Nile Final

The Quest for Distributive Justice in the Nile River Basin:
The Nile Basin Initiative and Ethiopian Water Security
Humanitarian Aid in Complex Emergencies
Josef Korbel School of International Studies
Winter Quarter 2010
Crystal Edmunds
Water is, and will remain, the most contentious natural resource issue of the 21st century.
International watersheds account for about 60 percent of the world's freshwater supply and are
home to approximately 40 percent of the world's population1. Some 261 of the world's rivers are
shared by two or more countries2. As early as the mid-1980s United States government
intelligence services estimated that there were at least 10 places in the world where war could
break out over shared water3. Exacerbating scare resources is population growth; since 1950, the
renewable supply per person has fallen 58percent as world population has increased from 2.5
billion to 6 billion. By 2015, nearly 3 billion people—40 percent of the projected world
population-- are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize
enough water to satisfy the food, industrial, and domestic needs of their citizens4. In order to
ensure water security, cooperation among citizens, countries, regions and continents is vital.
History shows substantial efforts of cooperation; from 805 to 1984, countries have signed more
than 3,600 water-related treaties5. Further, the overarching lesson gathered from the basins of
the Jordan, the Nile, and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and other regions of water dispute is
not that worsening scarcity will lead inevitably to water wars. It is rather that unilateral actions
to engage in a water development initiatives in the absence of a treaty or institutional
mechanism that safeguards the interests of other countries in the basin is the most destabilizing,
often spurring hostility before cooperation is pursued6. The way the Nile is managed in coming
decades will have worldwide implications7 .
THE NILE BASIN
The Nile basin, home to about 300 million people in 10 African countries, or 40 percent of
Africa's population, has some of the world's worst poverty, hunger and land degradation. With
its population expected to nearly double in 25 years, water security will become more crucial.
The area has long been one of the most contentious in Africa, convulsing with wars and acts of
terrorism8. Eight of the ten countries of the Nile Basin are categorized among the 47 "least
developed countries" (Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern
Nile Basin). Struggle over the Nile Waters has had global political consequences in the past and
could fan existing conflicts in the Horn of Africa and Somalia, threaten the peace agreements in
Sudan, and influence the power balance in the Middle East. Generally, a country is considered to
1 Postel, Sandra L. and Aaron T. Wolf, Dehydrating Conflict, Foreign Policy, Sept. 2001.
<http://www.irisprojects.umd.edu/ppc_ideas/ebulletin/issue7_pdf/dehydrating_conflict.pdf>.
2 Ibid.
3 Starr, J.R., 1991.Water wars . Foreign Policy Vol. 82 (Spring 1991) :17-36.
6 World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2001 <http://
www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/basic_info/basicinfo.html>.
7 Terje Tvedt, The River Nile In The Post-Colonial Age, 2010.
8 Thurow, Roger. Ethiopia Finally Gets Help From the Nile. Wall Street Journal.2004.
<http://www.tecolahagos.com/ethiopia_finally.htm>.

be absolutely water scarce if it has less than 500 cubic meters per capita per annum, as
chronically water scarce with 500-1000 cubic meters per capita per year, and as water stressed
with 1000-1700 cubic meters per person per year. Egypt, Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi fall in
the category of 'chronically water scarce' countries while Kenya is classified as 'water stressed."
Even though Ethiopia does not fit these rankings, they do not take into account seasonal or
geographic differences-- nor the distribution of water resources within a country. (Sustainable
Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin)
The waters of the Eastern Nile Basin mainly encompass Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, while a
small section of the River Tekeze touches on Eritrea near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border.
Historically, the Nile Riparian states have pursued unilateral and conflicting approaches to the
utilization of the shared water resources. Throughout the 20th century,the downstream
countries, Egypt and Sudan, have claimed monopoly of the Nile waters based on an 'historical
and natural rights' doctrine. The downstream countries have used various technical, political,
and military means with the purported aim securing a stable supply of water which originates
outside their borders. (Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile Basin)
Worldwide, agriculture accounts for two thirds of water use worldwide, and 80 to 90 percent
in many developing countries (Dehydrating Conflict). More than 86 percent of the water in the
Eastern Nile Basin is used for agriculture (Sustainable Development and International
Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). The FAO estimated that the amount of irrigable land in
the Nile Basin is greater than the amount of water available in the Basin (Development and
Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). The International Water Management Institute
estimates that 50 percent of the total increase in world water demand could be satisfied by the
year 2025 through increased efficiency in irrigated agriculture (Sustainable Development and
International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). The potential to develop hydro-electric
power in the Nile Basin is enormous; only 1 percent of the estimated potential has so far been
realized (Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin).
