Nile River row: Could it turn violent?

The giggles started when the seventh journalist in a row said that his question was for Egypt’s water and irrigation minister, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam.
The non-Egyptian media gave him a bit of a hammering at last week’s talks in Addis Ababa for the nine countries that the Nile passes through.

Allam bared his teeth when a Kenyan journalist accused him of hiding behind “colonial-era treaties” giving his country the brunt of the river’s vital waters whether that hurt the poorer upstream countries or not, Reuters reports.

“You obviously don’t know enough about this subject to be asking questions about it,” he snapped before later apologising to her with a kiss on the cheek.

Five of the nine Nile countries — Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya — last month signed a deal to share the water that is a crucial resource for all of them. But Egypt and Sudan, who are entitled to most of the water and can veto upstream dams under a 1929 British-brokered agreement, refused.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi have not signed yet either and analysts are divided on whether they will or not. Six Nile countries must sign the agreement for it to have any power but Egypt says even that wouldn’t change its mind. The five signatories — some of the world’s poorest countries — have left the agreement open for debating and possible signing for up to a year.

Tensions were clearly still running high after two days of negotiations in Addis and despite grinning around the table and constantly referring to each other as “my brother”, the ministers always seemed in danger of breaking into bickering.

When the Sudanese water minister said his country was freezing cooperation with the Nile Basin Initiative — the name given to the ten-year effort to agree on how to manage the river — Ethiopia’s water minister loudly protested to the media that his Sudanese colleague had not revealed that during their private meetings.

Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abul Naga, arrived in Addis Ababaon Wednesday to again meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

It’s no surprise that the spat is getting a lot of press in both Ethiopia and Egypt.

“Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” people like to say in a country that worshipped the river as a God in ancient times. “If Egypt is a gift of the Nile, then the Nile is a gift of Ethiopia,” Ethiopians shoot back with growing confidence.

And they have a point. More than 85 percent of the waters originate in Ethiopia, which relies on foreign aid for survival and sees hydropower dams as a potential cash cow and central to its plans to become one of Africa’s only power exporters.

But Egypt is not for turning. Almost totally dependent on the Nile for its agricultural output (a third of its economy) and already worried about climate change, it is determined to hold onto its 55.5 billion cubic metres of water a year, a seemingly unfair share of the Nile’s total flow of 84 billion cubic metres.

The Egyptians point out that they don’t benefit from rains like the upstream countries. Everybody, it seems, has valid points. Nobody is budging. Now some regional analysts are even saying the row could turn into the world’s first major water war and similar thoughts are being expressed in cafes from Cairo all the way upriver to Dar es Salaam.

So what next? The nine countries are due to meet again in Nairobi sometime between September and November. But where is the way forward? Who will blink first? And who really should? Could this bickering turn violent?

Reuters 

To Egypt's chagrin, Burundi joins controversial Nile Basin pact

by Ahmed Zaki Osman


Burundi has officially joined several fellow upstream countries in an alternative Nile Basin initiative, allowing the pact to come into force without Egypt’s approval.

Tensions in the Nile Basin between upstream and downstream countries have long been a key diplomatic issue for Egypt.

Six upstream countries have so far signed on to the Entebbe-based Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), which will establish the Nile Basin Commission, a body mandated with deciding on river projects in basin countries.

“Burundi took advantage of recent political turmoil in Egypt and hurried to sign the initiative. It knows that Cairo has its hands full with domestic issues after the removal of [former president Hosni] Mubarak,” said Amany al-Taweel, an expert in African affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

After 18 days of massive protests, sit-ins, marches and civil disobedience, Mubarak was forced on 11 February to leave the office he had occupied for 30 years.

In November, after a meeting with Mubarak, Burundian Presidential Adviser Mohammad Rokara had said that his country would “never take a position that conflicted with Egypt's interests.”

Egypt's population of some 85 million draws about 90 percent of its water needs from the Nile. Officials, for their part, warn that the alternative water agreement would be unable to provide Egypt’s growing population with its water needs beyond 2017.

Critics have often blamed Egypt’s ousted president for ignoring Africa and for failing to deepen Egypt’s strategic ties with the states of the Nile Basin.

Experts also blast Egyptian foreign policy for being slow to deal with perceived threats to the strategically-important river. They accuse it of encouraging Nile Basin countries to seek alternatives to the historical agreements that have regulated usage of Nile water resources for most of the last century.

“Egyptian diplomats go everywhere except Africa. Mubarak was always in Sharm El-Sheikh while his foreign minister [Ahmed Abul Gheit] was touring Europe. There was no interest whatsoever in the African continent,” said columnist and pan-Arab political activist Ahmed al-Gamal.

“It’s time to reconsider Africa as a priority in our foreign policy. We can provide technical assistance for electricity projects and farming expertise on the basis that we are equal. There shouldn’t be a sense of Egyptian superiority,” added al-Gamal.

