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WATER SHARING CONFLICTS AND THE THREAT

TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND 

EMERGING THREATS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Serial No. 113–231

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS

DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Paul Sullivan, Ph.D., professor of economics, National Defense University ...... 5

Amanda Wooden, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental studies, 

Bucknell University ............................................................................................. 23

Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D., director, Center for Gender & Peacebuilding, 

United States Institute of Peace ......................................................................... 34

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Paul Sullivan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ............................................................ 8

Amanda Wooden, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 26

Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................... 36

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 60

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 61

(1)

WATER SHARING CONFLICTS AND THE 

THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Subcommittee is called to order. This afternoon’s hearing is on the topic that I consider to be of great importance—the sharing and management of water across international 

borders. When well done, both the environment and the people involved can prosper. 

When done poorly or not at all, it can be a cause of conflict. As 

a proud and longtime resident of southern California, I know first 

hand the vital importance of having access to clean water. 

We drink water. We use water. We use it to generate electricity 

. Some of us surf in the water. Water is required in a wide range 

of industries that are essential to the well being of the people, especially agriculture. 

Water is a common staple of life, but where it is scarce it is a 

strategic resource that nations compete to control. 

We have before us today a panel of experts who will review the 

potential for water conflict in two areas of the world—the Aral Sea 

watershed in Central Asia and along the Nile River in East Africa. 

During the Soviet period, water sharing between the five Central 

Asian republics was commanded by Moscow. The downstream nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan needed vast 

amounts of water, primarily for agriculture. 

The upstream republics, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, have a surplus of water and would release their water from their dams during the summer months to irrigate the crops downstream. In exchange, the downstream nations would then send oil and gas and 

other resources which they possess to the upstream nations during 

the winter time for fuel and heating. 

Since 1991, the Soviet era arrangement between the five republics has broken down. The upstream nations have sought to expand 

their hydroelectric infrastructure through the building of new 

dams. 

This has been a great source of consternation among the other 

Central Asian governments, especially Uzbekistan. The breakdown 

2

in trust and coordination between these governments concerning 

water sharing has been a distraction from more pressing issues 

such as economic development and thwarting radical Islam. 

What should be a source of regional cooperation and strength is 

now a source of regional tension. Let me just note beside the rise 

in regional strife and waste and misuse of—and overuse of water 

that has had a dramatic impact—that it has had a dramatic impact 

on the environment there. 

The Aral Sea, which once was one of the largest bodies of fresh 

water in the world, has all but disappeared. That is a visible tragedy that should be an incentive for the governments of Central 

Asia to tackle this problem. 

In a different part of the world, the Nile and its tributaries are 

another example of where international cooperation is under stress. 

The waters that combine to form the Nile flow through ten different countries. It is one of the great rivers of the world and supplies 85 percent of Egypt’s water. 

Ethiopia is currently executing a plan to construct the Grand 

Ethiopian Renaissance Dam across the Blue Nile. The Ethiopian 

Government hopes to have the dam completed by 2017. 

They hope that with that accomplishment Ethiopia will become 

the largest energy exporting state in East Africa. Yet, Egypt has 

justifiable fears that the new dam will reduce the flow of water 

that it receives. 

The task of finding a solution is complex. Legal agreements governing the control of the Nile’s waters date back to the colonial era 

when many of the current governments didn’t even exist. 

More recently, multinational—multilateral projects, that is, such 

as the Nile Basin Initiative, has had some success. But there has 

yet to be a breakthrough on the largest controversy surrounding 

the peaceful sharing of the water of the Nile. 

In 2013, the rhetoric between Egypt and Ethiopia hit a new low 

point when then President Morsi stated in not so—it was not so 

veiled threat, that is, that, and I quote, ‘‘All options are available.’’ 

To respond to the building of the Renaissance Dam it was all of 

Egypt’s options are available and that does sound like a veiled 

threat. 

Since the election, the current government in Cairo, a more positive—there has been a more positive tone and I hope the ongoing 

negotiations will, at some point, lead to an understanding between 

these two countries. 

I am going to be asking our witnesses to update the subcommittee on the current status of negotiations between Egypt and 

Ethiopia and lay out what steps our country might take to promote 

international water cooperation. 

The national—excuse me, the natural resources of our planet, including water, are gifts that we can use to improve the lives of all 

the people of the world. But it is a scare resource and dividing 

scarce resources is never easy. 

But when nations come into conflict over such resources what 

you also end up with is that you have a waste of those resources, 

a waste of energy and perhaps conflict that could cause—have a 

great cost for both sides in such a controversy. 

3

So we hope today to get a little better understanding of these potential conflicts, how they might be averted, so the solutions and 

we thank our witnesses for coming. And now Ranking Member Mr. 

Keating for your opening statement. 

Mr. KEATING. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this timely hearing, and I also want to thank you for your 

leadership on this. I think this committee continues to highlight 

one of the most important global issues that we are facing and I 

think that, hopefully, the spotlight we are able to cast on this will 

result in more interest and more emphasis on dealing with this because, Mr. Chairman, it is indeed one of the most important issues 

we have to contend with. 

So I would also like to thank our witnesses, in particular, Kathleen Kuehnast. Kathleen testified before the full committee on the 

role of women in conflict prevention and I welcome her back to the 

committee today. I appreciate your being here as I do all of our witnesses. 

Today’s hearing topic provides us with an opportunity to look beyond Europe and Eurasia and examine the global impact of depleting resources, climate change, an expanding world population and 

accompanying social unrest. 

Last year, for the first time the Director of National Intelligence, 

James Clapper, listed ‘‘competition and scarcity involving natural 

resources’’ is a national security threat on par with global terrorism, cyber warfare and nuclear proliferation. 

He also noted that terrorists, militants and international crime 

groups are certain to use declining local food security to gain legitimacy and undermine government authority, and that is what we 

have to look at if this goes unchanged in the future. 

I would add that the prospect of scarcities of vital natural resources including energy, water, land, food and rare earth elements 

in itself would guarantee geopolitical friction. 

Now add lone wolves and extremists who exploit these scenarios 

into the mix and the domestic relevance of today’s conversation becomes clear. Further, it is no secret that threats are more interconnected today than they were, let us say, 15 years ago. 

Events which at first seem local and irrelevant have the potential to set of transnational disruptions and affect U.S. national interests. At the same rate, issues of mutual concern provide the opportunity for greater cooperation, and projects that encourage community building and environmental awareness at the local level are 

taking place and should be encouraged. 

In particular, I believe that the women in communities threatened by water scarcity will have an important role to play in the 

future and should be engaged by their local governments and international communities now. 

I agree with Mr. Clapper that the depletion of resources stemming from many factors which, above all, include climate change 

has the potential to raise a host of issues for U.S. businesses, officials and individuals abroad as well as here at home. 

For this reason, Mr. Chairman, I have long advocated for alternative energy sources. Yet, as the representative of what will be, 

hopefully, 1 day the nation’s first offshore wind farm, I deal daily 

with obstructive businesses and individuals trying to get in the 

4

way of this project and others like it in exchange for increasing 

their companies’ profit margins. 

I would like to add that, given our distinguished panel of witnesses today and our subcommittee’s jurisdiction, I am sure we will 

be hearing about the tremendous energy reserves in Central Asia 

and the need for diversifying energy markets. 

In this regard, I would like to note that I have and will continue 

to advocate for the importance of increasing democratic governance 

and rule of law in that region. 

Energy production can get you only so far. I would like to hear 

from our witnesses on how the United States can engage with Central Asian governments to improve governance, transparency in the 

energy sector both bilaterally and through international organizations such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. 

However, as we discuss these important issues, I hope that we 

can continue to keep our own country’s movement toward an energy-independent future and the obstacles on this path in our 

minds. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I knew you would get global warming 

in there somewhere. It is okay. 

Mr. Meeks, would you like to share an opening statement with 

us? 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Inequitable access to fresh water is highly variable between and 

within countries and much of the world’s population lives in places 

where demand for water exceeds supply. 