The greatest development potential, because of the great differences in altitude, about 58
percent of the total in the Nile Basin, is located in Ethiopia (Sustainable Development and
International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). All the countries in the Nile Basin have
agriculture-based economies, a sector which consumes far more water than other economic
activities-- thus water will forms the foundation of their economies. The agricultural sector will
continue to underpin economic policy in the Nilotic countries as they struggle to meet the needs
of their growing populations. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough
Broth).
According to Thomas Homer-Dixon, whose work has catalyzed research into environmentally
induced conflict, "conflict is most probable when a downstream riparian- a river-bordering
state- is highly dependent on river water and is strong in comparison to upstream riparians." On
the basis of this argument, Homer-Dixon concludes that the Nile Basin is one of the few
international rivers that has the potential to provoke armed conflict between its riparian
nations- the ten countries that share the basin. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many
Cooks, Not Enough Broth) The 4,160 mile Nile is the second longest river in the world, with
great potential for social-economic development, but currently, most of the people who live in
its basin are not benefitting from its possible applications in irrigation to boost modern farming.
(Who Owns the Nile? AllAfrica.com). Dr. Callist Tindimugaya, a commissioner for water
regulation in Uganda's Ministry of Water and Environment, said "Outside Egypt, only 10 per
cent of the Nile basin's hydropower potential has been tapped. He added, "Within the Nile basin,
only 15 per cent of the population is served by electricity while only 40 percent of the irrigable
land has been irrigated," Dr Tindimugaya said. (Development of an Effective Nile Basin

Dialogue).
GEOPOLITICS OF THE NILE
The history of the Nile basin in the age of the British is one of water wars, of hydropolitics on a
grand scale, and of a river empire-stretching from the Mediterranean top the heart of Africa.
(Terje Tvedt, The River Nile In The Post-Colonial Age, 2010) Characterizing the legacy of the
colonial water agreements, Kinfe Abraham, former President of the Ethiopian International
Institute for Peace and Development and former President of Horn of Africa Democracy and
Development. has said that, "after colonizing Egypt in 1882 Sudan, Kenya and Uganda in the
last decade of the 19th century, Britain through political and legal maneuvers tried to ensure the
unobstructed and continuous flow of the Nile River to Egypt. (CommonGoods and the common
good: Transboundary natural resources, principled cooperation, and the Nile Basin Initiative)
All the treaties emphasize the colonialists' unilateralist position by negating the notion of
distributive justice. These agreements fail to accommodate all of the riparian countries of the
basin. They are isolationist, reflecting the then colonial policy of "divide and rule." For strategic
and economic reasons, these treaties were drafted to favor the British colonial interests in Egypt
and Sudan.(CommonGoods and the common good: Transboundary natural resources,
principled cooperation, and the Nile Basin Initiative). Throughout the post-colonial period,
Egypt has been by far the most important actor on the Nile, and has benefited the most. (Terje
Tvedt, The River Nile In The Post-Colonial Age, 2010). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union
helped Egypt build the Aswan High Dam to better manage the flow of the Nile. (Ethiopia Finally
Gets Help From the Nile). That dam was designed to hold two years of successive Nile flows; as
Nasser expressed many times, it would turn Egypt into the 'Japan of Africa' (Terje Tvedt, The
River Nile In The Post-Colonial Age, 2010). The After Egypt shifted to the Western camp, it was
showered with hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. and other allied countries to
rehabilitate and manage its canal network. Ethiopia, which shifted its alliance from West to
East, got mainly military equipment and food aid9. The disparity of fortunes is stark. Egypt has
eight million acres of land irrigated by thousands of miles of Nile canals, while Ethiopia has less
than 500,000 acres of irrigated land. Although Ethiopia's highlands boast vast stretches of
arable land, they must rely on the erratic rains for, at best, one crop each year. Because of its
irrigation supply, Egyptian farmers can annually produce twoor three harvest seasons10.
