Table Of ContentINCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT AND MULTILEVEL
TRANSBOUNDARY WATER GOVERNANCE
THE KABUL RIVER
Shakeel Hayat
Promotiecommissie
Promotor: Prof. dr. J. Gupta Universiteit van Amsterdam
Copromotor: Dr. C.L. Vegelin Universiteit van Amsterdam
Overige leden: Prof. dr. I.S.A Baud Universiteit van Amsterdam
Prof. dr. M.Z. Zwarteveen Universiteit van Amsterdam
Dr. U. Daxecker Universiteit van Amsterdam
Prof. dr. M. Zeitoun University of East Anglia, UK
Dr. A. Taj IM Sciences, Pakistan
Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen
This research was conducted under the auspices of the Graduate School for Socio-Economic and
Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE)
INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT AND MULTILEVEL TRANSBOUNDARY WATER
GOVERNANCE
THE KABUL RIVER
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus
prof. dr. ir. K.I.J. Maex
ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie,
in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel
op donderdag 5 maart 2020, te 10:00 uur
door
Shakeel Hayat
geboren te Swabi
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Dedicated to:
“My parents- Hakim Akbar & Parveen; Wife-Surriya & Kids-Sania & Mahad”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Pursuing a PhD was always a tough choice due to financial limitations, family responsibilities and
busy schedules at workplace. However, my ambitions were high, support from my family was
strong and my employer was outstanding and encouraged me to make my own contribution to the
continuous development of scientific research. I am extremely thankful to Almighty Allah for
empowering me to finish my PhD research. To overcome the financial constraints, I am thankful to
the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP; Project No. 104883) and Higher Education
Commission of Pakistan (HEC; Project No. 1-8/HEC/HRD/2017/8435) which provided me the
funding and enabled me to carry out my research and make my dream a real one. I came to know
that accomplishment in the PhD journey is a collective, emotional, and even a physical endeavour.
Hence, there are various individuals who have contributed directly to the research and writing of this
thesis by providing ideas, resources, feedback, data and information. There are several other and
important people who indirectly provided infinite encouragement, firm support and wholesome
kindness. None of these unconditional support and assistances can be measured, nor can they be
appropriately acknowledged. But I will make a sincere effort to do so here.
I would like to commence by thanking Professor Joyeeta Gupta and Dr. Courtney Vegelin for doing
everything in their ability to make this thesis possible, often going beyond the call of duty. Joyeeta,
finishing this thesis would have demonstrated an overwhelming job, if not for your regularly
pushing me to make my writing better through supervision, critique, and inspiration. Thank you for
seeing that this thesis was possible long before I could. Your friendly behaviour and company has
endorsed my work to arrive where it is today. You are always a true inspiration for me and I will
keep following your footsteps. Courtney, you have showed me that all kind of challenges can be
overcome with faith and determination. Thank you for always believing I would make it through to
the end and making sure I ‗kept on smiling‘. I appreciate your time, support, willingness and
enthusiasm for coming into this process mid-stream. Dr. Hameedullah Jamali, thank you for your
endless support and help throughout my PhD process and even before that. You are a true friend and
a wonderful human-being.
The ultimate love and gratitude go to my family and friends in Pakistan as well as in the
Netherlands. You always bothered me in both emotional and funny ways with your questions of
‗when am I going to finish‘? Yet, through all the reservations and sufferings, you continued to be
faithful, kept me in your prayers, and today I can proudly say that the ‗PhD Journey‘ is over with
these words of gratefulness for all of you. My beautiful wife Surriya, thank you for your support and
for being confident I would finish, even when I was not. You showed me that imperceptible
development amounts to big success. My marvellous kids Sania and Mahad, thank you for cheering
me up with your funny and naughty acts when I was depressed and down. My loving and respected
parents, thank you for teaching me to enlarge and harness my creativity. You empowered me to
include a bit of art into everything, including this thesis. My siblings Yasmin, Rukhsana, Faqir
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Hayat, Nasira, and Tanzeela, thank you for listening to all of my doubts, fears, and tears without
judgement and putting me back together every time I fell apart. Thanks to my aunts, uncles and
cousins for helping me learn what is best for me and how to achieve it.