International water shortages are a critical issue with far fetching—far reaching effects on global security and stability. That is 

why, Mr. Chairman, I am thankful to you and the ranking member 

for convening such a timely hearing today to address this very, 

very important topic. 

An increasing prevalence of water shortages and the subsequent 

threats to peace these shortages present are fundamentally a global trend. Indeed, even here in the United States of America we are 

not immune from this problem. 

As some of my colleagues, and you may very well know there was 

just a program on 60 Minutes, ‘‘Out West,’’ talking about how the 

groundwater is being depleted even in the United States. 

So America has a stake in this issue just like every other country 

and we must realize that all of our futures are dependent upon the 

actions that we take now. 

We have to look at this problem from a geopolitical perspective 

and understand the complex relations which exist between nations 

and places like East Africa and Central Asia. 

Many of their disputes over water go back decades, if not longer. 

We must also look at this from a human perspective because at the 

end of the day it is ultimately about human life. Every year, 2.1 

million people, mainly children, die due to illness related to dirty 

water, poor sanitation and poor hygiene. 

One-third of the world’s population lives in water-stressed countries, primarily in Asia and Africa. The actions we take today hold 

the potential to eliminate human suffering tomorrow and promote 

peace and cooperation for generations to come. 

5

We must think long and hard about how we avoid conflict. We 

must discuss ways we can advance science and put it to work in 

the service of mankind. 

And most importantly, we must collectively discuss how we can 

use diplomacy both here in the United States as well as abroad to 

promote fair, reasonable, responsible and sustainable strategies for 

cooperation among our friends and partners around the world. 

For, indeed, this place that we call Earth is small and we share 

it with each other and we need to preserve it for each other. Otherwise, we are all subject to perish. So I am grateful, again, to the 

chairman and the ranking member and I am grateful to our witnesses for being here today and I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses on this very, very important matter. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Meeks, and I will give a brief 

introduction to our witnesses, and our first witness is Dr. Paul Sullivan and he is a professor of economics at the National Defense 

University. For 6 years Dr. Sullivan taught classes at the American 

University in Cairo. 

He obtained his Ph.D. from Yale University, has advised senior 

U.S. officials on many issues related to energy, water, food, economics, politics and political security issues. 

Next, we have Amanda Wooden—Dr. Amanda Wooden—who is 

an associate professor and director of environmental studies at 

Bucknell University. 

She earned her Ph.D. in international relations and public policy 

at Claremont Graduate University in California, nearby my home 

turf. Dr. Wooden served with the organization for security and cooperation in Europe as an economic and environmental officer in 

Kyrgyzstan. 

And finally, we have Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast, who is the director 

of the Center for Gender and Peacebuilding at the United States 

Institute of Peace. She is an expert on Central Asia and Central 

Asian countries like Kyrgyzstan in particular where, for over a decade, she worked as a social scientist for the World Bank with a 

focus, of course, on Central Asian conflict prevention. 

So we are very, very blessed to have you with us today. We 

thank you for taking your time and sharing your knowledge and 

experience with us. I would ask if you could try to keep it to a 5-

minute summary. 

Everything else that you would like to have in a more developed 

way you could put into the record as part of your—as part of your 

testimony. And with that, Dr. Sullivan, you may proceed. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL SULLIVAN, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF 

ECONOMICS, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Good afternoon, Chairman Rohrabacher, Ranking 

Member William Keating, from my home state of Massachusetts, 

the honorable majority and minority members of the subcommittee, 

Mr. Meeks, it is an honor and a privilege to be giving testimony 

on this extremely interesting issue. 

I heard national security mentioned. This is also involved with 

economics, politics, geopolitics, diplomacy, possibly the military and 

6

also human security, and without the human security of water, 

food and energy security, terrorism and other things can result. 

Before I give any public presentation, I need to give the usual caveats. These are my opinions alone and do not represent the university—the National Defense University—the Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, Georgetown or any other institution I 

might be associated with. 

I will focus mostly on the Blue Nile with the Great Ethiopian 

Renaissance Dam, or the GERD, in Ethiopia with its potential effects on downstream countries, especially Egypt and the Omo 

River, with the Gibe Dam cascade and especially Gibe III Dam and 

the effects on Lake Turkana in Kenya and also in Ethiopia. 

These dam systems are way along the way, even as these tensions build. When water is at threat, then energy, food, industry 

and more are also at threat, including peace and stability. 

Severe water shortages can breed poverty, hopelessness, terrorism and even revolution as we saw in Syria with the horrible 

droughts in 2008 through 2010, essentially sparking off the revolution. 

The GERD Dam is built on the Blue Nile, or Abbay, as it is 

called in the region. Egypt uses about 98 percent of its available 

water. It is already water stressed. 

Water shortages in Egypt built up some tensions leading to the 

revolution and beyond. Egypt has 55 cubic kilometers of the Nile 

water for its allocation from a 1959 treaty which Ethiopia does not 

recognize. 

They and others except for Sudan have signed on to another 

treaty which they recognize. Fifty-five cubic kilometers seems like 

a lot of water. However, for a population close to 90 million it really is not. 

They are living on a knife’s edge of water security. When the reservoir behind the GERD is filled it could contain 75 cubic kilometers of water, which is much greater than Egypt’s Nile-designated amounts. 

It is also one half of the entire water in Lake Nasser, which is 

the only buffer Egypt has if there is a great shortage of water upstream. The Blue Nile gives Egypt about 60 to 70 percent of all of 

its water depending on seasonal water flows. 

It is very important to understand that the real time to develop 

water are when it rains the most—in this part of the world it is 

June through September—and that will likely be when the GERD 

Dam is filled up. But it is also a time, June to September in Egypt, 

when it is very hot, also great needs for electricity. 

In the 1980s, there were famines and droughts in Ethiopia. 

About a million people died. At the same time, the water heading 

toward Egypt was cut back, and when it was cut back the electricity production from hydro dams in Egypt was also cut back. 

There was a problem with irrigation. There was a problem with 

food. Egypt and Ethiopia are intimately connected through the 

Nile. What happens in Ethiopia can really affect what is happening 

in Egypt. 

If the GERD Dam is filled up too quickly and at the wrong time 

Egypt could go beyond that knife’s edge in security. 

7

This is possibly a nightmarish situation for many Egyptians. 

They are quite concerned. If they were around in the 1980s they 

knew what happened then. It is not clear how this dam is going 

to be filled up. It is not clear from any of the studies. 

As a matter of fact, no real studies have been done of this. A lot 

of ideas have been bantered about the way this might work out but 

the behavior of the Ethiopian Government on the Omo River with 

regard to the Gibe cascade is a giveaway. 

They could care less, it seems, about what happens to Lake 

Turkana in Kenya or of the tribals along the river—the Omo River. 

They have essentially tossed them off their land and there is a 

huge land grab happening right now. 

The Ethiopians have claimed that they are not going to be using 

the GERD reservoir water for irrigation. However, if there is another famine I can guarantee you they will, and Egypt will be in 

trouble. 

Because just letting the water go through for electricity is very 

different from using that water for irrigation. It takes more and 

more of it out. There has to be some way to come to some agreement before it gets worse, before populations grow, before economic 

demands grow, before agriculture grows along the river. 

International law, in this case, is quite weak. There is no enforcement mechanism. You have the Helsinki agreements, the Berlin agreements. You have Article 7 of the U.N. Convention, the Nile 

Basin agreement and so forth. But without an enforcement agreement, we are really going nowhere with this. 

Part of what may be needed, and this is where the United States 

may walk in, is that we tried to help develop with our allies and 

partners and many others in the world an enforcement mechanism 

for these treaties and new treaties to take a look at a better way 

of sharing water. 

If we don’t do that, the situation will get more tense along the 

Nile and many other places in the world. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Dr. Wooden. 

STATEMENT OF AMANDA WOODEN, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY 

Ms. WOODEN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Rohrabacher, Ranking 

Member Keating, Member Meeks and other distinguished members 

of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify here today. 