Ninety-seven percent of Egypt's water comes from the Nile River, and more thanninety-five
percent of the Nile's runoff originates outside of Egypt, in the other eight nations of the basin:
the Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zaire. (Water and
Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security, Gleick: 1993) The fact that Ethiopia
is in an upstream position to all of its transboundary rivers is in itself a major constraint to
development-- downstream countries, fearing negative impacts-- have used political or
economic means to hinder Ethiopia's attempts to utilize the water resources within its own
borders. (Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile Basin). To-date, however, Ethiopia is the country in the
Eastern Nile basin that uses the least amount of water from the Nile run-off. Unilateral planning
and implementation approaches have hindered the possibilities of cooperation and coordinated
development. On the national level, economic and institutional capacities are also limited.
(Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile Basin). Thus far, Ethiopia has only been able to utilize 5 percent
of its total surface water, or a meager 0.6 percent of the water resources of the Nile Basin11.
9
Thurow, Roger. Ethiopia Finally Gets Help From the Nile. Wall Street Journal. 2004.
10
11

No water-sharing agreement has existed between Egypt and Ethiopia until the last decade,
where some 85 percent of the Nile's flow originates, and a war of words has raged
between these two nations for decades. In spite of objections from Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia
maintained that it had a sovereign right to develop the water resources within its borders. The
dispute escalated when Egypt successfully blocked the African Development Bank from assisting
Ethiopia financially with its proposed water development projects. (The Nile River Basin
Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth). Although Egypt still uses its diplomatic
influence to limit international support for Ethiopian projects, financial assistance from
individual Western countries has nonetheless increased considerably in recent years. As a result,
Ethiopia has grown more confident and has been able to counter successfully Egyptian and
Sudanese objections to its water development projects at the diplomatic level. (The Nile River
Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth) As a result of World Bank pressure, Egypt
has agreed to a shift in its foreign policy over the Nile water issue. Egypt's economy is in a
precarious state, the problem became more acute after the World Bank sharply reduced its
lending to the country, from $550 million in 1990 to approximately $50 million in 2000. This
changing economic landscape has practically forced its long-standing policy of defending its
disproportionate consumption of Nile waters based on the principle of acquired rights. (The Nile
River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth)
Ethiopia's water development plans pose the most serious threat to Egypt's water supply.
Thus far, Ethiopia has only been able to irrigate 190,000 hectares of land, but estimates show
that up to 3,637,000 hectares are suitable for irrigation. Of the 110 billion cubic meters of
renewable fresh water that originate in the Ethiopian highlands, only 3 percent remains in the
country, whereas the rest are lost flows to the lowlands in neighboring countries. (Zewdie Abate,
Water Resources Development in Ethiopia: An Evaluation of Present Experience and Future
Planning Concepts: 1994). In 1979, President Anwar Sada declared "The only matter that could
take Egypt to war again is water." His unveiled threat was not directed at Israel, but at Ethiopia,
the upstream neighbor that controls 85 per cent of the headwaters of Egypt's life line, the Nile
river. (Water Wars) Egpyt's former foreignminister and former secretary general of the United
Nations, Boutros Boutros Ghali, maintains that the "national security of Egypt is...a question of
water" (Water Wars). Boutros Boutros Ghali also said that "the next war in our region will be
over the waters of the Nile, not politics" (Gleick, Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and
International Security, 1993).
International cooperation between Ethiopia and the downstream states of the eastern Nile
was unthinkable before the end of the Cold War. The ending of the Cold War has reshaped the
behavior of the states in the Eastern Nile Basin, accepting one another's interests (Ethiopia and
the Eastern Nile Basin). Further, since the early 1990s, Egypt has faced a major threat to its
water supply, mainly from Ethiopia. (The Nile Basin Iniative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough
Broth). Egypt has changed its policy and diplomatic strategy: the military option is now publicly
discarded, and has since focused on fostering cooperation and goodwill among the countries in
the basin (Hosam E. Rabie Eleman, The River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age, 2010). For
example, fter the Sudan Peace Agreement, Egypt offered support to build up an irrigation
administration in South Sudan.