Hussein al-Otaify, Egypt’s newly-appointed minister of irrigation and water resources, held an urgent meeting with other concerned state bodies. Al-Otaify has said his ministry would draft an “urgent plan of action” in order to deal with the Nile issue, stressing that Egypt planned to take part in several bilateral projects with Nile Basin countries while calling on upstream states to preserve “Egypt’s historical rights in the Nile.”

Last year, after a decade of talks, four upstream basin countries--Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia--signed a pact allowing for what they said was a more equitable use of Nile water.

Under the Cooperative Framework Agreement, Ethiopia intends to build dams and export power to neighboring countries, while also establishing a host of irrigation projects.

Egypt and Sudan, both of which condemned the pact, have argued that their respective water supplies would be dangerously reduced if upstream countries were allowed to divert the flow of the river without multilateral consultation.

Egypt says that all Nile Basin countries must approve any initiatives involving the river to ensure that its traditional share remains unaffected, in accordance with international treaties signed in 1929 and 1959.

In 1929, imperial Britain, representing a number of Nile Basin countries, signed a deal with the Egyptian government for the distribution of Nile water. The terms of the treaty granted Egypt 55.5 billion square meters of water annually, out of the estimated 84 billion square meters that flow through Sudan every year.

East African countries have long complained about the negative effects of the colonial-era 1929 treaty, which allows Egypt to veto any irrigation or hydro-power projects proposed by upstream countries.

Under a 1959 Nile water agreement with Sudan, Egypt receives the lion's share of Nile water. Sudan, the next largest recipient, is allotted 18 billion cubic meters per year. This means that the two downstream countries account for more than 90 percent of all Nile water.

Such agreements have effectively given Egypt veto rights over all upstream projects.

“Egypt has applied a strategy that puts emphasis on the authority and validity of the traditional treaties of 1929 and 1959,” said al-Taweel.

Egyptian experts argue that disputes between Egypt and Nile Basin countries are of a "technical" rather than “political” nature. They assert that there is more than enough Nile water for all countries of the Nile Basin.

“The foreign policy of post-Mubarak Egypt will not abandon the strategy of commitment to the traditional treaties, but Cairo will show more interest in cooperating--economically and strategically--with other Nile Basin states,” al-Taweel said.

While upstream nations have refused to change the newly signed Cooperative Framework Agreement as per Cairo’s requests, the NBI scheduled an extraordinary meeting in January aimed at changing Egypt’s mind about the accord.

The meeting, however, was cancelled due to Egypt’s popular uprising, but is now slated to take place in Nairobi later this month.

Moreover, an African summit on Nile water usage, originally scheduled to be held in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in January, was also cancelled as a result of recent political turbulence.

www.almasryalyoum.com

Egypt threatened to use force over threats to Nile waters - Wikileaks

by Jeff Otieno

The government of the ousted Egyptian strongman, Hosni Mubarak, at one time considered the use of force if upstream countries threatened its historical rights to the use of the Nile waters.

The administration was incensed by riparian states insistence on using the Nile for irrigation and other water consuming projects.

According to confidential cables sent to Washington by American diplomats based in Cairo, the Mubarak administration viewed access to its quota of Nile waters as a national security issue, “and a creation of a system that threatens this quota will be seen as an existential threat.”

The documents, written in 2009 and released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, said Egypt felt its existence as a nation was under threat, following the failure of upstream countries to guarantee access to 55.5 billion cubic metres of water annually.

“Upstream countries led by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda argued that climate change has changed the circumstances, making it difficult to rely on rain-fed agriculture, and they need to use Nile water for agriculture, power, fisheries and other water-dependent industries necessary for their security,” said one of the cables sent by the US embassy in Cairo.

Egypt, however, with some support from Sudan, maintained that downstream countries must approve any water use by upstream countries that could reduce their “guaranteed quotas” and threaten their existence.

The use of the Nile, the world’s longest river, has in the recent past become controversial with analysts warning that it might be a potential for water wars is not carefully handled.

The Nile is an important resource for millions of people in East, Central and North Africa.

It has improved food security through fishing and farming, helped many access electricity generated by hydropower plants and contributed to the growth of agro-based industries, employing millions of people.

The major dams on the Nile are Roseires Dam, Sennar Dam, Aswan High Dam, and Owen Falls Dam.

The Nile Basin Initiative was established in 1999, by riparian states to promote co-operation and equitable use of the waters.

The members are Burundi, D.R Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

All the upstream countries, except Burundi and D.R Congo, have already signed the Nile Basin Draft Agreement, which has been contested by Egypt and Sudan.

If the two upstream countries sign the document, this year, it will pave the way for ratification of a pact that strips Egypt of its veto powers to the flow of the Nile.

Egypt pointed fingers at Kenya and Tanzania for being vocal about using Nile water for development “and have made domestic political promises to do so.”