In Central Asia, the main water disputes concern the water energy nexus but a direct relationship between water scarcity and 

interstate conflict is an unlikely scenario. 

There are already existing contentious water politics within several countries in the region and these combine and most recently 

are combining with finger pointing between Central Asian leaders 

who, at times, have used nationalistic rhetoric and threats about 

water to implement other political issues. 

However, existing cooperation, even within the current weak institutional regional water sharing network, means that conflict is 

avoidable. So to help strengthen cooperation, the U.S. Government 

should expand support for renewable energy development and electricity distribution, help tackle pernicious pollution problems, continue and expand support for scientific research in and about the 

region and increase support for climate change mitigation and adaptation. 

The most important regional water tensions and social discontent 

issues are hydro electric dam development, irrigation management, 

infrastructure failures, militarized border zone water sharing and 

flooding potential. 

Aral Sea ecosystem collapse is a significant livelihood threat. The 

biggest future of water supply risks are glacier loss and precipitation changes as well as hidden creeping pollution problems and industrialization. 

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan currently face significant adaptive capacity limitations and all countries need to better tackle rural 

vulnerabilities and deal with citizens’ everyday water challenges. 

The glacier-fed rivers Syr Dar’ya and Amu Dar’ya, the main rivers in the region, terminate in the former Aral Sea, which, as the 

chairman already described, was once the world’s fourth largest 

lake and now is only 10 percent of its former size. 

Most recent NASA images show the largest lake portion no 

longer exists. I gave you an appendix of images, about 15 images, 

that show you the map of the region and what this transition looks 

like. 

The Aral Sea collapse and continuing decline of residents’ quality 

of life, which includes access to fresh water, soil quality loss, shortened growing season length, could contribute to dissent in 

Uzbekistan, and this is important to understand. 

The ongoing disagreements between Central Asian governments 

over the Syr Dar’ya and the Amu Dar’ya and seasonal tensions in 

securitised cross border communities like the Ferghana Valley are 

the key tension points. 

There are also complex functioning relationships from the local 

to the national level. When we talk about conflict it is important 

24

to recognize that cooperation is more regular than disagreements 

and tense events, although that cooperation seems fragile at times. 

So we have moments where paying attention to what can work 

in cooperation and how we can enhance that is important. The biggest conflict risks in Central Asia are political and economic—government willingness to tackle everyday struggles with water and 

power, authoritarian state treatments of information sharing and 

dissent—human rights and access to water being one of those—

subsequent contention between people and governments about 

their nonresponsive policies which we see in times of drought and 

responses, and regional leaders’ use of nationalistic rhetoric to lay 

claim to waterways and rationalize particular waterway uses are—

these are the biggest risks. 

I also would suggest caution when we use danger and risk rhetoric. This language can contribute to a difficult—already difficult 

dialogue between Central Asian nations. So more specifically, let 

me talk about hydro energy. 

Around 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s energy production—electricity production is from hydro power so both countries 

are investing heavily in reviving Soviet-era plans to expand this 

sector. 

Kyrgyzstan is constructing the large Kambar-Ata dams I and II 

and four smaller dams on the Naryn River with the completion 

date target of 2019, and Tajikistan is heavily investing in the 

Rogun Dam, which will displace more than 40,000 people. 

The Government of Uzbekistan has seemingly engaged in economic retribution through border securitisation and cutting off gas 

supplies to both countries at various times and the downstream 

countries perceive this as a direct response to dam construction. 

Southern Kyrgyzstan’s gas has been cut off since spring. So both 

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan continue to pressure for halting this 

large-dam construction or engaging in regional evaluation of the 

projects mutually. 

They are concerned these dams will impact availability and timing of flow for downstream irrigation-dependent and flood risk communities. 

However, both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan face the reality of electricity shortages and impact of power outages on their population’s 

well being and popular discontent. Recent research that I conducted in Kyrgyzstan concerns the 2010 revolution, which was in 

part sparked by protest about electricity blackouts, partial privatization of this sector, and increase in tariffs. This year, 2014, is a 

very similar year to 2008 and 2009 in Kyrgyzstan. 

Already blackouts are likely for the winter, tariffs are being discussed and it is hard to imagine for Kyrgyzstan and also Tajikistan 

that they would halt the controversial dam construction projects 

given their severe domestic electricity shortages. 

So how do we think about tackling this? Moving forward, there 

needs to be clarity about how Rogun, the new Rogun and Naryn 

dams, will be operated or tensions will remain and perhaps increase during dam construction and the reservoir-filling period. 

The CASA-1000 project to which the U.S. Government is contributing to export electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan is another point of contention. 

25

Uzbekistan opposes this project as it arguably depends on these 

new dams for adequate electricity export. Perhaps one way in 

which the United States Government could help to improve relations is following the International Crisis Group’s suggestion to 

support creating multiple bilateral agreements instead of the current dysfunctional multilateral agreements. So this has happened 

between Kazakhstan and China, between Kyrgyzstan and 

Kazakhstan in the Chui-Talas River Commission, and Kyrgyzstan 

and Tajikistan could engage in bilateral agreements. 

Of course, we would hope that Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and 

Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan would do the same but those are less 

likely. 

A key future change is projected decreases in the Tien Shan and 

Pamir mountain glacier surface areas and volume over the next 

few decades. The region will shift from a glacier-dependent 

hydrological regime to a precipitation-dependent one, resulting in 

greater variation in water levels, seasonally and annually. 

So adapting to this slow-moving process requires significant 

international support. I have five key policy suggestions. 

The first is, given this tight relationship between water and energy and regional distribution disputes as well as household energy 

and security, it is most important to invest in expansion of renewable energy sources, off grid household energy systems and related 

infrastructure. 

The USAID Energy Links program works on institutional 

strengthening and some energy efficiency improvement. However, 

much more is needed. 

Second, water pollution is often missed in discussions of conflict 

but it is fundamental for tackling everyday problems residents face 

and consequentially for adjusting and maintaining political stability. 

For example, U.S. Government funding to help address the uranium tailings legacy would be positively received by multiple countries so it would be cooperation enhancing and something we want 

to return to. 

Large-scale industrial projects should be monitored, especially, 

for example, I can mention Kumtor gold mine which is operating 

on four glaciers in the Tien Shen mountains. 

There are several glaciers that are actively being mined in the 

operation of this gold mine facility and this is something that 

should be evaluated when we talk about the EITI, for example, 

that Mr. Keating mentioned. 

Third, supporting Central Asian glaciology and hydrology research and scientific monitoring is a valuable contribution, and 

USAID is considering contributing to the World Bank Central Asia 

hydro meteorology modernization program and I would support 

this. 

And, finally, glacial decline is already happening and it will have 

clear impacts on regional water distribution. It is necessary to increase funding for mitigation and adaptation, improve and expand 

programs such as the USAID wheat resiliency program and tackle 

this issue more broadly. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wooden follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. You are next, Doctor. 

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN KUEHNAST, PH.D., DIRECTOR, 

CENTER FOR GENDER & PEACEBUILDING, UNITED STATES 

INSTITUTE OF PEACE 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Thank you so much, Chairman Rohrabacher, 

Ranking Member Keating, Mr. Meeks and other members of the 

House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and 

Emerging Threats. 

Please note that the views I express today are solely my own and 

not those of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which does not take policy 

positions. 

I want to emphasize three points related to Central Asia and 

water issues. Water is a mismanaged resource, not necessarily a 

scarce one. Central Asia is not a friendly neighborhood for water 

management. 

Given these predicaments, we can ask why there hasn’t been 

more conflict over water in the past and how this might change in 

the future. 

According to World Bank estimates, only 21 percent of water in 

Central Asia is used effectively. A recent report in the journal Nature found that on average a person in Turkmenistan consumes 

four times more water than an average American and 13 times 

more than a Chinese citizen. 