ETHIOPIAN WATER SECURITY
In the history of Ethiopia, more than 42 droughts and famines have been recorded (NMSA
1996). Since the epic famine of 1984, when nearly one million people died, Ethiopia has been hit

by a series of droughts and food shortages with each one threatening more people12. As the
country's Minister of Water Resources Shiferaw Harso said, "The international community has
to understand this, rather than just give us food handouts. This year, the U.S. gives us $500
million in food aid and it's gone within one year. People get the food, but it never brings
additional value for the country. If this money goes to a power project or irrigation, it can keep
on helping every year13." Increased agricultural production to meet Ethiopia's food and fiber
needs can only be realized by harnessing the water resources of the Nile. Dependence on annual
rainfall, which is temporally and spatially variable, has led to repeated drought and famine, as
well as rampant environmental degradationin Ethiopia. (Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile River
Basin).
Since the 1920s, successive Ethiopian governments have perceived the nation's water
resources as a key component of economic development. The first and second five-year plans,
published in 1956 and 1962 respectively, focused a lot of attention on the development of
hydroelectric power. The third five year plan (1968-1973) placed priority on developing small
head-water streams for less expensive irrigation plans. During the military socialist regime,
hydrological and meteorological services were expanded, the Ethiopian Valleys Development
Study Authority and Water Technology Institute were established, and functions of specialized
institutions under the Ethiopian Water Resources Commission were expanded. The Ten-Year
Perspective Plan (1984-1993) outlined the objectives and strategies of the country's water
resources development for the decade and beyond-- the plan earmarked 42.5 percent of the
budget for developing large and medium scale irrigation schemes and 4.5 percent for
establishing the Water Technology Institute and for expanding the national hydrological and
meteorological services.
The government is now implementing is 15-year strategic plan in the water sector
(2002-2016). The immediate priorities articulated in the three phases of the plan include
expanding irrigated agriculture to the maximum extent possible, producing hydroelectric power
commensurate with the needs of electricity in the economic and social sectors of the country,
and providing water for the country's industrial development. However, despite Ethiopia's water
development strategies, the country has not yet been able to embark on an actual water
resources development program. Four main reasons may be attributed to the delay: the
protracted civil wars and political instability have derailed the nation's attention away from
development in general and water resources development in particular; Ethiopia has lacked the
financial resources to make the costly investment in water resources development on its own;the
upstream and downstream countries have viewed one another with suspicion and hostility and
have been engaged in subversive activities and proxy wars; and foreign investment could not be
attracted due to the prevailing political and economic environments (Ethiopia and the Eastern
Nile Basin).
Foreign aid accounts for 90 percent of Ethiopia’s national budget. In order to diversify and
develop its economy, the government of Ethiopia has initiated an aggressive plan to develop
hydropower for export, long seen as one of the country’s few exploitable resources. The plan
calls for over US$7 billion in electricity sector investments by 2015, of which 90 percent will be
financed by debt. (International Rivers, Gibe 3 Report). Ethiopia's Ministry of Water Resources
estimates its rivers, chiefly the Blue Nile, have the potential to produce more than 15,000
12
13

megawatts of power and irrigate nearly nine million acres -- if it gets the cooperation and
investment. These dams could produce enough energy not only to supply Ethiopia's domestic
demand but also to feed into Egypt's extensive power grid for sale to users all the way up to
Europe. The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation has signed agreements with Sudan and
Djibouti to export electric power14.
HISTORY OFCOOPERATIVEMEASURES
-The first agreement exclusively dealing with sharing and allocating the water of the Nile was
signed in 1929 between Sudan, represented at the time by Great Britain, and Egypt. The
agreement allocated forty-eight billion cubic meters of water to Egypt and four billion to Sudan.
From the early 1930s Sudan gradually adopted irrigated agriculture and the demand for water
increased. The agreement required that other countries that share waters of the River Nile to
seek permission from Cairo before embarking on any large scale projects on the river. (Who
Owns the Nile River? AllAfrica.com)
-After a period of bilateral tension, negotiations resumed and a new agreement was signed in
in 1959. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth). By the terms of a
1959 agreement, significantly called the “Treaty for the Full Utilization of the Nile,” Egypt and
Sudan divided the annual flow between them with 55.5 billion cubic meters going to Egypt, 18.5
billion cubic meters to Sudan, and the remaining 12% allocated to surface evaporation and
seepage at the Aswan High Dam reservoir (Playing Chickenon the Nile! The Implications of
Microdam Development in the Ethiopian Highlands and Egypt's New Valley Project). Further,
since the mid 1980s, Sudan has been planning its own water development schemes to support
an increase in food production. The country has been studying the possibility of introducing a
new irrigation system which could raise demand for river water, by as much as ten billion cubic
meters annually. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth)
-In 1967, Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda launched the Hydromet Project (the
Intergovernmental Committee for the hydro-meteorological survey of Lake Victoria, Kyoga, and
Lake Albert) with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program and the World
Meteorological Organization. The purpose of the project was to evaluate the water balance of the
Lake Victoria catchment area in order to assist in regulating the water level of the lake and the
water flow of the Nile. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth) It
also envisaged laying the groundwork for intergovernmental cooperation in the storage,
regulation and use of the Nile waters. (Common Goods and the commongood: Transboundary
natural resources, principled cooperation, and the Nile Basin Initiative). The project lasted 25
years, but did not include Ethiopia.
-Undugu, or Brotherhood in Swahili, was launched by Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, the DRCC and
the Central African Republic in 1983. The wide ranging but general objectives included
consultation on infrastructure, culture, environment, telecommunications, energy, trade, and
water resources. The brotherhood was not framed to address the real issues of concern to
Ethiopia-- the utilization and management of the Nile Waters. Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia were
'observers' (Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile Basin).
-As Hydromet ended, the Technical Committee for Promotion of the Development and
Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin was introduced. The committee included Egypt,
Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda,and the DRC. The committee formed a 'Nile Basin Action
14

Plan;' the issues of water utilization and management were not being resolved in a manner
satisfactory to all countries. (Ethiopia and the Eastern Nile Basin)
-In 1995, the Council of Ministers of Water Affairs, the supreme governing body of the Nile
Basin Initiative, requested the World Bank take a lead role in coordinating the inputs of external
agencies to finance and implement the Nile River Basin Action Plan. (CommonGoods and the
common good: Transboundary natural resources, principled cooperation, and the Nile Basin
Initiative)
-The Nile 2002 Conference series was also working to create a basin-wide initiative. In 1997 a
Panel of Experts, three from each country, were instructed by their ministers for water affairs to
come up with a cooperative legal and institutional framework for all the Nile Basin countries. A
negotiating committee was delegated by the nine Nile Basin countries to deliberate on the text.
While waiting for the legal and institutional framework to materialize, the governments of the
Nile Basin countries launched the Nile Basin Initiative in 1999 (Sustainable Development and
International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin) Ethiopia, for the first time, is a part of the
initiative.
-The World Bank is coordinating an International Consortium for Cooperation on the Nile,
which promotes transparent financing for cooperative water resources development and
management on the basin. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough
Broth)
THE NILE BASIN INITIATIVE
A more equitable sharing of the Nile, many believe, will help relieve such misery and tension
in the region. The World Bank and the U.N. are spearheading the Nile Basin Initiative, started in
the late 1990s to foster cooperation among the Nile countries. Egypt wants to have a hand in
those projects, even offering to provide expertise and investment15. Egyptians see some potential
economic upside, including the possibility of joint hydroelectric ventures. For the first time in
history, all the Nile riparian states have expressed their commitment to a joint initiative. This
ambitious project has been greeted with caution though, since previous basin-wide initiatives
have failed to produce a lasting framework for sharing and allocating the Nile's water flows and
its history of tense relations between some Nile Basin countries. (The Nile River Basin Initiative:
Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth). Ethiopia is concerned that downstream countries will
attempt to prevent implementation of water development projects by blocking investments of
international institutions and funding agencies. (Sustainable Development and International
Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). Further, critics are skeptical of Ethiopia's motives,
accusing Ethiopia of clandestine dambuilding projects supported by Israel and the U.S. to block
the Nile waters and starve Egypt16.
The NBI is a transitional mechanism for working together until the permanent Cooperative
Framework is agreed upon. The "D3" project and the Negotiating Committee are the forums
within the NBI where this future Cooperative Framework is being discussed and developed
(Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). The
organizational structure is composed of the Nile COM, the council of ministers whose members
are the ministers of water resources of the basin countries, and Nile TAC, which is the Nile
Technical Advisory Committee and is composed of two members of each country. (Sustainable
15
16

Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin).
The NBI has programs operating at two levels: a shared vision program at the basin level and
a subsidiary action program at the sub-basin level (Sustainable Development and International
Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin). The NBI has two complementary tracks: a basin-wide
Shared Vision Program and a sub-basin Subsidiary Action Program. The SVP aims to pave the
way for the SAP and to strengthen cooperation in the Nile Basin by building human and
institutional capacity, and by creating the opportunity for basin-wide dialogue. The SAP intends
to identify and implement water resource development projects that confer mutual benefits to
the Nile Basin nations (Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern
Nile Basin). Ethiopia belongs to the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP); Ethiopia
is now fully engaged in the seven programs of the "shared vision" and in ENSAP development
projects (Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin).
The Eastern Nile Council of Ministers decided to establish a secretariat to oversee the
implementation of various ENSAP projects (Sustainable Development and International
Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin)
Ethiopian experts actively participated and contributed to the formulation of projects for the
Eastern Nile Basin subsidiary action plan. Ethiopia readily paid its fair share of fees in support
of the NBI-- demonstrating a serious commitment to on the part of the government to develop
the water resources in the NBI (Sustainable Development and International Cooperation in the
Eastern Nile Basin)
In 2000, the water ministers of Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan endorsed the Eastern Nile
Subsidiary Action Program. The agreed cooperation is comprised of the following nine areas--
irrigation and drainage; hydroelectric power development and pooling; watershed management;
sustainable management of lakes and wetland systems; water regulation dams or check dams;
flood and drought management; pollution control and water quality management; water use
efficiency improvement; and integrated water resources management. (Sustainable
Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin) In 2000 Ethiopia
proposed 13 hydroelectric power projects, eight irrigation projects, and 25 watershed
management projects. As part of the new sub-basin venture, Egypt and Sudan have opted to
take part in the construction and expansion of irrigation enterprises in Ethiopia. (Sustainable
Development and International Cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin).
In June 2007, the basin countries agreed on all 39 articles that had been proposed in the new
treaty, except part (b) of Article 14 which speaks about water security. Dr Mohamed El-Din
Allam, the Egyptian minister for water and irrigation, who is also the current chairperson of the
Nile Council of Ministers, said river management agreements are not easy to achieve and it can
take decades to be resolve. He cited the Columbia and Senegal basin initiatives which took
decades before countries could reach an agreement. (Future Wars Could Be Fought Over Rivers,
Lakes, AllAfrica.com: January 2010)
In December 2009, apart from Egypt, all the nine countries say they are ready to sign the
cooperative frameworkagreement and have called for a speedy process. Eng. Shilingi-Mugisha,
the acting director at the Directorate of Water Development who represented Uganda at the
conference, called for a speedy commitment from countries to sign a final agreement. "It is
through a cooperative agreement that we canengage in more sustainable projects that will help
us develop ourcountries," he said. (Egypt delays Nile Basin Treaty, AllAfrica.com: December
2009)
The Initiative is yet to formalise a comprehensive agreement for allocating the Nile resources.

