Even before this year's delayed and inadequate monsoon recently brought some relief to the Indian subcontinent, researchers discovered widespread concern by local experts that their governments were mismanaging the water supplies on which a billion people depend for survival, and giving insufficient attention to climate change, reports UNB.
A new report, Attitudes to Water in South Asia (SA), explores domestic water management and trans-boundary water issues in five countries -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Chatham House - the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs worked on the report with India's Observer Research Foundation, and similar partner organisations in the other four countries.
Their findings are based on evidence from almost 500 interviews conducted in the five countries in 2013 with a range of water experts, government officials, policymakers and decision-makers from
NGOs and the private sector.
Observing that water is 'highly politicised in the region, with strong links to food security and the livelihoods of the large proportion of the population dependent on agriculture', the report underscored the relation between the domestic mismanagement of water in each country and the failure to address trans-boundary water relations.
"In spite of the shared river system and the interdependencies, South Asian governments have signed few bilateral water agreements and no regional ones," the report says.
In Bangladesh, where most respondents were acutely aware of climate change and its possible effects, many said their government was doing better.
There was a general consensus that ministers had made the climate change a priority by setting aside funds for adaptation and mitigation.
However, Afghani and Bangladeshi respondents noted the lack of availability of important policy documents currently available only in English in local languages.
