Irishman finds ways to ease tensions over water scarcity in Middle East

One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century is dealing with water scarcity. As the impact of climate change begins to be felt, many people are left in a situation where they have little access to fresh water.

According to the World Nature Organisation, more than one billion people already live in areas in which water is scarce: by 2030, it is estimated nearly half of the world’s population will live in regions of high water stress.

The lack of water is leading to conflict in many parts of the world and worsening existing ones. One man charged with helping to ease tensions and find a way to solve problems resulting from water scarcity is Ciarán Ó Cuinn, from Bray, Co Wicklow.

Ó Cuinn is director of the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC), an international organisation working on solutions to fresh water scarcity in the region.

Equal partners

It was established in the 1990s, as part of the Middle East peace process, with a mandate to assist the development of the process and to find solutions to the lack of fresh water across the region. The organisation is the only setting in which

Israel

, Palestine and Jordan sit as equal partners. Other members of the organisation include Oman,

Qatar

, the United States, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and Spain.

The centre is involved in 169 water research projects, with a total value of about $12 million, and is using expertise from researchers in 34 countries. Among the initiatives it is working on is a much-needed desalination plant in Gaza, an area in which about two million people are struggling to get access to clean water.

Ó Cuinn moved to Muscat, where the research centre has its headquarters, in October 2013 after many years working in public policy, international relations and conflict resolution.

Prior to taking up the role, he was special adviser to then minister Dermot Ahern for more than 10 years at three government departments. During this time he worked on various elements of the Irish peace process, on projects such as the development of a single all-island energy market and formal negotiations between the main parties.

In doing so, he first had to overcome his own conflict, that of being a Labour Party supporter working for a Fianna Fáil-led administration.

“I left college with a degree in history and was doing some postgraduate work at Trinity when I ran out of money,” says Ó Cuinn, “so I found a job doing speechwriting, research analysis and public policy. But the only problem was that it was with Fianna Fáil.

“I was a member of the Labour Party at the time, but they gave me the job any way and I ended up running the research unit in Leinster House in the lead-up to the 2002 election.

Energy policy

“I had done a lot of work on

Northern Ireland

and was also interested in liberalised markets, so Dermot Ahern asked me to become his policy adviser at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, where I ended up working on issues such as energy policy and broadband.

“From there I went with Dermot to Foreign Affairs and to Justice, where I was heavily involved in the peace process and also with legislation surrounding gangland legislation and civil partnership.”

After the government fell, Ó Cuinn moved to DCU for a few years, where he held the role of executive director of external and strategic affairs, before the chance to move to Muscat presented itself.

“It’s an extraordinary place to be living and, as someone with two small children, it’s great for them to experience being in a multicultural environment,” he says of Oman.

Nonetheless, while he’s enjoying living overseas, he is the first to admit he has his work cut out keeping the peace.

“I was someone who was brought here partly because I’d worked on the peace process in Ireland, and my role is try to find mechanisms to bring countries together to deal with issues that affect them, such as water scarcity.”

But no peace process is transferable from one country to another, he says.

Irish version

“The world is full of Irish people trotting around trying to translate the peace process, but it fundamentally doesn’t work because there are any amount of different elements that come together in a process. So the Irish version isn’t really transferrable.

“Take the Good Friday agreement for example. What the Palestinians are ultimately after is fundamentally different from what resulted from that,” he says.

However, Irish diplomacy is still of value, Ó Cuinn says. “What is important to what I and others are doing is really around behavioural stuff. It’s about how to keep lines of communication open, how to deal with different cultures and to put yourself in other shoes. Those diplomatic skills are important and it’s that which Ireland has to offer to the world,” he says.

In this, he says Ireland and Oman are similar.

“They are both small countries, are nimble and outward looking, and have always had to deal with the rest of the world. Neither has a colonial past and so don’t have an idea of ourselves of forcing our will on others.

“We’re both good at getting in the middle of a process without letting our egos take over, which is critical, and this means that we’re able to do things low key and work effectively in the background.”