M Ziauddin

The World Economic Forum’s Global Water Initiative, as one of the core projects of the System Initiative on Environment and Natural Resource Security, seeks to embed water at the center of economic growth planning. According to this initiative, water is a unique resource that underpins all drivers of growth – be it agricultural production, energy generation, industry or manufacturing. It also connects these sectors into a broader economic system that must balance social development and environmental interests. 

Despite its fundamental role across the economy, water is all too often managed in a fragmented manner, leaving national and regional growth strategies disconnected from insights into available and planned water resources. This results in competition across users, mismanaged trade-offs, disruptions to operations, and under-investment for critical infrastructure.

Building on its experience growing large-scale public-private coalitions in the water agenda, the Global Water Initiative is now working with key champions to identify and scale up a new generation of Fourth Industrial Revolution enabled solutions that can help accelerate implementation of SDG 6, the dedicated goal on water and sanitation. In doing so, it will optimise allocative decision making and enable a more equitable and water-secure environment for users—one that is more conducive in attracting investment and job creation, supporting social stability and preserving the environment.

The need to enlarge Pakistan’s water storage capacity to at least 120 days seems to have become a matter of life and death for our country. And this has led to the decision to build the Bhasha and Mohammad Dams on a priority basis at the earliest. The total cost of building just the Bhasha dam is estimated to be around $14 billion. And it is expected to take as many as 12 years to complete the dam. This would mean we could distribute the total cost over 12 annual budgets with the allocations for the first two and last two budgets necessarily larger than the eight budgets in-between. Using the rule of thumb we need not allocate more than about $4 billion in the first two years divided in equal amount for each year.

So we actually need at least about $6 billion during the current five year term of the PTI government for starting work on Bhasha dam in right earnest. But it does not seem possible to mobilise this amount for dam construction at a time when the country’s balance of payments position is in dire straits because of a steep rise in debt burden in recent years and expanding current account deficit. According to the latest estimates, we need at least about $9 billion immediately to meet the current year’s obligations.

In view of the need to start the construction of dam at the earliest and the fact that we are not in a position to generate the needed resources for the purpose, first the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar and now the newly-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan have decided to appeal to Pakistanis both overseas and the local to donate generously to the Fund that the two had set up. The PM has asked the overseas Pakistanis to donate at least $1000 each. Local Pakistanis have already started contributing generously to the CJP’s Fund which has now been merged with the PM’s dam Fund.

On the face of it, it does not look all that impossible to raise $6 billion over the five years starting yesterday from Pakistanis who are known to be world champions in contributing to charity. And with Imran Khan making the appeal one is more than assured of the success of the campaign. The PM has built a world class cancer hospital and a world ranking university by collecting charity even when he was not in government but only a world class cricketer but enjoying what can only be regarded as an exceptional reputation of being an honest man with the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and Namal University standing there all to see as proof of his honesty and dedication.

Building hospitals and educational institutions with resources mobilised through charity is nothing new. This has been done successfully over ages. But a commercial entity like a big dam has never been built with resources collected through charity. So if the skeptics have started questioning the very idea one need not regard it as a political ploy. The numbers that are being touted by the supporters of the idea with regard to the overseas Pakistanis in a position to donate $1000 have also been questioned. And going by the amount so far collected under the CJP Fund, it looks as if it would take more than five years to mobilise $6 billion.

May be people lacking the means to donate their hard earned resources for the dam construction would not be averse to invest in a commercial undertaking assured of coming on stream in time without any unforeseen hitches or syphoning off of the resources thus invested.

So, instead of asking Pakistanis to donate for the dam, why not invite them to invest in the commercial undertaking that the dam would be on completion.

To start with we could set up a public limited company headed by CJP justice Saqib Nisar (on retirement) as its CEO and invite overseas Pakistanis to purchase shares each costing $1000 and for local Pakistanis each share costing in equivalent rupee denomination (around Rs. 125,000). The shares should be redeemable only after the dam’s construction is completed. Distribution of dividends to start on annual basis after the capital has been recovered. It might take at least about 30 years or so to reach that stage and perhaps many of the investors may not be around when the dam starts distributing dividends. But the fruits of their investment would surely be enjoyed by their surviving dear and near ones.

Meanwhile, according to Callie Stinson of Project Lead, Water Initiative, World Economic Forum (5 ways the fourth industrial revolution could end water insecurity, published on 22 March 2018) the global water and sanitation crisis is not a new story. On each World Water Day experts review the sobering statistics with which we are becoming all too familiar: the expected 40% gap in global water supply and demand by 2050. The billions of additional dollars still needed to finance water infrastructure. The 4.5 billion people who lack access to safely managed sanitation services. The fact that water crises have ranked among the top global risks in terms of potential impact seven years in a row.

“What these sorts of statistics remind us is that status quo approaches are not going to be enough to solve the world’s water and sanitation problems. Innovating in this domain is no longer an option but a necessity. Harnessing the rapid advancements in technology and information represented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) holds great promise for improving the way we manage global commons challenges, including water. But how do we turn this promise into reality?

“The World Economic Forum’s Global Water Initiative, in collaboration with the World Bank Water Global Practice and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, has embarked on a journey over the past year to explore this very question. By convening water policy experts, entrepreneurs and technology innovators in a series of workshops and meetings, we gained valuable insight into several areas that are ripe for disruption in the water sector. Encouragingly, we also discovered many of the solutions we need are already at our fingertips. Here are examples how the 4IR could help make water insecurity a thing of the past.

“By providing a secure, transparent and distributed ledger to record transactions between parties, blockchain-based technology could fundamentally transform the way water resources are managed and traded. First and foremost, harnessing this capability could enable everyone from households, industry consumers, water managers and policymakers to access the same data on water quality and quantity and make more informed decisions. Such transparency would help inform consumer decisions around when to conserve or use water. It could in turn help prevent corrupt behaviour in situations where there may be an incentive for local authorities to tamper with or withhold water quality data.

“Blockchain technology could also support peer-to-peer trading of water rights in a given basin, empowering water users who have enough or are willing to share their excess resources with others in the area to do so 24/7 without relying on a centralized authority. Imagine a scenario where farmers in the same water basin could make the decision to trade their allocations based on the latest weather data, crop prices, market trends and longer term climate trends – much of which is already accessible via their mobile devices.

“This type of transparent, real-time approach to water management could greatly mitigate tensions within and across certain localities by democratizing access to information and preventing the tampering of data. Power Ledger is among the companies pioneering blockchain applications for the water sector, as is evidenced by its current work with the city of Freemantle in Australia to create a blockchain-backed trading system that leverages smart water metering data.”

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