BLOG

WATER POLITICS

Via BikyaMasr, an article on Egypt’s and Sudan’s anger over Nile Basin development:

Egypt and Sudan are worried and frustrated over recent developments along the Nile River by countries south of their borders that they say could threaten their own water security.

Their anger comes after East African countries agreed to work together to implement a series of dams that could generate power to their countries and help their development, harnessing the Nile water.

But Sudan and Egypt, which share the majority of the water, are displeased and have threatened action against the upstream nations.

Nile Technical Advisory Committee chairperson Fred Mwango told a Nile Basin Initiative meeting held in Dar es Salaam that Egypt and Sudan were still wary of water security due to their countries’ geographic locations.

“Stretching more than 6,600 kilometers from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, the Nile is a vital water and energy source for the 9 countries through which it flows,” he began.

“It is important in achieving sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilisation and benefit from the common Nile Basin resources,” Mwango told the meeting.

But these projects are still far off, with an expected completion date not for at least one decade. Still, Egypt said that it cannot afford to lose any more water as its burgeoning population continues to grow and the country already faces major water shortages.

All this also comes on the heels of Egypt’s efforts to bring in Ethiopia, which announced it wanted to erect a number of dams along the Nile, adding that it would “not affect” Egypt’s share of water.

“We have agreed to quickly establish a tripartite team of technical experts to review the impact of the dam that is being built in Ethiopia,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said last month in reference to a new team that will look into how the dam creation will affect the entire region as a whole.

Egyptian concerns about water supplies in Egypt and Sudan continue to rise as they refuse to take part in talks on the Entebbe Agreement, recently signed by Nile Countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi.

The Entebbe agreement would re-shuffle Nile water sharing, still regulated by two 1929 and 1959 deals that allow Egypt some 90 percent of the basin.

In order to counterbalance recent construction of Sudanese Merope Dam and prevent shortage in Nile water, the Egyptian government agreed to upend funding the construction of a canal in Sudan to recover swamp water.

A meeting between the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC) in April struck another blow to Egyptian influence on Nile water exploits.

The two delegations signed a memorandum of understanding “to facilitate co-operation in the area of efficient management and sustainable development of the region.” The two organizations represent Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, and Tanzania.

Dams and tanks

Zenawi provided the Italian company Salini Costruttori with a no-bid contract for the construction of the Millennium Dam. The company holds long-standing relations with Zenawi’s government, and managed the construction of several other plants in Ethiopia, including the catastrophic and the more than controversial Gibe 3.

“Gibe 3 is the most destructive dam under construction in Africa. The project will condemn half a million of the region’s most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict,” said director of International Rivers’ Africa Program Terri Hathaway.

Well-positioned sources told Bikyamasr.com that Zenawi might have came out into the open with the Millennium Dam project without carrying out necessary environmental and feasibility studies. This was aimed not to alert downstream countries of his plans and avoid their encroachment.

Apart from this, a main problem lies in the fact that Zenawi lacks the financial capability to uphold this unprecedented project. Former Egyptian President Mubarak repeatedly tried to divert financial aid to upstream countries and hinder their development projects. Nonetheless, after Mubarak’s fall Ethiopia is still unable to find proper funding.

In answer to this, Zenawi launched a nation-wide campaign to support the Millennium Dam, and called for Ethiopians to buy Millennium bonds from the Ethiopian Central Bank in order to fund the dam’s construction. Some regard Zenawi as a benevolent leader, willing to free the country from the bonds of poverty and international dependance. Others doubt the earnestness of his declarations, suspecting that behind this popular campaign hides the attempt to keep the people from thinking of their dire existence and prevent popular uprising.

Sources told Bikyamasr.com “if someone wants [to] start a nationalist campaign, it is better to see people buying bonds for a dam than for tanks.”

But according to PhD candidate Getachew Begashaw, “the government of Meles Zenawi has a bond rating of CCC-, which is less than what is called Junk Bond (BBB- rating by Standard & Poor’s). How such a government with poor rating can be a reliable guarantor of corporate bond is open to question.

“Zenawi is cunningly using the project to perpetually milk the hard earned money of the Ethiopian people, including those in the Diaspora,” added Begashaw.

By raising international tension and by coercing people to pay money for the construction of a much controversial and unpredictable project, Zenawi might easily fill the gap between dams and tanks.

Cooperation and Diversification

The mounting tension between Egypt and Ethiopia finds its root in Egypt’s dependence on the Nile. Water for agricultural, industrial and domestic use and the country’s energetic autonomy depend greatly on the river’s flow. Diversifying water resources in Egypt can be a first step towards relaxing geopolitical tension related to the river’s water and providing the nation with a more reliable water system.

“The immediate answer is to turn towards non-conventional sources such as water recycling, reuse of drainage water, treated industrial and sewage effluents, rainfall harvesting and desalination,” writes Fouad el-Shibini from the National Water Research Centre of Ismailiya.

Desalination plants have been developed on the Saudi Arabian shore or the Red Sea and might be a suitable solution for industrial use also in Egypt. Development plan in the Qattara depression might open new highways to the exploitation of underground and sea waters.