Water Conflict Management

Start next run: October 2010
Duration: 18 Months
Locations: UNESCO-IHE, Delft, the Netherlands and Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, Dundee, Great Britain

UNESCO-IHE offers this programme in collaboration with the University of Dundee in the UK, the renown Clingendael Institute of International Relations, The Hague, and UNESCO’s PCCP programme.

Participant profile

The programme is designed for water managers as well as for institutional, legal international relations experts interested in local, national and international water management.

Learning Objectives

After completing this specialisation, graduates will be able to:

• Name and explain principles, concepts and instruments of main national, international water and environmental legislation, as well as common and desired institutional and management arrangements.
• Design and apply models for institutional development with emphasis on water policy development, functional decentralisation and good governance.
• Design and facilitate inclusive consultation, negotiation, mediation and decision-making processes between water users and their representatives, water managers, politicians and other decision makers.
• Identify and critically assess the different functions of the water resources system and the, often competing, interests of the various water using sectors.

Course content

The 18-month programme offers two different diplomas, an MSc for students enrolled at the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft and an LLM for those enrolled at the Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science in Dundee. The first semester is identical for all students, while the second semester offers the possibility for specialisation in water law or management.

The first semester, the students are introduced to water governance from the law, policy, management, and scientific perspectives. The second part familiarises the students with the fundamentals of water law, institutional aspects of water management, and negotiation and mediation techniques.

The first semester is planned to be concluded with a Potential Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PCCP) symposium. The symposium brings together current and past students (the PCCP alumni), members of the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters, as well as invited speakers in the field of water governance and conflict resolution. The purpose of the symposium is to provide an annual meeting opportunity to discuss contemporary issues relating to PCCP issues.

• Institutional Analysis covers decision making processes, public participation, social and technical perspectives, as well as linkages of representation.
• Negotiation & Mediation covers negotiation and mediation theories, negotiation skills and tools, multi party negotiation, cross cultural negotiation, consensus building and other Alternative Dispute Resolution techniques.
• Water & Environmental Law helps participants understand the need for water and environmental legislation, and become familiar with the most appropriate institutional and management arrangements for integrated water resources management.
• Water Resources Planning presents tried-and-tested and innovative approaches to planning water resources effectively, teaches participants in, formulating strategy and evaluating management options at national and international river-basin level, and using a number of different criteria.
• Managing Water Organisations provides participants with a keen insight into what makes an organisation and its managers effective in addressing changing demand for services, and demonstrates how this effectiveness can be sustained.

In addition to the main modules of the WCM specialisation, participants can also choose one of the following modules as an elective:

• Private-Public Partnership

• Watershed and River Basin Management

The list below shows all course modules of the specialisation within the framework of the International Master Programme in Water Management (participants can choose between modules that have the same module-number). This is followed by a six month research and thesis phase. In total, the programme covers a period of 18 months and graduates will be awarded 106 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits.