sea regions, among others.
Ethiopia’s construction of a large hydroelectric damage on the Blue Nile has upset its downstream neighbors.
As unilateral actions over shared water resources become more frequent, the willingness of governments to enter into agreements and establish joint institutions to guide that cooperation is declining. The rate of establishing multilateral agreements has significantly slowed since the 2010s. Only around 10 agreements have been signed since 2020, and only two joint institutions have been established. A large proportion of basins have no agreements or institutions at all.
The few recent attempts to establish cooperative mechanisms have stalled or failed. The formal establishment of an organization to manage Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi River basin, shared by Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, was never formally ratified by its member countries. That left the once-promising organization a zombie.
Even when institutions already exist, some governments are withdrawing from them. But moves made for short-term gain can have long-term repercussions.
An example involves the Aral Sea, which has shrunk dramatically since the 1960s due to a combination of water demand for cotton crops and climate change drying the region.
The International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, IFAS, was created in 1993 by five countries to support projects designed to ensure water use remains possible along its rivers. However, in 2016, Kyrgyzstan froze its membership, arguing that the organization wasn’t taking Kyrgyzstan’s national interests into account. Kyrgyzstan contributes about 25% of water flowing into the region. Its frozen participation limits IFAS’ effectiveness.
The Aral Sea in Central Asia has been shrinking since the 1960s, but dramatically lost water each year over the past two decades. The top left image is from 2000.
Similarly, Egypt and Sudan froze their participation in the Nile Basin Initiative in 2010 over a cooperative agreement that they saw as violating their historical water rights – established in colonial 1929 and 1959 agreements – in favor of governance centered on “equitable water allocations.” While Sudan resumed participation in the Nile Basin Initiative in 2012, Egypt’s participation remains frozen.
Erosion of multilateralism
The changes we’re seeing with water agreements and institutions reflect a broader decline in countries’ willingness to address shared problems through multilateral cooperation — a trend that seems to be rapidly increasing.
In the United States, the Trump administration is pursuing expansionist foreign policies and protectionist trade policies. The administration has also publicly wavered on the U.S. commitment to NATO and announced it was leaving the World Health Organization.
Argentina also announced it would withdraw from the WHO. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States, which promotes economic and political cooperation in the region.
The environment has been particularly affected by this trend. The U.S. move to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and the difficulty of reaching a global plastics treaty also reflect the growing difficulty in reaching cooperative solutions to benefit future generations.
Harm to ecosystems, people and countries
As climate change shrinks freshwater resources, and growing populations lead to overexploitation of water supplies, countries will increasingly need multilateral cooperation to avoid conflict.
These agreements and institutions provide forums for communication and cooperation. Losing them can lead to less well-governed water resources, declining environmental, economic and health benefits, and increasing conflict.
Lake Chad is a cautionary example. The Lake Chad Basin Commission was established in 1964 by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria to oversee its water and other natural resources and coordinate projects related to the lake. But the countries never fully committed to cooperating.
Since then, the lake has shrunk by around 90%, which has increased poverty by reducing people’s access to vital water resources to support their livelihoods. And that has created optimal conditions for terrorist group Boko Haram’s violent insurgency to succeed in recruiting young men who had limited livelihood options left.
People collect water from a branch of Lake Chad in Ngouboua, Chad, which has been attacked by the terrorist group Boko Haram. People depend on the lake for water, but it has been shrinking.
We believe this decline in countries’ commitment to multilateral cooperation should be a wake-up call for everyone. If the world’s most precious resource is not managed cooperatively and sustainably across international boundaries, more than just water is at risk.
Melissa McCracken has not received funding related to this article.
Susanne Schmeier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation
