August 3, 2008
The point of departure between the countries was related to the issues to do with water security. These issues began with the two agreements signed during the colonial era that gave Egypt and Sudan extensive rights over the river’s use. Upstream countries, including the East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, have expressed concern over the long-standing arrangements, arguing that the treaties have served to give Egypt unfair control over the use of the river’s waters.
Having failed to agree, once again, on an article about water security issues during their two-day meeting in Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Nile Council of Ministers of water affairs in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) countries, have decided that the issues be resolved by heads of their respective countries.
The Council passed the resolution to transfer making the binding decision over the serious issues of the Nile to Heads of States of NBI countries, whom the Council expects to use their political power to come up with a lasting decision within the coming three months, which is expected to be a move forward for the five-year old NBI. The Heads of States have two alternative decisions to make, according to an expert.
The first is, even if the heads do not reach a consensus themselves, they can pave the way for further dialogue to take place through the established Nile Basin Commission. The second option is to convince the governments of Sudan and Egypt to come to terms with the idea of an equitable use of the Nile water that the rest of the member countries have agreed on.
The NBI legal framework has 35 articles and 66 sub-articles and the Council reached an agreement on all of the articles, except one. Sub-article 14-B of the legal framework is the core of divergence between Sudan and Egypt in one group, and Ethiopia and six other riparian countries in another.
The point of departure is on water security issues which have to do with the two agreements signed during the colonial era – the 1929 Nile Water Agreement and the 1959 Agreement for the Full Utilization of the Nile – that gave Egypt and Sudan extensive rights over the river’s use.
The upstream countries, including the East African Countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, have expressed concern over the long-standing arrangements, arguing that treaties have served to give Egypt unfair control over the use of the river’s waters. None of the colonial treaties involved all the riparian countries and therefore, did deal equitably with the interests of the upstream countries, they say.
“The demand for the use of the water resources is based on the level of development; not on standards set in the past,” Asfaw Dingamo, minister of Water Resources, who also heads the Ethiopian delegation to the Council told Fortune. “We look for a comprehensive agreement. We were not part of the earlier proclamations.”
The members of the NBI are Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda while Eritrea participates as an observer.
Contained within those voluminous waters stretching some 6,000Kms through some of Africa’s most arid lands, is still largely untapped potential for the development of large swathes of the continent. According to the World Bank, the Nile River Basin is home to an estimated 160 million people, while almost 300 million live in the ten countries that that share the waters. In the next 25 years, the population within the basin is expected to double adding to the increased demand for water generated by development in industry and agriculture.
Ethiopia in particular is a country that has not yet benefited from the river; though a study by the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) indicates there is enormous potential.
The Nile – Abay as it is called in Ethiopia – has an irrigation capacity to develop 2.5 million hectares of land, of which 1.7 million could be developed in its vicinity. The remaining 800,000 hct could be irrigated through channeling the water in to the Awash River. It is also believed to have the capacity of generating from 45,000 to 75,000 giga-watts (GW) of electric power energy.
The Ethiopian delegation has been given instructions from the government and it has accordingly made successful negotiations so far, Asfaw said.
The Nile Basin Initiative is a partnership initiated and led by the riparian states through the Council of Ministers of Water Affairs of the Nile Basin states (Nile Council of Ministers or Nile-COM). It seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security.