“According to Khalil, Kenya accused Egypt of taking Lake Victoria water to cultivate two million acres of food in Uganda. Metawie stated that diminishing water levels are as a result of Uganda releasing water for power generation, not agricultural cultivation,” says one of the documents.

The destiny of the new Egypt is to become the lion of Africa

Both Rafik Khalil and Fattah Metawie, were part of the delegation dispatched to negotiate with the other riparian states on the use of the resource.

The delegation insisted that attempts by the upstream states to set up a Nile River Basin Commission laid ground for “abuse of Nile Waters” and violated the spirit of “consensus.”

The East African

Burundi signs accord on use of Nile River water

by David Malingha Doya

Burundi became the sixth nation to sign an agreement on water usage from the Nile River, enabling ratification of an accord that may strip Egypt of its veto power over rights to the flow from the world’s longest river.

“The government of Burundi sent an e-mail to technical advisory committee members confirming they have signed and asked us to join them in congratulating them upon this landmark achievement,” said Shillingi Mugisha, a member of the Nile Technical Advisory Committee.

A 1929 treaty brokered by the former colonial power, Britain, granted Egypt a veto over projects that may alter the flow of the Nile. A 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan claimed 90 percent of the Nile’s flow for the two countries.

The so- called Cooperative Framework Agreement, signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in May, will establish a commission to oversee dam building and irrigation development, effectively stripping Egypt of the veto. Almost all of Egypt’s water supply comes from the Nile.

“We are happy to join our colleagues in East Africa in signing this agreement,” Burundian Water and Environment Minister Jean-Marie Nibirantije said in a phone interview today from Bujumbura, the Burundian capital.

Egypt warned in April, before the five countries signed the accord, that it would withdraw from the Nile Basin Initiative, a nine-member convention on cooperation in the Nile basin known as the NBI, if the seven upstream states signed the accord.

A sixth signatory was needed for the CFA to come into force and once it has been ratified by the six national legislatures, a Nile Basin Commission will be created. The remaining upstream nation, Eritrea, wasn’t involved in talks leading to the accord. The CFA states that the commission will resolve the issue of water security in its first six months of operations.

Abdel Fattah Metawie, head of the unit responsible for Nile water in the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, didn’t respond to e-mailed questions sent today seeking comment. Egypt and Sudan in January asked Nile basin countries to meet to discuss the legal implications of not all riparian states signing the agreement.

“The meeting was postponed because of the political problem in Egypt, but could take place next month,” Ethiopian Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu said in a Feb. 22 interview from Goma, in eastern Congo.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, which led a campaign for countries to sign the agreement in 2009, plans to sign the accord at an unspecified future date, Environment Minister Jose Endundo said in an interview on Feb. 22.

Some projects being considered on the Nile include a 60 to 80-megawatt hydropower plant at Rusumo Falls to serve Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi, according to information from NBI. Building the power-generation plant and cross-border transmission lines over the next four years may cost $350 million, it said.

“For the actual investment projects like irrigation schemes, watershed management, electricity generation and transmission, we estimated the cost at $784 million in 2010,” Khairy Wael, executive director of the NBI, said in a Feb. 22 interview from Goma. “We forecast investment to be $2.4 billion by 2014.”

The Nile River’s average discharge is about 300 million cubic meters per day, according to the website of the Nile Basin Initiative. Ethiopia is the source of about 85 percent of the water that flows to Sudan and Egypt.

“It’s big news for us,” Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said by phone today from Debre Zeit, Ethiopia. “We think this is in the interests of Burundi and all riparian countries. We believe it’s even in the interests of Egypt, as this is the only way we can be in a win-win situation.”

Bloomberg

Africa’s flourishing Niger Delta threatened by Libya water plan

by Fred Pearce

Threatened by Libya Water Plan Daouda Sanankoua is an aquatic mayor, and proud of it. The elected boss of the district of Deboye arrived for our meeting in the West African state of Mali last month by overnight ferry. At this time of year, the majority of his district is flooded. Thank goodness. “More water is good,” he said, peering at his foreign inquisitor over his glasses. “Everything here depends on the water, but the government is taking our water.”

While we spoke, in the tiny schoolyard of Akka village, a few meters from the lapping waters of Lake Deboye, the headlines around the world brought news of flood disasters in Australia, Brazil, and Sri Lanka. But Daouda was grateful for the annual swelling of the River Niger, which left most of his 24 villages marooned. For without the water, they would be desert.

The floods in what geographers call the inner Niger delta nurture abundant fish for the Bozo people, who lay their nets in every waterway and across the lakes. As the waters recede, they leave wet soils in which the Bambara people plant millet and rice, and they expose vast aquatic pastures of bourgou (or hippo grass) that sustain cattle and goats brought by nomadic Fulani herders from as far away as Mauritania and Burkina Faso. This inland delta is Africa’s second-largest floodplain and one of its most unique wetlands. Seen from space, it is an immense smudge of green and blue on the edge of the Sahara.