Certainly, the Soviet centralized state enforced the rules for 

water allocation among the republics, regulating and maintaining 

canals, pumping stations, irrigation facilities, dams and reservoirs. 

The post-Soviet era, however, brought the creation of five Central 

Asian states, resulting in a predicament where 98 percent of 

Turkmenistan’s water supply and 91 percent of Uzbekistan’s originates outside their borders. 

While poor water management and wasteful practices are core 

issues in Central Asia, the factors that have kept the regional tensions over water and energy resources from spilling over may no 

longer hold. 

Consider the demographic challenge of Central Asia. Roughly 

half the population is under 30 years of age and most of these 

young people are worse off than their parents’ generation, with 

higher rates of illiteracy, unemployment and poor health. 

Inattention to the needs of this disenfranchised age group increases the risk of local level conflicts in the individual countries 

and throughout the region, especially with known extremist groups 

infiltrating these countries. 

But also add a widening gap and tension between elites and the 

poor, weak governance along with the prevalence of patron-client 

relationships, loyalty, manipulation of formal rules. 

Add an increasing fear among the local populations that water 

and energy problems will be resolved at the end of a gun, especially 

as the number of small arms surge, coming up from Afghanistan. 

Add the fact of the large number of labor migrants from 

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan leaving empty villages except for their labor widows, as they are often called. We have a security problem. 

35

The recent prediction that Central Asia will see slower growth 

this next year due to the economic stagnation of countries outside 

the region, and finally, President Karimov’s exit, whenever it happens, there will be a change in the dynamics of the region. 

His autocratic and oppressive governance has held the border 

tensions in check. However, new leadership may bring uncertainties with regards to containing hostilities. 

In summary, I would like to highlight several points for the U.S. 

Government including Congress to consider. Support good water 

data collection and share information with consumers, farmers, 

businesses and policy makers alike. 

Engage young people through small grants and encourage entrepreneurial social marketing and research studies to address overuse of water by fellow citizens. Teach critical problem solving skills 

in U.S. training and educational exchange programs with Central 

Asian youth. 

Engage women and civil society as women are often at the nexus 

of daily water management. And finally, ensure effective conflict 

management skills at the local and national levels. This is where 

the U.S. can most effectively contribute by education and training 

that offers skill-based approaches to negotiation and conflict management. 

The U.S. Institute of Peace considers conflict a normal condition 

of human societies. However, much can be done to prevent violent 

conflict from being the default mechanism for solving the problem 

at hand. 

Central Asia deserves American support for conflict prevention. 

Thank you. I am happy to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kuehnast follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you very much to all three of you 

for your testimony. Some of the statistics that you were quoting 

both about Egypt’s use of water and both Tajikistan and 

Uzbekistan’s use of water that is coming from the outside of their 

country is just a bit overwhelming from countries like the United 

States that have so many of our own resources. 

Let me note, in California I am not sure exactly what percentage 

of California water comes from the outside, which will lead me to 

a question about, I guess, is desal being used at all, Dr. Sullivan, 

in Egypt? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is being used in the Sinai for some of the hotels 

and for some of the military bases and also on the north coast. 

But part of the problem is that about 98 percent of the population of Egypt lives on the Nile and the Nile stretches all the way 

to the Sudan from the Mediterranean and you can’t desalinate the 

Nile. 

What you would have to do is have huge pipeline systems set up 

to bring the desalinated water from either the Mediterranean or 

from the Red Sea or from other parts of the——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, the—isn’t Cairo near the ocean? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, it is actually many miles from the ocean. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is interesting. Yes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is a good two and a half hour drive to get to 

Alexandria from Cairo, and for that water to move from the Mediterranean Sea to Cairo would be extremely expensive 

infrastructurally and also it takes a lot of energy. 

If they set up solar desalinization plants that may be a better 

way of doing things. They also—they already have a shortage of 

gas. They are a net importer of oil. 

A country that, when I was living there in the 1990s, was a country that was hoping for great exports of oil and natural gas. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the—what we are talking about is projecting what could be but what isn’t and I would say my own observation of how close things are or how far things are away it all depends on your perspective. 

Being 2 hours from the ocean may or may not be a long way for 

certain societies. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, in L.A. that is just across the corner. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is right. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. But in Cairo the traffic is difficult but I am talking about on a Friday morning during an Eid. It is a long distance. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mm-hmm. We actually get our water from—

a lot of water from the Colorado River but we also now are—have 

a—put a—made a lot of large investment in developing new desal 

technology, which may be—have an impact on the Egyptian problem because at least it could provide some areas that have some 

access to the—to the ocean or the Mediterranean Sea or whatever, 

the Red Sea as well, a means of having fresh water because the 

price of desal is going down. 

I am on the Science Committee and I can tell you that the new 

invention by Lockheed of use of graphene in your system will bring 

down the cost—of energy cost of desal and thus will bring down the 

cost dramatically. 

44

Whether or not how long that takes to put in place, that type of 

desal project and with the energy level that is still required by that 

may or may not come in time. 

Let me—is there anyone right now involved with trying to mediate or arbitrate a difference between Ethiopia and Egypt? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, the President al-Sisi has had many discussions with the Ethiopians. There are conciliatory moves including 

some trade deals. 

The rhetoric has been calmed down, certainly since the regime 

of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood which, by the way, 

if water stress comes in an extreme manner to Egypt there is a 

very good chance the Brotherhood will come back because it will be 

a failure for General al-Sisi—President al-Sisi. There are many 

people trying to find some middle ground here. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Who—what—isn’t there—is there any international organization we have now that we can call upon to do 

that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, there is the Nile Basin Initiative and 

that——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. Seeking a—to mediate or to arbitrate 

this dispute or is it just there to try to facilitate communication? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Facilitate communication. It is also rather toothless on this one. When you have two countries that are at odds it 

is very difficult to find a middle ground. 

The United States may act as a convener in some place distant 

from their two countries. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So you think the United States—that we 

could step forward and offer both of these countries a—to play a 

mediation role or an arbitration role? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We could. We could, and it also may be a way to 

repair some of the damage to U.S.-Egyptian relations that occurred 

with the cutting back of military aid in a time when they needed 

it the most and then they turned to Russia, which right now seems 

to be a problematic country for the United States. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That happened with a dam in the past, didn’t 

it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, it did. Yes, it did. That would be the Aswan 

High Dam. But desalinization, getting back here, they are not 

that—that doesn’t seem to me to be sufficient and would take time 

to ramp this thing up. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it certainly wouldn’t be sufficient in the 

Central Asian republics because they are not near the ocean at all. 

Let us just note that we did convince the Ethiopians at one point 

to agree to arbitration of a major dispute that they were in with 

Eritrea, and I—this has happened during the last administration 

so you know this is not a partisan remark. 

But I thought the behavior of our Government in that whole episode was disgraceful and has undermined our ability to be—to arbitrate other disputes in the sense that Ethiopia—the decision of the 

arbitration went against Ethiopia in their border dispute with Eritrea and we extracted some kind of other deal with them to help 

us with some sort of defense-related deal and let them off the hook, 

basically said they didn’t have to follow the arbitration which 

45

meant that the message to all of Africa was you don’t—you better 

skip out the arbitration because that just doesn’t work. 

Even the Americans are going to discard it—what the result is. 

That was very sad. I would hope that we could come up with someone who could help arbitrate between Ethiopia and Egypt on this. 

Your testimony is, from what I take from your testimony, is that 

if the Ethiopians do take a longer period of filling this dam up with 

water, a long period of time, it may not be harmful. 

They could—it is possible that both sides could actually come out 

of this okay as long as the Ethiopians were filling their dam in a 

responsible way. Is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. When you are in a country such as Egypt which 

is using 98 percent of its water, there is only a 2 percent leeway 

there, and to see only 2 percent reduction is probably a low probability event. 

