WATANI International
According to the World Bank, some 300 million live in the ten countries that share the Nile’s waters. Within the next 25 years, the population is expected to double, and there is a growing demand to harness the river for agricultural and industrial development.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former secretary-general of the UN, has predicted that the next war in the region will be over water.
Gift of the Nile
In ancient Egypt, the Nile was the god Hapi who used to overflow every year, its waters inundating the land and endowing it with its legendary fertility. Egypt was the land of plenty because it was, as the 5th-century Greek historian Herodotus described it, the gift of the Nile.
Today, as in ancient times, most of Egypt’s population lives in the Nile valley—on 4 per cent of the country’s land—and any fall in the water level could be disastrous. While other Nile Basin countries depend largely on rainfall, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Sudan, depend almost entirely on the Nile for their agricultural production and are major users of the river’s waters.
The 20th century saw two agreements concluded between riparian states on the utilisation of the Nile waters. The 1929 Nile Waters Agreement was concluded in Cairo between Egypt and Great Britain, which represented Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and the Sudan. It stated that no works would be undertaken on the Nile, its tributaries and the Lake Basin, that would reduce the volume of the water reaching Egypt. It also gave Egypt the right to inspect and investigate the whole length of the Nile up to the remote sources of its tributaries in these territories. The agreement allocated to Egypt 48 billion cubic metres per year of Nile water as its acquired right, while that of the Sudan was four billion cubic metres per year.
In 1959, the Full Utilisation of the Nile Waters agreement was signed between Egypt and Sudan, allowing the construction of the Aswan High Dam as the major element in control of the Nile waters for the benefit of the two countries. This agreement stipulated that Sudan’s yearly water allotment of the water which flows into the two countries would rise from 4 billion cubic meters to 18.5 billion cubic meters, and Egypt’s would rise to 55 billion. The Sudan was allowed to undertake a series of Nile development projects, such as the Rosieres Dam and the Jonglei Canal.
Conflict
The 1929 agreement has been criticised by east African countries as a colonial relic. And while east African countries are eager to make greater use of the river—especially given more frequent spells of drought—Egypt fears any threat to its lifeblood.
Over the past few years, Egyptians had got used to hearing frequent assurances by officials that Egypt’s share of Nile water was a red line no-one would be allowed to cross. Yet the outcome of the Extraordinary Nile Council of Ministers (NileCom) meeting in Sharm al-Sheikh, which gathered all ten Nile Basin nations and which concluded on 14 April, does not bode well for Egypt, given the upstream nations’ unified position against the downstream ones—Egypt and Sudan.
The NileCom concluded in a statement issued by the upstream nations declaring their intention to found a joint commission charged with deciding on the utilisation of the Nile water. The prospective commission would be established within a year and would exclude Cairo and Khartoum, both of whom refused to sign the statement. The signatories asserted there would be no further negotiations on the issue; given that the Nile Basin nations were supposed to go through a new round of negotiations next July.
Not the end of the road
The Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Eddin Allam said the meeting was not the end of the road for Cairo, whose ties with Nile Basin nations would remain close, he assured.
Yet the problem is indeed serious. A year ago, Egypt sought to increase its annual share in Nile water by 11 billion cubic meters. It is now striving to preserve the status quo, which gives it access to 55.5 billon cubic metres in accordance with the 1959 agreement. According to expert estimates, the annual share per capita in Egypt is expected to fall to as little as 530 cubic meters by 2025. Egypt thus needs to increase its share by 17 billion cubic meters.
In the face of this dilemma, Cairo calls for establishing projects in riparian nations to efficiently use Nile water. Striking as it may be, upstream nations use no more than 5 per cent of Nile water and waste the remaining 95 per cent. This situation stands behind Egypt’s incessant calls for establishing projects to enhance the utilisation of the Nile water and reduce the waste.
Arduous deliberations
“In 1994”, the head of the Arab Water Council and previous Minister of Water Resources in Egypt Mahmoud Abu Zeid says, “Egypt proposed the Nile Basin Initiative which was signed in 1999 by all the Nile Basin countries except for Eritrea, and which focused on two objectives. The first was to implement joint projects involving at least two riparian States to better benefit from the Nile water. The second was to work out a framework agreement to manage Nile water issues. From 1999 till 2007, member States decided on 90 per cent of the articles of the longed-for agreement and a host of projects were studied, which donor countries and the World Bank were willing to finance. In 2008, irrigation ministers of member States agreed to raise the highly controversial issue of Egypt’s and Sudan’s share, but no agreement was reached despite the hours of arduous deliberations. Again, in Kinshasa in April 2009, members proposed signing a water sharing pact while overlooking the issue, and again Egypt refused to ratify the pact without the other signatories explicitly agreeing to its share of Nile water and to the right of Cairo to veto future upstream projects. In a following meeting convened in Alexandria last July, it was agreed to delay the decision on this point for six months.”
“Until I left office,” Dr Abu Zeid said, “there was a consensus among the water ministers of the riparian states to keep Egypt’s share at 55.5 billion cubic metres; the pending issue was how to formulate the text on that.” Dr Abu Zeid dismissed allegations that member States disagreed on two other questions: water security and ways of amending the agreement in the future. As for foreign intervention in matters of distributing Nile water, Dr Abu Zeid said he could not confirm or deny such claims though he could not rule out the possibility that some foreign countries might play on the disagreement.
Matter of national security
For Dr Allam, reaching an agreement on the distribution of Nile water is a top priority. In his year in office, he paid 22 visits to riparian states. Dr Allam said that the Sharm al-Sheikh extraordinary meeting took no decisions. “There was just a statement declaring member states’ position vis-à-vis the outcomes of the Kinshasa and Alexandria meetings. Serious negotiations by ten Nile Basin nations are underway and proceeding in accordance with a certain time framework. The general climate is positive,” he said.
Dismissing as groundless reports about walkouts on the part of some participants, Dr Allam indicated that talks continued until 4:00am and the Burundian minister had to leave a few hours earlier to catch his flight back home. He dubbed the coordination between Egypt and Sudan as “great”. “Egypt and Sudan,” he said, “will not sign a pact unless a compromise is reached on the points of contention, particularly Egypt’s share of Nile water.”
Dr Allam disclosed a presidential Egyptian-Sudanese initiative to found the Nile Basin Commission, with the aim of attracting investments and running development projects to benefit peoples of riparian countries. Over the past two weeks, President Mubarak dispatched ministers of foreign affairs, international cooperation and water resources to Nile Basin nations with messages on the initiative. Egypt already has several ongoing projects that involve irrigation and electricity in riparian nations, and plans to increase such projects. At the end, Dr Allam assured that Egypt would not compromise its current share of Nile water because it was a matter of national security. Yet he stressed the need to engage in serious negotiations and boost bilateral relations between Cairo and riparian countries if an agreement is to be signed.