But at the moment all these efforts remain more on paper than practise, with Egypt threatening
to declare war on any nation that flouts the two colonial treaties. (Future Wars Could Be Fought
Over Rivers, Lakes, AllAfrica.com: January 2010)
Nile Day is an annual event organized in the Nile riparian countries to mark the historic day
in 1999 when the NBI was launched by the Council of Ministers of water affairs in the Nile Basin
countries. On February 22, 2010 it was announced that water affairs ministers of the Nile Basin
countries have agreed to hold a third round of negotiations on the Framework Nile Basin
agreement. (Nile Basin Countries to Celebrate Nile Day, AllAfrica.com: February 2010)
CURRENT PROJECTS IN NBI AND IN ETHIOPIA
The biggest and most ambitious ongoing project is not part of the NBI. It is fundamentally
altering a remote area at the tail end of a Africa's deepest canyon (2,000 meters deep in places)
cut by the Tekeze River. In this remote and stunningly beautiful canyon, construction is
underway on a huge dam.At 185 meters high, Tekeze Dam looms 10 meters higher that the
gigantic Three Gorges Dam on China's Yangtze River. Tunnels several kilometers long are being
driven through the rocks, and will divert the water of the Tekeze into a huge reservoir,
generating 225 MW of power, thus increasing Ethiopia's installed capacity by nearly one third.
Because Addis Ababa became impatient with the slow pace of negotiations at the Nile Basin
Initiative, four years ago the government decided to go it alone on this project. (International
Rivers, Ethiopia's Water Dilemma). Addis Ababa found a sympathetic financier for the $224
million project. The state-owned China Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering
Corporation not only undercut all other competitors, but also offered valuable experience with
mega-projects because of its involvement in the Three Gorges Dam. "Tekeze Dam is for Ethiopia
what Three Gorges is for China“, claimed Sun Yue, Director of the international department of
the CWHRC, at the contract signing ceremony. (International Rivers, Ethiopia's Water
Dilemma)
David Grey, the World Bank's Senior Water Advisor for Africa, contends that large-scale
dams like Tekezze would be to the advantage of Ethipia's poor."There is no precedent for a
country developing without harnessing its rivers and utilizing its water resources," says David
Grey. (International Rivers, Ethiopia's Water Dilemma). This dam's power will go mainly to the
cities or will be sold to neighbors with more developed industrial economies, and the water will
irrigate fields downstream in the lowlands. But the poor –like Tadesse Desta, who year after
year are in need of food aid – live in the densely populated highlands far above the dams. The
expansion of irrigation will only benefit richer farmers and foreign-owned plantations, because
they have the influence and the money to make use of the new opportunities, developed with
public money. Such developments also don't mean that there will be more food, because the
production of low-priced food crops for local markets is is not considered economically viable
against the cost of new large dams. Instead, water and newly reclaimed lands will be used for the
production of flowers, fruits or spices for export, or for cotton and sugar cane – water for cash
and for profit, not for food. (International Rivers, Ethiopia's Water Dilemma)
The priority for water development in Ehtiopia should be many thousands, even tens of
thousands, of small and medium sized dams like the one in Adi Nifas, says Helmut Spohn, who
has been assigned by the German funding agency Bread for the World to assist small farmers in
Ethiopia. The dams should be accompanied by afforestation, gully plugging and terrassing of the
hills to avoid further erosion of the remaining soils. That would allow the rains to seep into the
ground and recharge groundwater and aquifers which still are the best and cheapest water
storage, releasing it slowly over time, giving new life to perennial streams. It would also stop
soil, sand and stones from being washed into the rivers with every rain. (International Rivers,
Ethiopia's Water Dilemma)
Ethiopian engineers calculate the Koga irrigation would use less than one-tenth of 1 percent
of the Nile flow reaching the Ethiopia-Sudan border. When the African Development Bank
notified the Egyptians it was considering financing the $50 million Koga project, Cairo gave its

support. "They are really suffering in Ethiopia," says Abdel Fattah Metawie, the chairman of the
Nile water sector in Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation. Without development
in the Blue Nile basin, he says, "you have to expect a crisis in the area17 ."
CONCLUSION
In the absence of cooperation between upstream and downstream countries, the unilateral,
state-centric approach that the major riparian countries have been pursuing is untenable in the
long run. (The Nile River Basin Initiative: Too Many Cooks, Not Enough Broth) As a senior
Ethiopian official warns, "In fact, the failure of NBI would meanmore mistrust and suspicion
among the riparian states, frustration on the part of the facilitators, and a full-fledged
unilateralism, which would be a recipe for a conflict over the utilization of Nile
waters." (Cooperating on the Nile: Not a Zero-sum Game)
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