Dr. Khaista, Adil, Haris, Waleed, Munir and Yasir Iqbal, thank you for your prayers and best
wishes, they kept me going even when I was losing ground. To my Director, Dr. Muhammed
Mohsin Khan, Joint Director Dr. Usman Ghani, Deputy Director Dr. Iftikhar-ul-Amin, and
colleagues at HR, finance and accounts departments of IMSciences, Mian Mabood Gul, Wajeeh,
Haseeb, Ali Abbas Mirza, Waqar, Muhammad Imran Khan, Muhammad Irshad, Gulzar Ali, Qaiser
Ayub, Adil, Zafar, Abdul Khaliq, thank you for making IMSciences a dream place to work. You all
made administration and financial complications easier for me and it was your support that never
made me worried about management and finance-related issues. To my amazing colleagues at
IMSciences Javed Iqbal, Zafar Habib, Sikandar Tangi, Shabana Gul, Aamer Taj, Waseef Jamal, Atta
ur Rehman, Fakhr-i-Alam Khan, Abdul Ghaffar, Muhammed Rafiq, Mukhtar Ahmed, Sajid Iqbal,
Mukamil Shah, Farman Ali, Bakhtawar, Asif, Sartaj, and Nazir Khan, thank you, your presence
always encouraged me to finish the PhD in time and come back to IMSciences as soon as possible.
I would also like to acknowledge my friends in Delft, Imran Ashraf, Fawad, Hussam, Nauman,
Qasim, Hussam, Tanvir, Irfan, and Saad as well as my colleagues at IHE for your feedback, inputs
and encouragement over the years. Raquel, Kirstin, Pedi, Mohan, Shahnoor, Eva, Jonatan, Nadine,
Gabriela, Marmar, Jakia, Aftab, Natalia, Nirajan, Taha, Musaed, Motasem, Akousha, and Christiana,
you are my dearest and most valuable friends and colleagues. Sharing this crazy PhD journey with
best colleagues like you is something unforgettable. You were always there to help me through the
variety of emotions, feelings and experiences that only come with a PhD. You understood the
immaturity and susceptibility that comes with this process and I am so obliged to have made it
through with you all smoothly walking by my side.
Last but not the least, to all the water scholars and mentors, whom work truly guided me to finish
this PhD. I would like to specifically thank Mark Zeitoun, Jeron Warner, Naho Mirumachi, Ursula
Daxecker, Margreet Zwarteveen, Pieter van der Zaag and my own promotor Joyeeta Gupta. You
have all shaped me and my research in ways I have only begun to understand.
viii
SUMMARY
Problem Definition
Although, transboundary and multi-level water resources are often seen as a source of conflict
among countries and regions, recent studies suggest that they can also be a catalyst for cooperation.
Such institutionalised cooperation can benefit riparian parties by promoting greater socio-economic
development. Despite the existence of institutions at transboundary levels, some basins are better
managed than others. This may be because, as hydro hegemony scholars argue, asymmetric power
relations between peoples and countries shape institutions in different ways in different basins.
However, if power has such a dominant role, the question is why are there so many institutions in
other parts of the world (such as between Canada and the USA and among European countries) that
do work? Neo-institutionalists argue that power constellations vary from issue to issue, there is often
space to develop fair and effective institutions and that institutions, once developed, are also able to
shape and curb power.
Ineffective institutions and poor governance practices are creating various challenges for water
resource management in the Global South which can be further exacerbated with worldwide changes
in social, political, environmental and economic systems. These challenges can be divided into two
broad categories: (1) flow-related (i.e., issues of water quality, quantity and related ecosystem
services); and (2) administration-related (i.e., issues of power, jurisdiction, coordination, principles
and instruments at multiple levels of governance). The scholarly literature suggests that an analytical
transboundary water governance framework is essential to address the challenges of water
politicisation and securitisation, quality degradation and quantity reduction. Yet, there are four key
gaps in scholarly literature regarding transboundary water governance. First, this literature rarely
integrates (a) a multi-level approach, (b) an institutional approach (c) an inclusive development
approach, or (d) accounts for the uses of different types of water and their varied ecosystem services.
Question
Hence, this thesis responds to the main research question: How can regional hydro-politics and
institutions be transformed at multiple levels of governance through inclusive development
objectives and incorporate the relationships with non-water sectors in addressing issues of water
quality, quantity and climate change‘? The following sub-questions are also addressed: In order to
answer this question, four sub-questions were developed: 1) How can the concept of biodiversity
and ESS be incorporated in a framework to analyse the effectiveness of institutions, and the role of
power in governing transboundary water resources? 2) Which principles and instruments address the
causes/drivers of freshwater problems in transboundary river basins at multiple geographic levels?
3) How does legal pluralism affect transboundary water cooperation? 4) How do power politics and
institutions influence water governance in transboundary river basins at multiple geographic levels?
These questions are explored with special reference to the Kabul River that flows through
Afghanistan and Pakistan. I chose the Kabul river basin because: (a) it is unique as both countries
are contributing water, they are both simultaneously up and down-stream and both countries are in
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