Privatization of Turkey’s rivers? The rise of water struggles and AKP government’s responses

Event Type
Water Lecture

Location / Date
Bonn, 12.03.2014

German Development Institut / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungpolitik (DIE) und Center for Development Research / Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF)

Rivers offer a huge potential for the generation of ‘clean’ electricity through hydropower development. But are the environmental impacts of dams really that small and does public interest in the name of renewable energy sources justify expropriation of local populations? In Turkey, these questions lead to heated debates– in midst of already tense relations between the government and civil society. While the Turkish government strongly promotes hydropower development and has created attractive incentives for the private sector, citizens protest against the inadequate protection of the country’s natural resources and impacts on local water and land users.

Mine Islar (Lund University, Sweden) presented her recent study on water struggles in Turkey. Waltina Scheumann (German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik DIE) and Mine Islar then discussed the politics of hydropower development on Turkey’s rivers against the background of prominent disputed cases such as the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris river and the many new projects to be built on the Coruh river in the Black Sea region.

About the Water Lecture

The Water Lecture series is a joint series organized by the Center for Development Research (ZEF), the Hydrological Research Group at the Geography Department (University of Bonn), the Global Water System Project (GWSP), the UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC), the United Nations University (UNU) and the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) in Bonn.

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