But this rare and magnificently productive ecosystem is now facing an unprecedented threat, as a Libyan-backed enterprise has begun construction of a project inside Mali that will divert large amounts of Niger River water for extensive irrigation upstream.

This is all part of a grand plan by Gaddafi to make his desert nation self-sufficient in food.This is all part of a grand plan by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to make his desert nation self-sufficient in food through long-term deals with nearby countries to grow food for Libya. Mali’s president has agreed to the scheme, which numerous experts say will enhance Libyan food security at the expense of Malian food security by sucking dry the river that feeds the inland delta, diminishing the seasonal floods that support rich biodiversity — and thriving agriculture and fisheries vital to a million of Mali’s poorest citizens — on the edge of the Sahara desert.

“More people will lose than win from most irrigation projects in Mali,” says Jane Madgwick, CEO of Netherlands-based Wetlands International, with whom I traveled for three days in the inner Niger delta. “These projects will decrease food security by damaging the livelihoods of those most vulnerable. What they are trying to do at the moment makes no sense because there is simply not enough water.”

Larger than Belgium, the Niger’s inland delta, laced with rivers and marshes, runs for 250 miles from northeast to southwest in central Mali, one of Africa’s poorest countries. The rights to harvest the delta’s fish and graze pastures are based on long-standing custom neither known nor recognized beyond its borders. I had spent days exploring this world as the seasonal floodwaters began to recede. I watched the arrival of the Fulani and talked to fishing families as they packed up their homes and left their villages to set up temporary camps beside the pools where the fish would concentrate in the weeks ahead.

Out there in the waters somewhere were a few surviving hippos, African manatees, and the odd crocodile. Madgwick constantly grabbed her binoculars to spot kingfishers, marsh harriers, cormorants, and purple herons, many of them winter migrants from Europe. Her organization is working with locals to revive flooded forests destroyed in past droughts, to maintain fish ponds among the flooded grasses, to extend the new practice of cultivating bourgou, and to encourage kitchen gardens planted by women’s groups.

But all this is threatened by events upstream, said the mayor: Others want his water. Over a torch-lit evening meal of Nile perch, millet porridge, and bananas — all fruits of the wetland — he said that this year the rains were good and the waters high. But even so, some dams built prior to the Libyan project, which irrigate 235,000 acres, have already diverted water and changed the timing of when it reaches the wetland, damaging the wet pastures and upsetting fish breeding. Some species have disappeared as a result. And, say Madgwick and others, much worse is to come.

Daouda Sanankoua said dams have already diverted water and changed the timing of when it reaches his district. Libya’s wholesale move into Malian irrigation and agriculture is the result of a secret deal between Mali’s president, Amadou Toumani Toure, and Libya’s Colonel Gadaffi. Paid for by Gadaffi’s sovereign investment fund, theLibya Africa Portfolio Fund for Investment, the deal hands the land to a Libyan-controlled organization called Malibya for 50 years and gives the Libyans undisclosed rights to the region’s water. Why would the Mali president sign up to this?

Local campaigners say their government is in thrall — and hock — to Libya because it has become dependent on Libya for aid and investment. Many of its civil servants work in offices built by Libya, and international visitors stay at Libyan-built hotels. And, says Lamine Coulibaly, head of communications for the Mali small farmers’ union, CNOP, the government is so obsessed with getting investment for its agriculture that it cannot see when that investment will do more harm than good to its people.

Before going to the delta, I had visited a new canal stretching 25 miles north from the River Niger to 250,000 acres of proposed irrigated land at the edge of the marshes. The canal, part of the Libyan project, was dug last year by Chinese contractors, who are now preparing the first 15,000 acres of fields.

The project is one of many major investments by Libya all across Mali. Gadaffi is using his petrodollars to fund government buildings, hotels, and other high-profile infrastructure. Critics such as Coulibaly call the farm mega-project a land grab. But far more important, it is also a water grab on a huge scale. Coulibaly adds: “We have enough land; we don’t have enough water.”

The scale is breathtaking. The brand new intake works for the scheme can grab as much as 210 cubic meters a second, potentially more than doubling
The delta is a vital green resource for both humans and wildlife on the edge of the Sahara.the amount of water taken from the river for irrigation. The director general of Malibya, Abdalilah Youssef, boasted in 2008 that his new canal could supply up to 4 cubic kilometers of water a year to the enterprise’s fields of rice, tomatoes, and fodder crops for cattle. The current take for all other existing irrigation projects is 2.7 cubic kilometers a year.

Already, engineers at the Office du Niger — an agency created by presidential fiat to develop land upstream of the inner Niger delta — admit they are struggling to maintain the minimum flow of 40 cubic meters a second down the Niger to the delta during the dry season, when an estimated 70 percent of river flow goes to farms rather than the wetland. The effects of taking more could be catastrophic on the floating forests and bourgou pastures at the heart of the delta’s ecosystems and human livelihoods.

