Introduction

Despite global and regional calls to accelerate water resource governance, the Middle East water situation continues to deteriorate following from the pressures of growing populations, increasing demand, and exacerbating factors such as the impact climate change which all contribute to make water management more difficult. In the face of the international communities political commitment to achieve a water specific Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6)1 , a 2018 UN synthesis report on SDG6 stated that “the world is not on track”.2 The report identified that to be successful SDG 6 needs to (i) Adapt to country contexts; (ii) Create multi-stakeholder partnerships and strengthen regional integration; and (iii) Implement integrated water resources management (IWRM). In the transboundary context, SDG 6.5 target highlights the need to implement IWRM at all levels, including through transboundary cooperation. Further, SDG 6.5.2 provides an indicator to check progress against the “proportion of transboundary basin area with an operational arrangement for water cooperation”

Objectives

To equip senior academics and researchers with (i) the technical knowledge and tools required to be able to better respond to future transboundary water challenges induced by increasing demand for water (overwhelmingly from intensive agriculture) and reduced water availability (due to climate change); (ii) the legal knowledge required to appreciate global instruments and international legal principles relevant to transboundary waters; and (iii) the negotiations skills required to effectively assess discussions with colleagues from neighbouring countries, regional counterparts and development in water governance at the international level.