Climate Change: Considerations for Geographic Combatant Commands PKSOI Paper | Page 29

niently or cheaply by a commercial enterprise.”72 It
is this combination of technical knowledge, training
ability, transparency and existing military-to-military
contacts that may make use of the DoD personnel in
a “pilot model” for this evaluation and monitoring
work advantageous over the standard practice of contracting commercial providers.
Besides the back end project oversight and accountability, the front end project purpose is critical
to making a particular development project attractive
to funding sponsors. The Intelligence Community’s
Assessment on Water makes the judgment that developing countries forego considerable donor funding
because they focus on single-purpose water infrastructure projects that do not provide for sufficient
environmental considerations and preservation of
ecosystem services which are becoming more valued
by the NGO funding sources.73 As a result, the developing countries work bilaterally with private interests
or nation-states such as China that historically do not
attach environmental consideration “strings” to their
project support.74 As part of an ongoing dialogue with
developing countries regarding the natural system
climate change effects, the U.S. senior civilian or military official; e.g. U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, may
be able to reinforce to these nations the importance of
considering the natural ecosystem values in all water
resources-related projects. By seeking this higher order approach, the developing nation would be better
able to access funds from donors that demand consideration of overall ecosystem resources.75 Though
not yet supported by empirical evidence, this effort
may provide the GCC a positional advantage as the
“partner of choice” vis-à-vis competing nations such
as China or Russia in helping the developing nation
address their long-term water resources concerns.
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