A vital green resource for both humans and wildlife on the edge of the Sahara, the delta is a wintering ground for millions of migrating European birds and is vital to the flow of the Niger River and its fisheries. All this is threatened by the Libyan project. For example, planned dams and diversions will reduce the growth of the important bourgou grasses by almost two-thirds, according to a study by Leo Zwarts, a water management expert for the Dutch government.

Now, however, Malian officials have no control over the project. Their president has signed that away. They say the Libyans have carried out a social and environmental impact assessment, although its contents have not been made public. The job of the Malian officials is simply to organize compensation for the thousands of people who are expected to lose their homes to the irrigation projects and to find new land for those farmers who refuse to be turned into Gadaffi’s laborers.

There is no official confirmation, but few doubt that the rice grown here will go to Libya. More than 1,200 miles away across the Sahara, Gaddafi has spent $30 billion over the past three decades building the Great Man-made River, which pumps ancient water from deep beneath the desert through 1,800 miles of huge pipes to irrigate farms on the Mediterranean coast. But even with that giant hydrological enterprise in operation, Libya still depends on foreign markets for three-quarters of its grain.

The giant farm being built on the edge of the inner Niger delta by Malibya is his next big gambit.

Mali of course needs development. It is changing and so are the wants and needs of its people. Schools and clinics are starting to appear; every fishing encampment, however temporary, has a TV antenna; the fishing nets are
Any disruption of the region’s traditional way of life could feed Al Qaeda’s violent agenda.made of nylon and come from China; the kids wear Obama T-shirts and support European soccer teams; motorbikes are starting to replace donkeys; there is sporadic cellphone coverage and young village men break the still wetland nights with their sound systems. These days, too, traditional lines of ethnicity and livelihood are blurred as cattle herders take up fishing, fishers harvest grain, and millet farmers go herding. But the fecundity of the delta remains the basis of their survival in one of the poorest countries on Earth.

Many government officials see saving the wetland as an environmental priority they cannot afford in the push for human development. But in fact, maintaining the wetland is essential to development.

This year, the Mali government is expected to publish a ten-year “sustainable development plan” for the delta. Early drafts are said to sanction a big expansion of irrigation. European aid agencies funding the process have reportedly demanded a rewrite. Whatever it finally contains, the plan faces a long consultation process before being enacted, by which time the game may be over, the water swallowed up by the Libyan project and others.




MORE FROM YALE e360

Does Egypt Own The Nile?
A Battle Over Precious Water
A dispute between Egypt and upstream African nations has brought to the fore a long-standing controversy over who has rights to the waters of the Nile. The outcome, Fred Pearce writes, could have profound consequences for the ecological health of the river and for one of the world’s largest tropical wetlands.
READ MOREThis may not just be a local matter either. With Al Qaeda busy recruiting disaffected people such as the Tuareg nomads around Mali’s borders, any disruption to the traditional way of life could feed its violent agenda.

So this is a key moment that will likely determine the fate of one of Africa’s great natural resources, a living embodiment of how humans and nature can live not just in harmony but in synergy. Get it wrong and they will be creating new desert while claiming all the while to be greening it. Get it wrong and the repercussions could spread far and wide.

As we left the heart of the wetland for the provincial town of Mopti, our boat kept grounding on the bottom of the narrower waterways. Macaques laughed as we scrambled to resume our journey. The low water was simply a sign of the changing season, but it felt like an omen for the wetland.

POSTED ON 03 FEB 2011 IN BUSINESS & INNOVATION POLICY & POLITICS POLICY & POLITICS SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY WATER AFRICA NORTH AMERICA

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_major_libyan_water_project_puts_africas_niger_delta_at_risk/2366/

Egypt asserts right to block upstream Nile dams

by Dina Zayed

Egypt insisted on May 18 it can block dams and other projects upstream on the Nile, challenging a new deal among African nations seeking to alter historic water sharing arrangements and secure more water for farms and growth.

Four African countries signed the agreement in Uganda the week before in a bid to access a greater share of water from the Nile, despite colonial-era pacts that give Egypt the lion's share of the water and allow it to veto upstream projects such as dams.

"Any project that takes away from the river's flow has to be approved by Egypt and Sudan in accordance with international treaties," Egypt's Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Nasreddin Allam said.
"Egypt is closely watching energy generation projects in the (Nile) basin," he said.

Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia signed the deal on May 14, creating a permanent commission to manage the Nile's waters that did not include Egypt or Sudan. Kenya, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo are expected to sign within a year. The new commission would ostensibly have the power to veto energy and irrigation projects in signatory states.

Egypt, almost totally dependent on the Nile and already threatened by climate change, is closely watching hydro-electric dams in East Africa it fears may restrict the river's flow. Egypt has already warned that the new agreement lacked legitimacy and plans to press donors for support.

Yet upstream countries say they need more water too. Power shortages have hindered investment in Africa even though alternative sources to hydroelectric power exist.