When they are filling this thing up, they want to fill it up as 

quickly as possible. Yes, there is a possibility for negotiating a slow 

fill. But in order to not damage Egypt it would have to be over 

many, many years. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That should be something that maybe they 

could be negotiating, perhaps. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Perhaps, but it also leaves Ethiopia in a position 

of controlling the water tap if at any time it needs to control that 

water for the next famine, for the next drought, and then Egypt is 

shut off. 

During the 1980s, 1984 in particular, Egypt was damaged from 

this and there wasn’t even a dam there. Egypt is possibly in a 

much riskier situation now that this spigot is there, which a hydro 

dam could be. And you add in irrigation it gets even worse. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think that we have got to be very sensitive 

to that—to make sure that that outcome does not happen. 

The Egyptian Government right now is pivotal to peace in that 

region and for us to—the people have to know that the United 

States—the people of the United States are on their side in making 

sure that they do not wake up one morning and find the actions 

of another government, whether it is Ethiopia or whoever, has dramatically negatively impacted on their economic well being. 

So today I would just call on our Government—the United States 

Government—to do what it can to make sure that the Egyptian 

people are never put in that spot where a decision made in Ethiopia or some other government will economic—bring their economic 

well being down—the standard of living down that cause suffering 

among their people. That is unacceptable as an alternative. 

Hopefully, the United States—our Government—will take that as 

a priority and try to get and solve this problem in some sort of role 

that we can play, which I will leave to you to answer, again, on 

the second round. 

I now—Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to compliment 

the witnesses for the breadth of what they have covered in that 

short period that they addressed this. 

One thing that struck me, let us talk on the demand side for a 

second because I think it was Dr. Kuehnast who was mentioning 

the comparison between some Central Asian countries and China, 

46

for instance, where the amount consumed per person is 14 times 

what it is there and it is four times more than in the U.S. 

What areas of demand can be addressed to be helpful, if that is 

the case? I understand some of that is just water mismanagement 

itself but also what can be done to make those ratios more in line? 

Certainly, China has enormous challenges in this area too and 

they seem to be doing better. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I would clarify that each of these states are so 

different and difficult to characterize them all as Central Asia. In 

this case, it was Turkmenistan. 

I think you know one of the problems that we are all talking 

about is agricultural use and there is great demand. You also have 

a legacy of the Soviet period that wanted to grow rice in this part 

of the world, that does grow cotton—as you know, takes a lot of 

water—grows potatoes and wheat. But all of these are a great 

drain, and what you have simultaneously is countries coming into 

their own economic processes and they are needing to pivot an entire generation from agricultural practices to service, to business, 

and that is taking a generation at least because suddenly not having the Soviet system in place for education it is like retooling everybody. 

And so some of it is systemic from the Soviet legacy and some 

of it is how do you help turn a country toward a forward-looking 

process of business and other kinds of forms of economic development. 

Mr. KEATING. You have also touched on emergencies and disasters. Certainly, disasters—natural disasters like earthquakes can 

cause problems, or terrorist acts can cause problems as well. 

What is being done on the international community to reduce the 

destabilizing effects of this kind of water-related event? Any ideas? 

Is there any planning on that or are we just sitting there waiting 

for one of these things to happen? Dr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. There is a lot of talk—talk, talk, talk. Not much 

action and no enforcement. That is the answer. 

Mr. KEATING. So the answer is we are at great risk to those type 

of disasters and we are not prepared for that. Okay. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I could add to that, if I could. 

Mr. KEATING. Yes. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. There are a number of programs for dealing with 

emergency energy needs in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in particular. So the United Nations and World Bank has a number of 

programs and USAID has been connected too in supporting some 

of that. 

In terms of natural disaster institutional strengthening, in 

Kyrgyzstan it is actually a pretty interesting case of improvement 

where the Ministry for Emergency Services actually strengthened 

and visibly improved its ability to monitor, map and prevent some 

of those impacts from natural disasters, mostly from landslides and 

from earthquakes. 

Also, there is a good support and implementation from that ministry to build the capacity in local communities and vulnerable locations. 

So I would say that that is a really—actually an interesting impact, one of the most valuable impacts of aid in the region and that 

47

ministry has worked to coordinate with ministries across the wider 

region in mapping and monitoring the potential impacts. 

Mr. KEATING. I can’t let my time go without mentioning global 

warming, and——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I knew it. 

Mr. KEATING [continuing]. And Dr. Wooden touched on this with 

glacial decline. But what extent is global warming and climate 

change? 

What extent will they contribute to the potential for conflict over 

water resources and how can countries—countries—come together 

to address the larger impact of this phenomenon? Do you have any 

examples? 

Ms. WOODEN. Well, sorry. Go ahead. 

Mr. KEATING. No, you go ahead because you mentioned glacial. 

Ms. WOODEN. Yes. So I mean, it is interesting. The research is 

pretty clear that there will be—there has been a decline in the 

20th and 21st—early 21st century in glacial coverage. 

This will impact water supply. So the regional leaders know that. 

Everyday people talk about it. This is kind of a known thing there 

and thinking about adapting is part of the conversation. I think it 

is an interesting moment for potential cooperation over this. 

Right now, it is a source of tension and concern because it is an 

uncertainty. Exactly what will those precipitation patterns look 

like, it is pretty unclear. 

So thinking about ways in which we can engage to support addressing that is probably one of the most important steps we can 

take for the future of water supply and it is a—it is a fear right 

now, right. So the discussion about climate change in the region is 

about this uncertainty. 

Mr. KEATING. It is dynamic too because it is just not about precipitation changes. It is also flooding and other issues that result. 

Ms. WOODEN. Yes, and temperature changes. So there is—the 

latest IPCC report had a number of instances, I think something 

like six or seven, indicating specific changes in Central Asia that 

include temperature changes that are already impacting the growing season that interacts with what is happening in the Aral Sea. 

So the interaction—I don’t think the conflict will happen directly 

but as we have all outlined, the next step to migration, for example, is one of the most important next social impacts. Where will 

people move to if glaciers decline? The fastest declining glaciers in 

the region are the lowest-lying smallest glaciers closest to population centers. 

That is where we see that already happening, right, and so will 

people move from those locations in agricultural-dependent communities and what will that migration mean. 

Mr. KEATING. We didn’t touch too much on international aquifers 

as an issue but I think they are another concern that we should 

have and many of them are facing serious declines as well not just 

with ground water decline but with contamination. 

Can you just discuss what can be done and what is being done 

with that, particularly in agricultural areas? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, if I might say something on the issue that 

she just touched upon, think about the following 300 to 400 million 

people that are reliant on the Tibetan Plateau glaciers and those 

48

glaciers might be melting. That includes three nuclear states—

Pakistan, India and China. 

Now, with regard to the aquifer, there is a very interesting aquifer in North Africa—the Great Nubian Sandstone aquifer, which 

has 150 trillion cubic meters of water in it. 

Muammar al-Gaddafi—you remember him? He started something called the Great Manmade River to bring that water to the 

coastline to green Libya. At the same time, Egypt was tapping into 

the thoughts of water—this is 40,000- to 60,000-year-old water—as 

an alternative source of fresh water. 

Once you take that stuff out, it is nonreplenishable. There is no 

rain. The Saudis grew wheat in the desert. The first time I flew 

over Saudi Arabia was in 1980 coming back from Bombay, India, 

writing my Ph.D. at the time. 

I saw these green circles. What is this all about? Growing wheat 

in the desert, using the underground aquifer of nonreplenishable 

water. Overall, it cost about 11 times to grow the wheat than in 

Kansas. That was a waste. 

They figure it out. They changed the program. But when people 

don’t see what is underground they don’t really think about it and 

when water is free just take it up, when the only cost of water to 

you is the diesel fuel to pump the water out of the ground. 

But on the other side of the story, being from New England you 

can—you know how big New England is. We all do. Underneath 

Darfur there is a huge lake of water the size of New England, 

sometimes 300 meters deep. 

But on top of that underground aquifer people are dying of thirst. 

We have to understand the situation a lot better. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And that is interesting 

because—what you just talked about, Mr. Sullivan. 

I mean, what is striking to me is, as I said in my opening, there 

was a presentation on 60 Minutes just this past weekend and they 

were showing how deep in the ground, in California, not in places 

that we are talking about where folks are starving, but in California where the farmers are utilizing this ground water and 

pumping it up, just using the same machines as if they were 

digging for oil, and how the ground water is now going down, 

down—I think they said a foot every month now. 

But the farmers claim that they need it and they were drilling 

more holes, et cetera. But we have got places where folks are starving and they need the water to drinks and/or, you know, you talked 

about what took place in Egypt. 

So how do we balance the need for preserving the water and juxtapose it to those individuals who need water to drink—you know, 

clean water to drink, and that is clearly, you know, sanitation wise, 

et cetera? 

How do we juxtapose we do that and working with these countries so that they can survive? You know, it is easy for—sometimes 

for folks to come from the United States and say we can do this 

because we have—you know, we are feeding our people, et cetera. 

They are in a different circumstance—so that they can survive 

but also understand the precious resources because we all are 

49

interrelated in that regards. How do—how do we differentiate between the two? Dr. Kuehnast? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Well, I think a couple of things. One, we need 

good data and that needs to be shared in a transparent way from 

the ground level to the political elite as such. 

But even more so, some of what we have to do is change daily 

habits and that needs very astute social marketing efforts and that 

is why I emphasize this, that we need, first, critical problem solving skills of the people who live there. 

And second, how can we market that kind of change of behavior? 

Because they came out of a legacy where all things were free, 

where there were no incentives to save. And you have to change 

human behavior first to get at, you know, bridging the gap between 

the Darfur example so eloquently laid out here and the water underneath. 

We need that bridgework—critical thinking skills, incentive programs for young people to help solve their own issues. 

I loved what you said about, really, it is not only sharing but preserving water for the future—how you motivate young people to get 

at that problem and that helps them solve their future issues. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, a lot of this has to do with knowledge and 

data—I would agree. We really don’t know what the groundwater 

is like in many parts of the world. 

But also how many people know what their water footprint is? 

Two kilograms of beef takes 15,701 or thereabout liters of water 

and yet a similar amount of protein through vegetables would be 

about 1,700 liters of water. 

The way we eat we have countries growing very quickly—China, 

for example. They are moving toward pork and beef, more water 

intensive ways of doing things. Energy systems—some are more 

water intensive than others. 

The worst is biofuels, by far—irrigated biofuels—absolutely 

water nonsense when it comes to that, particularly in a country 

with low amounts of water. Getting back to Ethiopia, it is hydro 

dams causing all of this trouble. They have massive geothermal reserves in that country which will use less water. 

They have significant solar energy potential, wind energy potential, many other potentials in that country that could be used without causing all of this trouble. At least seven gigawatts of geothermal could be rolled out in the next few years. They are on the 

Rift Valley. 

Geothermal is a really great place when you are near hot rocks 

in the ground. Just north of San Francisco in your state there is 

a city that is run by geothermal, Calpine Geysers. 

Geothermal in the world is a small percentage of what it could 

be. Japan could turn around to geothermal. Many countries could 

turn around. In this country, the biggest use of water is not irrigation. 

It is thermal electric cooling—thermal electric cooling—and California is facing this as a big problem right now and many countries 

looking to develop their energy systems the way we did it are going 

to have to rethink it if they have water stress. Nuclear power 

plants the same thing—how do you cool them down? With water. 

50

Mr. MEEKS. And let me ask Ms.—I think Dr. Wooden said this, 

that—I am just interested in the statement—you said that bilateral 

agreements as opposed to multilateral agreements were more effective. 

You know, in my way of thinking initially was that in a region 

you wanted, of course, it could be interconnected between two and 

three different countries that you would want multilateral agreements. 

I was wondering if you could give me some further clarification 

on why bilateral is more successful than multilateral. 

Ms. WOODEN. It is interesting, in Central Asia the relationship 

over these two rivers has been joined. It is part of the Soviet legacy 

and in the post-Soviet period initially in cooperation that actually 

was enhanced by joint concern about the Aral Sea decline. 

So actually we actually saw in the 1990s a number of high-level 

meetings between leaders of the countries in the region establishing an institutional framework that was rather complex that 

united all decisions across the region and made it difficult to separate out the individual rivers. 

And so when tensions exist between two countries among the 

five, and six if we include Afghanistan, this makes progress in the 

rest of the basin difficult. And so that is why the suggestion by the 

international community has moved toward okay, let us break this 

down and work on those bilateral relationships and some of them 

have moved forward. 

I mentioned a couple of them like the Kyrgyzstan and 

Kazakhstan relationship and they are not perfect. They had a little 

bit of a spat over water in 2010 when Kazakhstan closed the borders after the violence in Osh and Kyrgyzstan—well, there were 

some canals that were cut off for a little bit of time and 

Kazakhstan then reopened the borders. 

So those bilateral relationships don’t always work perfectly. But 

they have allowed some improvements, for example, in funding of 

infrastructure improvements in Kyrgyzstan from Kazakhstan, and 

Kazakhstan and China are experimenting with this as well. 

So there was a breaking down of the complexity of the relationship to smaller bilateral agreements that also deal with some of the 

border delimitation issues, for example, or the enclave disputes. 

And so what building cooperation also is demonstrating is that 

it is possible in one part of the basin. That doesn’t mean that the 

future of moving toward multilateral agreements should be avoided. That would be preferable. 

But until that is functioning—yes. 

Mr. MEEKS. My last question would be I haven’t heard in the testimony much and I know we in the United States have to do our 

part—we have to do a lot—but I didn’t hear—what about the roles 

of—do you think in regards to the United Nations, the World Bank 

or other international efforts to address these freshwater conflicts? 

Do they have—do they have—should they play a significant role 

or do we not just have confidence in them? 

I haven’t heard about—you know, again, it is a global context of 

which we are talking and so I think that we need help. But I wonder, you know, your positions on those. 

51

Ms. WOODEN. I can mention that when it comes to the Aral Sea, 

many people are greatly disappointed in the limitations of the 

international community to assist in stopping the process of the 

collapse of this ecosystem. 

This is—this was the focus of my dissertation—evaluating regional engagement in the Aral Sea basin—and the most successful 

efforts that actually surprised me were by USAID and that was because the engagements were small and spending a lot of money in 

a really difficult political situation is challenging. 

And I think that the efforts are also sometimes incorrect. So, for 

example, the World Bank helped fund the construction of the Kok 

Aral Dam, which divides the small Aral at the north part of the 

sea from the larger Aral, and this was done because of the intractability of dealing with Uzbekistan’s Government primarily and just 

in wider issues such as changing cotton production for reducing irrigation use. 

And so the World Bank, when appealed to by the Kazakhstan 

Government, agreed to construct this dam and it worked to increase the levels of water in the small northern part of the Aral. 

But it drastically sped up the decline of the rest of the lake and 

so this summer it no longer exists in part because of that sped up 

process. 

So this dam is used as an example of success but it is also—you 

know, when we think of—we take this whole ecosystem and we 

break it up in parts. I just suggested doing so, right, but there are 

ramifications of doing that. 

And so continuing to make sure we understand clearly if we engage economic growth in the textile sector what does that mean for 

cotton production in the wider region? We need to be aware of 

those ramifications. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The World Bank—excuse me. Could I—the World 

Bank has been involved with this but is not involved with the 

GERD because they have not received an environmental impact 

statement or an economic or social impact statement, which they 

require. 

The GERD is actually being paid for by bonds that are being sold 

to the Ethiopian public at between 1.5 and 2.5 percent. There are 

NGOs that are really doing very good work in the small. Water.org, 

with Matt Damon, is doing great stuff in Africa. 

Five thousand children under the age of five die every day in 

sub-Saharan Africa because of dirty water. You want to make 

friends and influence people? Clean up the water. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much for that admonition. I 

think it—we should all take that to heart. About the point you 

made before that—whoever it was—about the financing of a particular dam, who is financing the Rogun and the Renaissance 

Dams? 

