Transboundary water governance in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region Beyond the dialectics of conflict and cooperation

This work was carried out by the Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience (HI-AWARE) consortium under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) with financial support from the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.The querulous nature of transboundary water governance is as old as the concept and practice of transboundary water management. Its discourse is now overwhelmed by attempts made and lessons learnt in transboundary water management. At the core of the rationale lies the question why countries should collaborate with each other to engage in transboundary alliances. Against this background, this narrative review presents a systematic inquiry into the rationale behind transboundary cooperation in order to reinforce and inform further research on and practice of transboundary water to vernance in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. It provides a justification for a pragmatic approach to transboundary water governance that goes beyond the dialectics of conflict and cooperation, particularly for countries in the HKH, where research evidence suggests that such a governance system could have momentous socio-economic as well as political implications