When Bangladesh become the primary nation in South Asia to sign up for the U.N.’s Water Conference previous this yr, it was once introduced as a win-win.
Signing as much as the Conference at the Coverage and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and World Lakes would assist Bangladesh safeguard and set up waterways that constitute a “lifeline to peace and prosperity,” consistent with the United Countries. On the similar time, it was once was hoping that the South Asian country’s addition would possibly inspire higher cross-border cooperation in a area the place shared rivers are frequently fought over.
As a student who works on problems with water safety and grew up in South Asia, I perceive the drivers in the back of Bangladesh’s determination to sign up for the conference – contemporary hydro-political occasions have raised water safety dangers for the rustic of round 174 million.
However opposite to the goal of the conference, I imagine Bangladesh becoming a member of may just in fact heighten tensions in South Asia, particularly with India.
The desire for water safety
Bangladesh’s hydro demanding situations are multifaceted. Part of Bangladeshis reside in spaces who are suffering serious drought. Round 60% of the inhabitants is liable to top flood dangers. And on reasonable, floods inundate 20% to twenty-five% of the rustic’s land every yr. Additionally, greater than 65 million citizens nonetheless lack get entry to to secure and correctly controlled sanitation amenities. Those overlapping vulnerabilities display why water governance is this sort of key factor for safety, international relations and building.
Moreover, the rustic’s emerging inhabitants along side the consequences of local weather exchange upload to this home water tension. A minimum of 81 of the 1,415 rivers that drift via Bangladesh have both perished or are getting ready to extinction, consistent with a up to date record.
On the similar time, Bangladesh is based nearly solely on rivers that go borders. With India and China, it stocks one of the vital global’s most intricate transboundary water programs: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin.
Becoming a member of the UN Water Conference
Plenty of contemporary traits underscore the explanations Bangladesh sought better criminal and world coverage.
In July 2025, China introduced what is predicted to be the arena’s biggest hydropower dam, the Motuo Hydropower Station within the Tibet Self reliant Area in southwestern China.
China begins development on global’s greatest hydropower challenge in Tibet • FRANCE 24 English.
The Chinese language govt is selling the dam as a blank power challenge that can assist the world’s financial system develop, even if it’ll price 1.2 trillion yuan (about US$167 billion) to construct.
However nations shut by way of are fearful about how the dam will impact the area’s surroundings and politics.
Each Bangladesh and India have complained that the challenge may just make the area much less solid. The Yarlung Tsangpo River on which the dam is constructed runs into India’s Arunachal Pradesh state, which has lengthy been a flashpoint in China-India family members. China claims the area as its personal and calls it Zangnan.
On account of the place it’s located, the dam may just permit China to regulate or restrict the drift of water into India. In a similar way, Bangladesh, a downstream nation, is worried that Chinese language upstream intervention may just harm its agriculture and make it tougher to get water.
Already, the federal government of Bangladesh has restricted regulate over the rustic’s water provide as a result of handiest about 7% of the watershed space of the Brahmaputra, Meghna and Ganges – the 3 primary rivers that drift into the rustic – are inside of Bangladesh. Additionally, the quantity of water that in the long run reaches Bangladesh is considerably decreased as a result of dam actions by way of China and India have restricted the drift.
Local weather exchange has made the location worse by way of converting the best way water flows around the Himalayas and the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin. As an example, the Bangladesh delta, probably the most fertile and densely populated spaces on the earth, is already experiencing issues, together with salinity intrusion, emerging sea ranges and the lack of arable land.
In 2019, the Bangladesh Prime Courtroom dominated that the rustic’s rivers had the similar standing as a “legal person” in a bid to award them additional coverage. This was once then adopted by way of a choice by way of Bangladesh to sign up for the U.N. Water Conference.
Created in 1996, the conference seeks to advertise cooperation and sustainable control of shared water assets. In the beginning, it was once supposed just for Ecu and Central Asian nations. However in 2016, it become to be had to all U.N. member nations.
Bangladesh had first of all behind schedule signing because of a mixture of diplomatic, regional and institutional causes and out of a priority over how it might impact family members with its tough neighbor, India.
Implications for India
India has historically most popular bilateral agreements to get to the bottom of cross-border water problems, such because the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan and the 1996 Ganges water-sharing treaty with Bangladesh.
Then again, India’s bilateral technique is fraying. The Indus Waters Treaty has been briefly suspended following combating between Pakistan and India.
In a similar way, New Delhi’s water cooperation with Bangladesh is being examined. The sharing of water from the Teesta, a big tributary of the Brahmaputra, has lengthy been a supply of war between the 2 nations, with Bangladesh pushing for what it sees as a fairer distribution.
Bangladesh has additionally hostile Indian dams, such because the Tipaimukh at the Barak, over considerations about how they’ll impact the surroundings and folks’s lives. For an identical causes, Bangladesh has objected to India’s plans to attach 30 rivers as a part of a large irrigation challenge.
The ripple impact
Whilst India’s govt has issued no respectable touch upon Bangladesh’s becoming a member of the U.N. Water Conference, there are fears in New Delhi that it might undermine India’s negotiating energy in long term water disputes and when the Ganges River Treaty is due for renewal in 2026.
The unique 1996 settlement units out that India and Bangladesh would every get a assured percentage of 35,000 cubic toes consistent with 2nd of water. The fear in New Delhi is that Bangladesh might ask for extra water than at the start specified and that being a part of the U.N. Water Conference provides the Bangladesh govt a extra tough negotiation platform. As such, Bangladesh’s proposition in September 2025 to create a brand new institutional framework to regulate water-sharing agreements with India for 14 transboundary rivers was once seen with suspicion in India.
Incessant rainfall submerges the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Oct. 1, 2025.
Maruf Rahman/NurPhoto by means of Getty Photographs
Renewing the Ganges River Treaty with a framework that provides Bangladesh extra water might put extra tension on jap India, a space already experiencing water shortage, and check India’s water garage capability, particularly all over dry seasons.
Moving political currents
An additional fear for India is that Bangladesh signing onto the U.N. Waters Treaty might set a precedent for different nations within the area, akin to Nepal and Bhutan.
In the meantime, Bangladesh has mulled the theory of forming a trilateral hydro-cooperation with China and Pakistan – two of India’s greatest opponents. An afternoon ahead of signing the U.N. conference, Bangladesh joined China and Pakistan in saying a ‘trilateral cooperation’ at the financial system, local weather and social building.
For Bangladesh, the possible disaster of no longer tackling cascading environmental demanding situations justifies the chance of alienating its way more tough neighbor. However the place does this go away India? In the end, New Delhi should make a strategic selection: Both persist with bilateralism or undertake new multilateral norms to safeguard its water safety and regional energy.