Who is financing that? These are the—these are the two dams 

where the, really, the major contention—this could end up resulting in conflict. Who is financing those? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. When I say the GERD, I mean the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. That is the one with the bonds. So I should 

have been clearer. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the World Bank and the other——

52

Mr. SULLIVAN. The World Bank is not involved. The IFC is not 

involved. USAID and the United States give Ethiopia about $500 

million a year. There is a leverage there. 

It is mostly being paid for by statement of the Ethiopian Government—by the Ethiopian Government but they are paying for it 

with debt. This is a country with a $50 billion GDP and this dam 

alone is $5 billion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And who is paying—who is buying the 

bonds? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Ethiopian expats, Ethiopians who live in the 

country. China is involved with the turbines. China is involved 

with the electricity system connections. But they don’t have enough 

money in the country, is my guess, to do what the Egyptians did 

with the Suez Canal. No way. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I know I don’t have to tell you that I have—

you are not giving me a certainty answer. The Ethiopian expats are 

buying all these bonds——

Mr. SULLIVAN. And people inside the country. They have embassy locations throughout the world. I know that sounds odd——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It does sound odd——

Mr. SULLIVAN [continuing]. Because they couldn’t find——

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. Impoverished for them to be able 

to——

Mr. SULLIVAN. I know. I know but——

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. Buy bonds. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. But with the Suez Canal the Egyptians collected 66 billion Egyptian pounds, about $10 billion to build that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That seems a little more doable than the 

Ethiopian people who mainly live in poverty. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Okay. So now you see my lack of believing in 

some of the policies of the Ethiopian Government. When they are 

doing something like this and they are saying this——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN [continuing]. This is problematic. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. Well, let me—somebody is making 

money on it there. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No kidding. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, no kidding. By the way, just to mention 

geothermal, however, there have been drawbacks to geothermal 

and that is—we tried that in California. We have a large amount 

of geothermal and they may have solve that problem now technologically. 

I would have to go back and take a look. But it destroyed the—

there was a—the pipes went through a degeneration of the pipe 

and the material very quickly and geothermal wasn’t—didn’t meet 

its promise, let us put it that way, because there was a lot of calculation on that early on. 

Now, maybe they have cured that problem without me knowing 

it. But I will check into it because I should know that. About the—

a couple points. 

We will do just a second round very quickly and with all due respect I don’t think we necessarily disagree on global warming. The 

issue that mainly is at hand, the temperature is what the temperature is and the impacts that people measure are there. 

53

The question is whether human activity through CO2 is causing 

the change in the climate. We have been through climate changes 

throughout the history of this planet and the only question is is the 

one we are at is that caused by human beings, and if it is my colleagues who believe that have—are totally justified in trying to 

control the behavior of human beings through government action. 

If you don’t think that it is human beings you end up spending 

enormous amounts of money and controlling people’s lives basically 

when you should be trying to find ways of dealing with the fact 

that you are now in a cycle of history that will leave with less 

water and affect the glaciers, et cetera. 

Rather than trying to control people’s lives you are trying to remediate it—I guess, is the word I am looking for—the effects of 

that impact and whether—so we are—it sounds like we are in for 

some when we may face water shortages because of one part of the 

cycle or something that were being caused by having too many 

automobiles. 

But whatever it is, it is there and when countries like Egypt try 

to deal with it and Ethiopia tried to deal with it and Central Asia, 

we need to put in place something, not just the answer to how we 

are going to lessen the suffering that may come from this but also 

perhaps weigh—that we put in place something that will deal with 

the conflicts that happen between peoples that wouldn’t exist had 

that change in climate or the change in the status quo not happened. 

We don’t seem to have that. I mean, I haven’t been getting that 

from you today as to there is something in place. Maybe we need 

to focus on trying to have some international mediation board or 

arbitration board that is signed on to any nations that have conflict 

and that everybody else agrees that at that point they will respect 

the rights and they will respect those nations that go ahead and 

go along with whatever the decision is. 

That is one idea. Maybe there is some other ideas of how we can 

help countries become more efficient in the use of water and things 

such as that. If you have just one or two comments on that and 

then I will let Mr. Keating finish up with his questions. 

Ms. WOODEN. On the Rogun Dam question you asked about, 

there are ongoing considerations—from the Tajikistani Government—about how to attract more funding and the government has 

in the past sought to collect funds, a forced funding collection from 

citizens. 

So there is some controversy about how the funding has been 

raised and whether or not funding will be forthcoming to complete 

the project. So that is definitely a part of the discussion. 

Regarding the possibilities of dealing with the conflicts that are 

produced, respectfully, I think that just like in the Aral Sea situation if we don’t actually tackle the causes of the problem, if we 

think about temperature changes, precipitation changes, glacial decline, there are in the latest IPCC report tens of thousands of academic articles evaluated to identify pretty clearly—very clearly the 

pattern and the cause of anthropogenic impact, anthropogenic 

greenhouse gas emissions on climate change. 

So we know what the causes are. There is scientific certainty and 

so——

54

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just note—let me just note for the 

record that being a member—the vice chairman of the Science 

Committee that is only your opinion and the opinion of others. 

There is a lot of other opinions as well. 

Ms. WOODEN. Well, I actually don’t think it is opinion. This is 

scientific research, correct? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But whether or not—whether or not it is 

caused by human beings or whether it is caused by a natural cycle, 

as I said, I don’t think that it is as relevant as would be except 

you want to aim your solutions at what will have a good impact. 

Ms. WOODEN. Right. I agree. Aiming the solutions of what will 

have a good impact but we have to get at the heart of the problem, 

and we have been asked to come here as experts in the region and 

plenty of experts on climatology have evaluated the problem. 

So if we think about then how to deal with conflicts, just like 

with the Aral Sea issue the Aral Sea problem was cotton production. If we think about dealing with the problems of water supply 

there are ways of changing the uses of water, the ways of dealing 

with water pollution, for example, that makes the available water 

all capable of use, right. 

I mean, those are really important issues to tackle that we forget 

when we talk about trying to increase supply in other ways, well, 

we have actually have to make sure that we have adequate quality 

of the water that exists. 

So that is why we can talk about those kinds of causes and address those. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And Dr. Sullivan, in his admonition to us 

about, you know, if we are really concerned about people’s lives 

those 5,000 kids dying like that with—from bad water, sometimes—and people have this—build these grandiose projects with 

the dam in Ethiopia when I have been told if we just would focus 

on making sure that people in those villages have a way of purifying their water in sometimes very simple ways but we have to 

take the initiative to go out and make certain things available—

that that would be much better than these grandiose dam projects. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Couldn’t agree with you more on this. There is 

something called SODIS—S-O-D-I-S—out of Switzerland where 

very poor people can actually use the typical plastic bottle, filter a 

little bit and put it on top of a tin shack, heat the water and get 

rid of most of the bacteria. And then there is LifeStraw, which is 

pretty inexpensive—this could be handed out. 

But this is kind of person to person. Another way of getting at 

this, particularly in remote communities is to have solar water 

pumps or wind water pumps, getting the cleaner water up from the 

aquifer. 

The problem with dying from dirty water is that they are digging 

this out of open pit wells where the donkeys and other animals—

you can take a guess at what happens and people wash and it is 

happening in rivers and so forth. But there are simple answers to 

this. 

If you take a look at the $5 billion being used to bill this dam 

and put it toward cleaning water for under-five children in Africa 

you could save many American football stadiums full of African 

kids every single year. 

55

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And did you have one last comment to that? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Well, I would just like to underline again that, 

you know, we need creative context-specific solutions. These five 

countries in Central Asia all have different water and energy dynamics. 

