Water issues can be a root cause of political instability, but even in times of crisis, and especially in the aftermath of war, water management also requires and contributes towards co-operation. Within the complexity of military stabilisation operations, water management has been identified as a potentially suitable crisis and conflict management tool. Therefore, a comprehensive and appropriate approach to apply water throughout the entire process of transition from a conflict, post-conflict or unstable region towards stability, peace and prosperity is desirable. During the Dutch military stabilisation mission in the Afghan province of Uruzgan, water management was applied effectively by the Netherlands Army as an instrument to create stability and co-operation in the conflict and post-conflict period. Based on this experience, a Comprehensive Water Intervention Framework is presented in this paper. By integrating water management, military, development, diplomacy and co-operation approaches, this framework provides practical guidance for policymakers, mission planners and field officers. Its implementation follows after the initial military intervention and within the stabilisation operation, as a mechanism contributing to peacekeeping and development efforts. The framework can also be further improved, most notably by integrating land management and experiences gained from its implementation in civil-military exercises and from its actual application in stabilisation operations.

The Kenyan government has made significant advances in water resources management at the local authority (county) level with little or no cooperation at the drainage basin level. Research on critical determinants of cooperation amongst transboundary water negotiation teams is limited. In this paper, we assess whether personal attribute diversity (PAD) is a stronger factor than demographic diversity (gender, age, and education play) in determining whether the negotiation team will cooperate or make unilateral actions. We use a negotiation game to study decisions taken by water policymakers. After that, we conduct a multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) to assess the influence of PAD, gender, age, and education on water negotiation outcomes. The findings indicate that PAD plays a significant role in determining whether the group will cooperate or compete. Gender, education, and age barely influence the outcome. Only upon removal of the PAD variable do we see an increase in the discriminant power of gender and education. Age has minimal influence on the negotiation outcomes. We apply the research at a lower level of governance (Nzoia River Basin). However, results might be extrapolated to a bigger basin, like the Nile Basin, through future multiple level analysis which takes account of the complex socio-technical systems.

Nzoia river basin county governments barely cooperate in water resources management to jointly increase the basin's food and energy productivity levels, due to limited trust. In this paper, we propose a game-based approach that can be replicated in any river basin, to assess trust and collaboration processes. In particular, we used the pre-game, in-game, and post-game assessment results to assess the relationship between Cooperation and Competition; Trust and Trustworthiness; Trust and Distrust; and (Dis) trust, Complexity, and Uncertainty. The initial assessment of respondents' propensity to trust (PTS) was divided into two variables (trust and trustworthiness) while adopting the unidimensional view of trust and distrust. We later examined whether we could separate the two constructs using a multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique known as the ALSCAL procedure. There are potentially significant results. Namely, that: trustworthiness and trust are not complementary; both cooperation and competition coexisted and increased throughout the game; more profound complexity and uncertainty led to an increment in trust, and reduced complexity and uncertainty led to a decrease in distrust. Based on the results and discussions, we provide recommendations for further research on trust, trustworthiness, and distrust in the river basin management context.

Residential energy efficiency improvements often have a smaller effect than expected. Although there is agreement on the existence of this effect, called the rebound effect, there is no agreement on the size of the effect. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of using serious games to assess this effect. We used a game in which participants play home owners who manage their households in terms of energy consumption. Results of experiments with 50 players showed signs of the rebound effect when players with a low efficiency house reduced their energy consumption more than players with a high efficiency house. In addition, some issues related to previous studies were addressed, such as the possibility to perform an ex-ante assessment and to conduct the study in a controlled environment. Calculations of the size of the rebound effect depended on the approach used to determine the expected effect and showed differences between appliances.

Nile Basin policy makers, at all levels, are constantly making quick decisions to address emergencies. The decisions are made in the context of a complex, uncertain, ever-changing and highly volatile basin. However, for these decisions to take into account future uncertainties, like climate-change induced disasters, policy makers need to enhance their capacity in strategic foresight. Strategic foresight helps them make more robust decisions that take into account deep uncertainties and thus buffer the basin from future natural disasters. The authors explore the contribution of serious gaming in enhancing the Nile Basin policy makers' capacity on strategic foresight. They present the findings from the application of a game-based, experimental study of a serious game known as WeShareIt. WeShareIt was played in Nairobi on 22 October 2015 by 11 participants from the Kenyan Ministry of Water and Irrigation and Moi University Centre for Public Sector Reforms. Data on the added value and contribution of the game to increased strategic foresight and disaster risk reduction were collected using pre-game, in-game and post-game questionnaires, together with a debriefing session and observations. The analysis shows that strategic foresight is an important element for effective disaster risk reduction. Observations in the game-based intervention provided evidence that the participants engaged in short term quick decision making and were not prepared for life-threatening natural disasters. The results of the experiment support the conclusion that serious gaming may be an effective and promising method for enhancing the capacity of policy makers on strategic foresight so as to prepare them for future climate induced natural disasters.

Scenarios are valuable tools that could support decision making under deep uncertainty, nevertheless, their potential remains untapped. The paper explores whether participatory scenario construction in the form of stories coupled with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2100 projections may contribute to increased utility of the scenarios and projections for climate-induced risk reduction, in the Nile Basin. The Nile River is 6,695 kilometres long and covers a basin area of 3.18 million square kilometres (one-tenth of the African land mass). The basin is highly susceptible to climate-change induced disasters. According to the IPCC, there is high confidence that the Basin will suffer from severe shifts in biome distribution, compounded water stress, degradation of marine life and reduced crop productivity. There is also medium confidence that the Nile Basin will experience: severe decline in livestock, significant increase in vector and water-borne diseases, undernutrition, increased migration and sea level rise. The basin is already experiencing some of these key risks, on the other hand, their impact in the next 30 to 35 years is deeply uncertain. The findings of this paper are based on four scenarios, namely: Kazuri, Miskeen, Umoja and EjoHeza and data collected from two forums that were held in Jinja, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. The forum participants were a multi-disciplinary team of national and international stakeholders. The paper concludes that coupling Nile Basin storylines with the IPCC 2100 projections, proved to be an effective tool in increasing the utility of the scenarios and projections, for purposes of disaster risk reduction. Future work will entail analysing the uptake of the scenarios to resolve deadlocks and enhance cooperation.