The day the pact was signed, Ethiopia inaugurated its Beles Dam, which it says will produce 460 megawatts.

After the inauguration, Egyptian media voiced concern the project could reduce the flow of water to Egypt. Some 85 percent of the Nile's waters originate in Ethiopia.

Allam said Egypt had no objections to dams or other energy projects upstream on the world's longest river as long as the country's share of 55.5 billion cubic metres was not reduced.

Analysts say global donors and banks may be reluctant to finance projects that would harm Egypt's and Sudan's access to water for fear of getting entangled in a regional spat.

Egypt is widely credited with having blocked a loan from the African Development Bank for a dam project in Ethiopia in 1990.

"Most donors see that consensus between Nile Basin countries and the consent of Egypt as key to funding any project," said Gamal Soltan of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "Egypt could work with these international donors."

One state newspaper quoted Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif on Tuesday as saying: "Signing a unilateral treaty confirms that the motivation behind it was political, so it shall be dealt will politically."

Ethiopia, which rationed power for five months in 2009, when outages every second day closed factories, hampered exports and fuelled a currency shortage, says a new pact could help boost energy projects and shore up investment.

"Egypt is not trying to undermine development projects ... but it is trying to push for projects that could serve the interests of all those states and Egypt itself," Soltan said.

Reuters

Ten years of talks - and still no resolution to Nile controversy

Contrary to the controversy it has engendered, the Nile river agreement should allow for more equitable water use and minimize potential conflicts between the riparian states, says an analyst.

"The problem with the River Nile is lack of cooperation in water management," Debay Tadesse, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Addis Ababa, said. "There is enough [water] for all the riparian states and this agreement opens the way for more equitable management."

The 14 May Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework was signed by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, but was left open for a year. It followed a meeting of water ministers in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to it.

Egypt and Sudan have rejected it, saying the accord only reflects the views of seven, not nine, states that share the resource. They suggest more talks.

"For Egypt and Sudan, as well as the other eight riparian countries, the question of how much water they can use to irrigate their agricultural land and sustain their growing populations [has] become [an] existential [matter] that dwarf[s] the other political conflicts plaguing the region," Nadia Anne Zahran wrote in The Middle East Channel on 19 May.

On 6 May, the International Crisis Group warned the dispute could polarize the region. It could also harden Egypt’s resolve to maintain the status quo by rallying behind Sudan and against the other countries.

The new agreement, signed in Entebbe, Uganda, after 10 years of talks, also transformed the Nile Basin Initiative into a permanent Nile River Basin Commission and will facilitate its legal recognition in the member countries.

Kenya signed on 19 May. “Nothing now stops us from using the waters as we wish,” Kenya’s Water Minister Charity Ngilu said. “It is now up to Egypt and Sudan to come on board in the spirit of cooperation on the basis of One Nile, One Basin and One Vision. Two states out of nine cannot stop us from implementing this framework.”

For ratification, the agreement now needs to be signed by DRC and Burundi.

"What will underpin the usage of the Nile River resources is equitable and sustainable use in the best interests of all members," a source at the Entebbe talks told IRIN. "The new agreement binds only those members that have signed, which means that unless Egypt and Sudan sign, it does not bind them... [but] the main thrust is to give equal opportunity to all members without anyone claiming 90 percent leverage over the river."

Egypt's current monopoly, he added, was untenable. "This was not acceptable to many members; that is why the new agreement was negotiated," he added. "There is going to be a formula followed while exploiting the river resources. The agreement has not invented anything new, but it codified already existing international law governing waterways."

Egypt has so far stuck to its guns. "Any project that takes away from the river's flow has to be approved by Egypt and Sudan in accordance with international treaties," Reuters quoted Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Mohamed Nasreddin Allam as saying on 18 May. "Egypt is closely watching energy generation projects in the [Nile] basin."

Tadesse said Egypt and Sudan had no option but to negotiate with the other riparian states. "They have one year to decide, but they will have to," he said on 19 May. "They will only be able to monitor what is happening in the Upper Nile riparian states if they sign. Not knowing what is happening in those states would be a threat to Egypt and Sudan. For example, if Ethiopia or Kenya build more dams, Egypt will want to know what is happening."

The Entebbe source said: "Nobody is going to cut off water to countries downstream, but we shall have equal opportunities in its utilization. Disputes will arise and will be resolved through the Nile Basin Commission ... but even when they cannot be resolved at that level, third parties like the International Court of Justice could be resorted to, but I think this will not be necessary."

According to Kithure Kindiki of the School of Law at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, neither the unilateral claims of Egypt on maintaining the status quo on the Nile, nor the threat by upstream states such as Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya to obstruct the Nile-Victoria system are supportable in law.

“The legality of the Nile treaties should be understood from the viewpoint of the principles of international law on state succession as and how that affects treaty obligations,” he noted in a December 2009 paper. “All these treaties, except the 1959 Agreement, were adopted when all co-riparians of the Nile (except Ethiopia) were ruled by foreign colonial powers.”

