Najam Writes Foreword for Book on Water Policy in Pakistan
A new book on water policy in Pakistan, published by Springer Nature in its series Global Issues in Water Policy, starts with a foreword from Professor Adil Najam, Dean Emeritus and Professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and President of WWF-International.
The 2023 book, titled ‘Water Policy in Pakistan: Issues and Options‘, is edited by Dr. Mahmood Ahmed and includes a wide range of chapters from the leading water experts from Pakistan or working on Pakistan. According to the book’s editor, “this book tries to formulate Pakistan’s water policy for the twenty-first century. In our view, this requires a major shift from the classic paradigm currently employed in water resource management (supply enhancement, command-and-control water allocation) to an adaptive approach – that is, based on demand management and economic incentives.”
As one of Pakistan’s leading experts on water, development and climate change Prof. Najam was asked to contribute the foreword to the book, in which he argues:
…in a society as defined by its water profile as Pakistan is, water policy is just too important to be constrained and compartmentalized into the suffocating confines of traditional ‘water institutions.’ Water policy will – as it always has, and as it should – seep into other areas of policy; possibly into all other areas of policy. That is the nature of water.
In discussing water policy in the context of his concept of ‘Age of Adaptation’, Najam suggests:
While all now realize the importance of climate change in water policy, too many are still stuck in a rather narrow conceptualization centered around ‘what climate change might do to the water sector.’ [In the ‘The Age of Adaptation’] water becomes the frontline face of climate impacts in Pakistan. In glacial melt, in floods, in droughts, in sea-level rise, in ecological destruction, in extreme heat events, in potable water stress, and much more, climate change is being and will continue to be felt in Pakistan primarily through the medium of water. The 2022 floods in Pakistan have also alerted us to the importance of ‘climate justice’ in a water context and, possibly, that ‘water justice’ is the other side of the coin we are calling ‘climate justice.’ All evidence suggests that climate change is not only changing the water profile of the country, but will change – may already be chang- ing – what we mean by water policy in Pakistan.
Adil Najam is Dean Emeritus and Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and since July 2023 also serves as the President of WWF-International. He served as the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies from 2014-2022. He is also a former Vice-Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Najam on his Pardee School faculty profile.