Water-Short African States Near An Ancient, Elusive Goal: A Pact To Share The Nile
After three years of closed-door talks, nine nations are quietly edging toward a deal to jointly oversee the waters of the Nile, an agreement that has eluded (undsluppet) lands along the great river since the days of the pharaohs.
An expected meeting of water ministers next month may produce a preliminary accord, officials say. Such a pact would right a colonial-era wrong that reserved the worlds longest river for irrigation in Egypt and Sudan, effectively denying its waters to Uganda and other upriver countries.
Nature may be pushing political leaders toward compromise, said Gordon Mumbo of the Nile Basin Initiative, an umbrella office in Entebbe, Uganda for joint activities among the riverine nations. Drought and heat have lowered the level of nearby Lake Victoria, the vast lake that spills an outlet stream northward to start the Niles over 6.000 kilometres meander (vandring).
The long-term vision sees irrigated crops from central Africa feeding Egypt, for example, and Ethiopian dams supplying hydroelectric power across the region. Even millennia back, Egypts pharaonic empire tried to push its rule south to ensure no one would block their Nile lifeline.
The dispute today, when almost all Egypts water comes from the river, is rooted in a 1929 treaty that – with a 1959 side deal – guarantees 89 percent of the river flow for Egypt and Sudan, and forbids people upriver to build, without Egyptian approval, irrigation or other projects that might significantly reduce water volume. Egypt maintains river inspectors in Uganda even today.
That original treaty was negotiated between Egypt and Britain. The 1929 treaty did not cover sovereign Ethiopia, source of the Blue Nile, which merges with the White Nile in Sudan. But Ethiopias deep poverty, and Egyptian diplomatic pressure and military threats, kept it from diverting the waters. In addition, the World Bank, prime lender, refrains from financing projects that might harm downriver countries without their approval.
The agreement among Nile nations – also including Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, all of which contain remote river sources – will not assign (fordele) shares of river water, but will formalize the principle of equal voices and establish a nine-nation commission to tackle detailed issues later.
Even with a framework agreement, however, the way ahead is not clear. – The feasibility studies have been done, but the finances are not there, said the Nile Basin Initiatives Mumbo.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
