NADI 2 Final Report: 2017

India’s North Eastern Region (NER) is surrounded by five countries – Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar with the transboundary river basin of Ganges-BrahmaputraMeghna (GBM) covering around 1.7 million square kilometres, impacting over 620 million lives. Lying underneath the mighty Himalayas, a defining feature of the region is the many rivers that intersect the multiple aspects of livelihood, culture, tourism, trade, connectivity and local community development. Being the pulse of nature, rivers indicate the health of the forests, the soil and all ecological entities that it connects and flows through. Given this profound importance of rivers and water in the ecological and civilisational spaces, Asian Confluence, Shillong organised NADI international river festivals in 2016 and 2017 as a seminal sequel to a series of multi-stakeholder activities with the aim of recognising the role of the ‘third-space’ in connecting, deliberating and envisioning cleaner environment, smooth and cheap connectivity, bustling trade and tourism within the region. The festivals have also been envisaged as a networking platform for interaction among the three spaces (re: first space: Government, second space: industry and third space: people). The broad consensus that emerged as a possible way forward from the 1st NADI International River Festival in 2016 was to re-imagine river development through multi-faceted regional cooperation and stepped-up connectivity. As rivers are envisioned as a metaphor for connecting lands, people, cultures and tradition spurring growth and trade related activities; special emphasis must be laid on promoting best-practices in order to protect and preserve rivers through conscious and planned endeavours. The scope for bilateral and multilateral dialogues needs to be explored in this regard. Better inland navigation system through means of improved river transport facilities should be given more emphasis for development of the region. Connectivity, through a shared river basin would also involve active facilitation of cross-border trade through structural institutions like border haats, as a means to empower local communities. The 1st edition of the festival touched upon the political and diplomatic aspects of regional cooperation, applauding the sub-regional connectivity concepts of Bangladesh – Bhutan – India – Nepal (BBIN). It was suggested that the remit of this emerging arrangement should transcend issues of road connectivity and power-related cooperation to include river development and water resources management. Furthermore, a policy framework for regional tourism with identification of regional circuits and efficient networks to market and service circuits has been suggested at the Government level, with assistance from other relevant stakeholders.