15 January 2010

This Week from Washington, January 15

Podcast on U.S. engagement with Asia-Pacific, water scarcity in Mideast

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke January 12th at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the beginning of a planned 10-day trip to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Before returning to Washington ahead of schedule due to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Clinton affirmed that the United States and President Obama value strong ties to key allies such as Japan and Australia, and that the United States is a committed partner in the region.

The new landscape in Asia requires the United States to build an institutional architecture that maximizes the prospects for effective cooperation, builds trust and reduces the friction of competition, she said. That includes active participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other regional and sub-regional groups, she said.

Clinton outlined five principles that will guide the United States’ continued multilateral engagement and leadership in the region. The first is that the “United States’ alliance relationships are the cornerstone of our regional involvement,” she said. These relationships have been critical to the region’s success and development. Second, regional institutions should work to advance clear and increasingly shared objectives, she said, including economic opportunity, democracy, and human rights. Third, the institutions of the region must be focused on delivering results. Fourth, Clinton said, the United States and its Asia-Pacific partners must enhance their flexibility in pursuing those results, which may mean informal arrangements targeted to specific challenges, such as efforts by the Six-Party Talks that seek to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

Finally, Clinton said that as Asia-Pacific nations, “we need to decide … which will be the defining regional institutions to best protect and promote our collective future.” Each organization has its purpose, but each also has varying degrees of importance in the regional architecture. The most likely mix is of well-established and new organizations, Clinton said.

Climate change may provoke fears of melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels, threatening to drown entire countries, but for the Middle East and North Africa, it also brings an opposite worry: water scarcity. Consistently lower levels of rainfall, a result of climate change, have left Arab states with water shortfalls. Only Egypt and Lebanon still have enough water, while Yemen faces the direst shortage.

During the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 7th through 18th, 2009, the United States pledged to assist developing countries with local efforts to adapt to climate change. America’s partnerships in the region on water-related issues exemplify the type of relief to which the new global fund for developing countries announced at Copenhagen can contribute. In recent years, the U.S. government has worked with Yemen, Jordan and Morocco to help secure and conserve water resources.

In Yemen, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, helped renovate a 700-year-old cistern that held the main water supply for the community. Workers collaborated with local leaders to use traditional methods and natural stone materials in the renovation process to honor the history of the cistern, as well as to educate the public on keeping the cistern clean and well-maintained.

In Jordan, the U.S. government funds projects to increase sustainable access to safe drinking water for the population of Amman. The Zara-Ma’in Treatment Plant funded by USAID captures water from streams and removes contaminants and salt for the water to be distributed to 700,000 people. The project created 1,500 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs for Jordanians to run the operation. America also assisted in the rehabilitation of water distribution networks in Amman and Aqaba to reduce water loss. By partnering with community-based organizations, USAID distributed 135 small grants to implement water saving and efficiency projects that benefited 2,600 households in underprivileged areas.

In Morocco, three pilot projects have helped demonstrate methods of efficiently managing scarce water supplies. A wastewater-treatment plant in Drarga, southern Morocco, now cleans a contaminated aquifer, from which farmers can purchase compost and treated water for irrigation. USAID also helped local growers by introducing innovative farming and irrigation techniques to help prevent soil erosion and early silting of a reservoir in northern Morocco.

Along with USAID, the World Bank — to which the United States is a contributor — funds many water sustainability and irrigation initiatives in the region. The World Bank cites drought, heat waves, worsening air quality and sea surges in low-lying coastal areas as other climate change effects with which regional countries must contend. Through funding and collaboration, the United States and the global community can together combat climate change, an effort Obama called “a historic endeavor — one that makes life better for our children and our grandchildren.”

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