One shoe does not fit all. But, you know, I am interested in the 

fact that Dr. Wooden said USAID’s project in the Aral Sea seemed 

to have impact because it was locally driven, and I think so often 

we are attracted by the massive engineering of a dam or a road or 

whatever else that we lose track of the everyday efforts or technology—low-level technology that could make a difference and we 

need to incentivized that approach and that is my suggestion. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well said, because the incentive now is for 

some big companies to make a lot of money building these huge 

projects. Mr. Keating? 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just comment on 

some of the takeaways I get from today’s hearing and you can comment as you may wish to or may not. 

But the one thing that seems clear is that we don’t have enough 

data and, to me, if we are going to work with water management 

and—or mismanagement and we are going to look at—deal with 

this issue, we seem to have a consensus among all three of you that 

this is a primary need and without that we are not able to move 

constructively. 

That brings me back briefly—we won’t dwell on it—to the importance of realizing as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has in thousands of reports that climate change—99 

percent of all the scientists that poll agree that climate change is 

manmade and without having that basic understanding it is going 

to be harder to deal with that data once we get that or even accumulate that data. 

So I think it is a threshold issue we have to deal with. But I 

want to tell you I feel optimistic after today’s hearing because there 

is so much we can do. 

This thing is not a problem that is in any stretch insurmountable 

or difficult if we do—if we approach it the right way. And so I came 

away learning that, you know, some fundamental issues about, you 

know, what you grow for agricultural products and where you grow 

it, even what we eat, are all things that have very strong impact 

on our water resources in this world. 

I think—I mentioned just once that the government can get involved and the U.S. Government is involved in many ways. The 

smaller project with the Millennium Challenge in Cabo Verde, you 

know, we put $41 million to establish transparent water delivery 

and sanitation systems for that area. And so we can, you know, use 

some of our financial resources in that respect as well. 

And I will finally just comment on, and Dr. Sullivan was stealing 

some of my thunder on this, but in my own district we have a military base where there was water contamination from the utilization of that and it was a major problem and it is being cleaned up, 

and the energy to clean that up is being generated through wind 

power. 

So and I also have municipalities in my district that I have gone 

around during this break and I have seen how they are using solar 

56

and wind power in those communities to provide the energy for 

wastewater cleanup and for even the delivery of their own water 

supply. 

So there is a real, you know, need, I think, because if you are 

doing the tradeoffs to clean up the water and to do this produces 

energy, takes energy. But we can do that if we commit to renewables, I think, and using it for that purpose and it is working in 

my district as we speak. 

So I come away very hopeful on many fronts. But we do have to 

start with getting the data and getting the information and that is 

something one country can’t do itself. 

That is something that is going to need international cooperation 

with in terms of access and getting our scientists all on the same 

page and our engineers all on the same page and then we can approach this. 

So that is, again, getting back to my introductory remarks, Mr. 

Chairman, why this committee has, I think, done a great service 

by, again, bringing up this issue that not only affects a global conflict but our survival and our assessments going forward. 

So thank you very much. If any of you want to comment on any 

of those things you are free to. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. When I think of many of the things that we 

talked about today sometimes I think of the little children I had 

seen in Egypt in my years living there. I wonder what is going to 

happen to them. 

The water gets shorter. What happens to the women and the 

girls and the older people who need that water more than others? 

And also, how will this affect the development of terrorism and 

strife and the return of the Brotherhood? 

Ethiopia really needs to commit publicly how quickly they are 

going to fill up this dam, by how much and when, and have some 

cooperation with Egypt and others involved to try to resolve the 

tensions here. 

They need to do the same with Kenya for the Omo River. There 

has to be some precedents set to find a civilized reasonable way of 

solving these issues without conflict because it goes right back to 

the little kids in the street in Cairo. 

Ms. WOODEN. I would like to add on the data sharing issue or 

the data collection issue that in part it is to understand some of 

these processes are happening—to be able to understand them 

well—for us here to understand them—for decision makers in the 

region to know what is happening in the future. 

But also data sharing is an important part of intergovernmental 

relations, right. I mean, it is one of the biggest problems that we 

have between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that is 

that transparency about these processes. 

Ability to predict mutually understood change and how to adapt 

to it as it is happening is very important. I mean, the understanding of how we can monitor from satellite imagery, monitor 

ground water changes in California has been really important for 

our ability to withstand—in a significant drought withstand severe 

political ramifications, right. That is what we are talking about 

happening in Central Asia. 

57

A big part of this is just being able to make this whole process 

transparent. So I think funding of research is one of the most crucial steps we can take to tackle this and to generate cooperation. 

We have already talked about cooperation as happening more 

commonly, right. So there is much to build on here in the relationships between communities on the border and between governments and we can really begin by just listening to leaders but community leaders at the local level for what they need. 

Most people in the region are concerned about water as the primary issue. We both have found this in our surveys of the region—

that water pollution and water supply are primary concerns. 

So people know what the issues are, are worried about them and 

want to work together to tackle them so mainly through improved 

understanding of what is happening. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I would like to say that, indeed, transparency of 

information is critical. But what you need is the investment of the 

young people in this five-country region with a sense of hope, with 

a sense that they can apply good knowledge with excellent business 

and technological acumen and help solve their problems, help 

strengthen and build capacity at the local level and I think you will 

see more wind farms, more solar energy, more direct person-to-person and technology advancements that are really responsive to the 

issues and in doing so you will prevent conflict because you give 

people the sense that they can take care of this themselves and 

that they are empowered to do so. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you all, and just a note that, 

again, I want to say very clearly that the United States is watching 

Ethiopia’s activities and decisions on this dam project. We are 

watching very closely. 

We are—we would expect, if Ethiopia is acting responsibly, that 

it commit itself to publicly to a policy that will ensure that they 

are not doing a project that will benefit them at the expense of the 

people of Egypt but instead will try to work and hopefully work 

with the Egyptians to find water solutions that do not harm large 

numbers of other people who happen to live across the border or 

downstream from you, and this—the Ethiopian Government better 

understand that or there will be major retaliation from this Congress on Ethiopia for that type of hostile act toward the people of 

Egypt. 

In terms of Central Asia, I would hope that Uzbekistan and 

Tajikistan as well as these Central Asian countries will be able 

to—because they all are dependent on water, I mean, especially 

with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan should understand this problem 

and hopefully they will work together and that there will be a Central Asian cooperative spirit that will put people together for—to 

come up with an understanding on this, and maybe we can play 

a positive role in all of this by thinking about establishing, as your 

organization is aimed at, trying to find out how we can as a people 

serve as conflict deterrents and how we can become active in a 

process of deterring conflict by being arbiters or being people who 

are—we at least could come in and get the parties together and 

find ways of reaching agreements between people who have disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:47 Jan 12, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_EEET\111814\91455 SHIRL
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agreements that might lead to conflict and water is, of course, one 

of those major issues. 

I do believe that we should continue funding. One of the reasons 

why I am upset with the focus on human activity is that it—we 

have spent billions of dollars trying to determine what will be the 

impact of global warming and with the idea of justifying the expenditures on that research. 

I think that we should instead have research into finding ways 

that are going to make people’s lives better that will actually be 

able to offer some sort of impact on those people’s lives there, 

whether it is the water pollution devices that Dr. Sullivan talked 

about or other types of technologies that will permit people in Africa to get—to cheaply get to cleaner water, which seems to be better 

than building huge dam projects, et cetera. 

So but, again, whether or not it is caused by human beings or 

whether it is caused by—one last note. That 99 percent figure has 

been figure has been disproven over and over and over again. 

Ninety-9 percent of the scientists do not agree that mankind is 

causing this change in the climate. It is a majority, however do 

agree with you and disagree with but not 99 percent. 

And with that said, I want to thank the witnesses. We have had 

a very good discussion and I have really always felt that there are 

two major important things for people—to be able to have a planet 

where ordinary people are going to live decent lives. 

We have got to have energy and hopefully clean energy and we 

have got to have water, and with those two things I think human 

beings and human ingenuity will be able to overcome a lot of other 

things and develop the agriculture, et cetera, that we need. But 

without those two fundamental things in play, ordinary people 

won’t live well. 

So I think the United States should be committed to clean energy 

and water for the world. 

Thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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