The paper recommends three approaches to resolving the Nile impasse: the conclusion of the negotiations and adoption of a new treaty binding all riparian states; the promotion of ratification of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses; and the referral of the issue of the legality of the Nile treaties to a judicial or arbitration forum.

Uganda's Water Minister Mary Mutagambwa said negotiations were not over. "The agreement will be ratified after members sign it, and it is open for signature for a year," she said. "[It] offers all of us the opportunity to unite and develop. [Egypt and Sudan] do not want interruption of the current usage. It is a matter of convincing them and I hope that within this year we can bring them on board."

The agreement attempts to review two deals signed in 1929 between Egypt and its former colonial power, Britain, and in 1959 with Sudan. The accords give Egypt and Sudan the biggest share of the water, totalling up to 87 percent of Nile flow. Egypt also has the power to veto dams and other water projects in upstream countries. To monitor the water levels, it maintains teams of engineers along the river including at its source in Jinja, and in Malakal in Southern Sudan.

Critics say the agreements are pre-colonial because they were signed before the other riparian states became independent, but Egypt insists they were done to safeguard its interests. "Egypt's historic rights to Nile waters are a matter of life and death. We will not compromise them," Moufid Shehab, Egyptian Minister of Legal and Assembly Affairs, was quoted as telling parliament recently.

In Khartoum, Sudan's legal counsel to Nile Basin Initiative Ahmed Al-Mufti told a news conference on 11 May that his government's position was not to sign the agreement until all the nine states reached a solution to the issues in dispute. This position, observers say, could change if Southern Sudan voted for independence in a 2011 referendum.

The view from Cairo and Khartoum was echoed by Eritrea, which had observer status at the negotiations. In a statement issued by the Eritrean information ministry, President Isaias Afwerki said the upstream states had made "wrong agreements and regulations" on the use of the Nile river. He told Egyptian television that this "not only aggravates the situation but also creates tension”.

Flowing 6,825km from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, the Nile is the longest river in the world. It discharges about 300 million cubic metres of water daily and provides Egypt, which receives almost zero rainfall, with about 90 percent of its water needs. Four hundred million people live in the countries that share the river.

Experts say Egypt's population could reach 130 million in 40 years, thereby increasing its demands. On the other hand, Ethiopia wants to build more dams on the Blue Nile, while Sudan has promised foreign farmers vast pieces of land. In Kenya, farmers want to expand irrigation while Uganda is planning dams and Tanzania intends to build a 170km pipeline from Lake Victoria to supply dry areas.

According to the ISS, almost one in two people in Africa will, within 25 years, live in a country facing water scarcity or “water stress” because of rapid population growth and economic development. By 2025, some 12 African countries will have joined the 13 that already suffer from water stress or water scarcity.

"There is a lot at stake for all the players in the region and perhaps for Arab-African relations as a whole, already strained by years of neglect and outright conflict in Sudan," Zahran noted. "As climate change continues to affect an already parched region, reliance on the Nile, which flows through 10 percent of Africa and is shared by 10 countries, is only increasing."

IRIN

Egypt launches diplomatic flurry to contain Nile crisis

Senior Egyptian officials left for Khartoum on May 19 amid a diplomatic flurry that will see several African leaders in Cairo in the coming weeks seeking to contain the region's water-sharing crisis.

Mohammed Nasredine Allam, Egypt's minister for water resources and irrigation, is heading to Sudan for talks on Nile water sharing after five upstream countries signed a deal that Cairo and Khartoum rejected, the official MENA news agency reported.

Allam, accompanied by senior foreign ministry officials, is expected to discuss with his Sudanese counterpart, Kamal Ali, "ways for both countries to maintain their rights (to Nile water) based on international agreements."

Under a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, they get the lion's share of the water flow.

On May 19, Kenya became the fifth country to sign a new treaty -- after Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda -- for what is claimed to be an equitable sharing of river waters, despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga was due in Egypt on May 22 for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.

On May 29, Congolese President Joseph Kabila is due to visit Egypt and in June Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza is also expected in Cairo, MENA said.

In June, Egyptian Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza and Investment Minister Mahmud Mohiedine will head to Ethiopia and Uganda for talks with officials there, MENA said.

Egypt has repeatedly claimed its "historic right" to the Nile water and threatened legal action to preserve its right to the water on which its 80 million people depend.

The upstream countries want to be able to implement irrigation and hydropower projects in consultation with Egypt and Sudan, but without Egypt being able to exercise the veto power it was given by a 1929 colonial-era treaty with Britain.

AFP

East Africa seeks more Nile water from Egypt

Four East African states have signed an agreement to seek more water from the River Nile - a move strongly opposed by Egypt and Sudan.

Under a 1929 accord, some 90% of the river's water is reserved for Egypt. Upstream countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Ethiopia say it is unfair and want a new deal but nothing has been agreed in 13 years of talks.

