International Cooperation and Water Resources Management: Hydrophilanthropy, Sustainable Development, and Sustainable co-Development

The paradigm of sustainable development as a strategy of dialogue and communication is of growing interest in the context of international cooperation, in a world of economic, environmental, and societal and demographic interdependence. After a brief discussion of the complexity of the concept of sustainable development, contributing to the difficulty of an operational definition, we introduce sustainable co-development as an operational set of principles and tools for the practical implementation of sustainable development policies in international cooperation, based on mutual trust, shared responsibilities and mutual benefits. Taking history and culture of all partners into account as a facilitator of mutual trust and promoting the role of civil society to increase the sense of responsibility of the partners, sustainable co-development introduces ethical values in economic relationships, combining the generosity of hydro-humanity and hydro-philanthropy and the search for mutual benefits, which is a good condition of sound international cooperation.