A further three countries were represented at the meeting in Entebbe, Uganda, and may sign up later.

There is a danger that the split could hamper any further efforts for all nine countries involved to negotiate how the waters should be shared.

For Egypt, water is a matter of national security.

"If we don't have an agreed co-operative framework, there will be no peace," Kenya's director of water resources John Nyaro told the BBC before the meeting.
"Where there is no rule of law, the rule of the jungle does not provide peace."

Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda signed the agreement in Entebbe, which would lead to experts determining how much water each country would be entitled to. Kenya did not sign the agreement as its minister could not attend. Like Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it sent officials to Entebbe.

Ethiopia, for example - the source of the Blue Nile - contributes an estimated 85% of the river waters but is able to make relatively little use of its natural resource.

Rwanda's Environment Minister Stanislas Kamanzi said, "Egypt has been requesting to defer the signing of the Cooperative Framework Agreement - we couldn't wait any longer, since we have been negotiating for over 10 years."

Egypt and Sudan say they will not sign a new deal unless they are first guaranteed an exact share of the water.

Ahead of the meeting, Ahmed el-Mufti, the legal counsel for Sudan's delegation, said that all nine countries were close to an agreement, so there was no need for the upstream countries to sign their own deal. He also said Egypt and Sudan needed water more than those in more fertile regions.

"They have a lot of rain: This is nature," he said. "They do not need the water. Here in Sudan we need water."

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit has warned that water rights were a "red line" and threatened legal action if a separate deal is reached. Egypt's farmers are almost wholly dependent on the River Nile and its water.

With populations soaring, demand for water increasing and climate change having an impact, there are warnings that wrangling over the world's longest river could be a trigger for conflict.

BBC

Egypt warns against Nile Basin pact

Egypt has insisted on its traditional share of the Nile river and warned basin countries against signing a water-sharing agreement in which it is excluded.

The warning came days after Nile basin countries meeting in Egypt failed to agree on a framework to reallocate shares from the river, a longstanding demand by several up-stream countries.

"Egypt's share of the Nile's water is a historic right that Egypt has defended throughout its history," Mohammed Allam, minister of water resources and irrigation, told parliament. He added that Egypt saw the matter as a national security issue.

"Egypt reserves the right to take whatever course it sees suitable to safeguard its share," he said. "If the Nile basin countries unilaterally signed the agreement it would be considered the announcement of the Nile Basin Initiative's death," Allam added.

The Nile Basin Initiative, the World Bank funded umbrella group of Nile basin countries, has put off signing a water sharing pact over objections from Egypt and Sudan.

At the heart of the dispute is a 1929 agreement between Egypt and Britain, acting on behalf of its African colonies along the 5,584-kilometre (3,470-mile) river, which gave Egypt veto power over upstream projects.

An agreement between Egypt and Sudan in 1959 allowed Egypt 55.5 billion cubic metres of water each year -- 87 percent of the Nile's flow -- and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres.

Some of the Nile Basin countries, which include Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, say past treaties are unfair and they want an equitable water-sharing agreement that would allow for more irrigation and power projects.

Egypt, a mostly arid country that relies on the Nile for the majority of its water, argues up-stream countries could make better use of rainfall and have other sources of water.

AFP

Climate change drying up big rivers, study finds

by Maggie Fox

Rivers in some of the world's most populated regions are losing water, many because of climate change, researchers have reported.

Affected rivers include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.

When added to the effects from damming, irrigation and other water use, these changes could add up to a threat to future supplies of food and water, the researchers reported in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

"Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases," Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study, said in a statement.

"Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern."

Dai's team looked at records of river flow in 925 big rivers from 1948 to 2004, finding significant changes in about a third of the world's largest rivers. Rivers with decreased flow outnumbered those with increased flow by 2.5 to 1, they said.

For instance, annual freshwater discharge into the Pacific Ocean fell by about 6 percent, or 526 cubic kilometers -- about the equivalent volume of water that flows out of the Mississippi River each year.

Annual river flow into the Indian Ocean dropped by about 3 percent during the 56-year period, or 140 cubic kilometers.

The Columbia River in the U.S. Northwest lost about 14 percent of its volume from 1948 to 2004, largely because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage in the West, Dai's team said.

But the Mississippi River drains 22 percent more water because of increased precipitation across the U.S. Midwest since 1948, they said.

Annual discharge from melting ice into the Arctic Ocean also rose about 10 percent, or 460 cubic kilometers.

"Also, there is evidence that the rapid warming since the 1970s has caused an earlier onset of spring that induces earlier snowmelt and associated peak streamflow in the western United States and New England and earlier breakup of river-ice in Russian Arctic rivers and many Canadian rivers," the researchers wrote.

"As climate change inevitably continues in coming decades, we are likely to see greater impacts on many rivers and water resources that society has come to rely on," said NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, who worked on the study.

Reuters