The Hydropolitical
Perspective of the Nile Question
The study has highlighted the hitherto existing
hydropolitical positions of the Nile
riparian states which have so far hindered the forging of
cooperative agreements.
Egyptian policy could be summed up as 'water security'. It
is a policy which,
among other things, intends to block all venues to issues
that are related to water
redistribution. It also considers all the pre-existing
agreements on the utilization
of the Nile waters as sacrosanct. The Egyptians have so far
tried to safeguard their
water policy by making continuous threats of war and at
times by blocking
financial loans that are earmarked to upstream countries
like Ethiopia. Sudan, on
the other hand, has always been in a real state of
hydropolitical dilemma. On the
one hand, a cooperation with Ethiopia, particularly on the
establishment of
reservoirs on the upper Blue Nile catchment, would be to
Sudan's advantage
firstly, in terms of minimizing siltations in its dams and
secondly, in obtaining more
water in its agricultural fields by gravity flow. On the
other hand, they have a
downstream neighbor viz. Egypt which has a special
'historical interest' in them
and which, as a result, monitors all events (may or may not
be related to the waters
of the Nile) that are unfolding in their territory. In
simple terms, the Egyptians
consider the Sudan as the key to their appropriation of the
Nile water. Ethiopia
has all along aired its grievances for being systematically
excluded from all
Nile-related treaties and has on many occasions reiterated
its natural right to use
the portion of the Nile water that flows in its territory.
In the face of the
burgeoning population growth, recurrent droughts and famine
and the crippling
dependence on rain-fed agriculture, the need for Ethiopia's
share of the waters of
the Nile has become more pressing now than ever before. When
it comes to the
White Nile upstream riparians, either due to the prevalence
of large and stable
amount of rainfall within their territories and/or the
availability of other options
other than the Nile, they seem to show a tendency of being
complacent or
indifferent to the vital question of water redistribution.
The blossoming population
in the region would, however, ignite the need for more
water, if not now at least in
the foreseeable future.
Apparently, the establishment of a multitude of Nile-based
organizations indicates
a glimmer of hope in the basin. It should, however, be noted
that these
organizations will become fruitful if and only they shift
their agenda from
technicalities to the outstanding problems of water
redistribution. The paper has,
by way of conclusion, proposed some win-win solutions that
could bring the
stalemate to an end. These include: (a) the scrapping of the
1959 bilateral
agreement and its replacement with a multilateral and
comprehensive treaty that
would accommodate the interests of all the Nile riparian
states; (b) the transfer of
much or all of the storage of Lake Nasser upstream to the
Ethiopian highlands
which has a much lower evapotranspiration; (c) the import of
'virtual water' that
is embedded in food staples instead of fully relying on
shared water and (d) to
apply modern water saving technologies such as drip
irrigation which could help
in having more water in the basin.
Keywords: equitable sharing, food security, out-of-basin
transfers, hydropolitics,
'virtual water',
water security, 'win-win' solutions, zero-sum game.
1. Overview and Introduction
Because of population increase and increasing demands for
more water for
agriculture and industry, a large number of countries fall
into the category of
'water-scarce' nations. It is projected that in Africa alone
300 million people, a third of
the continent's population, will be forced to live under
water scarcity situations by
the year 2000. Nine of the fourteen countries that make up
the Middle East already
face the problem of water scarcity. The ten Nile riparian
states, including Burundi,
Congo Democratic Republic (the former Zaire), Egypt,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, all with some territory
in the basin, have a
high rate of population growth (3% on the average) that
could make water to become
a scarce resource. No other river basin in the world is
shared by as many states as is
the case with the Nile. Currently, these states possess 40 %
of Africa's population
and envelope 10 % of its landmass. The total population of
the basin will rise from
245 million in 1990 to 859 million by the year 2025 (Tvedt,
1992: 85). The population
of the three principal Nile basin countries, viz. Egypt,
Ethiopia and the Sudan, who
now stand together at 157 million, is projected to reach 388
million by the year 2050
(BBC News Online, July 17, 1999). Looked at from another
perspective and
considering the current population projections, Egypt's
population, which is now
about 10% larger than that of Ethiopia, would be 20% lower
by the year 2025
(Whittington, D and McClelland, E., 1992: 146). Given these
scenarios, one could
easily guess the high potential demand for water by each of
the riparian states,
particularly by Ethiopia, for different activities, the most
important of which are food
and agriculture. Thus, unless some working mechanism is found
to alleviate the
problem, disputes over the distribution of the waters of the
Nile could presumably
become a potential spot of conflict and contention.
Water is ambient and the consequences of its use or removal
by upstream
countries are immediately felt downstream. Unless an
international
watercourse such as the Nile is viewed as a unified whole,
human
undertakings in any part of the system, more particularly in
the source
country, could adversely affect lower riparian states. Much
of the strain
surrounding shared waters stems from the fact that one
nation's gain is
usually another's loss. If Ethiopia develops upper Nile
waters, Egypt will
lose out, and if Egypt insists on maintaining the status
quo, that is, insisting
on becoming the sole beneficiary of the Nile, all other
riparian states will
lose out. This is what is called a zero-sum game and results
in tension,
distrust and even war if one is certain to win. As early as
the mid-1980s,
the U.S. government intelligence services estimated that in
at least 10
places in the world war could break out over dwindling
shared-water
resources (Starr, 1991: 17). The major crisis spots are,
according to the
same sources, the Middle East and the Nile basin. Syria and
Iraq were
very close to full-scale war in 1975 because of
disagreements over the use
of the Euphrates. Disputes between Turkey, Syria and Iraq
were common
during the 1980s over the usage of the Euphrates and Tigris
rivers. That is
why one writer (Sachitanand, 1999) prophesied by stating
that "Conflicts
around the world may soon shift from religion, race and
territory to plain
and simple water" or as one scholar (Elhance, 1999:5)
has put "...in a
geopolitical sense, water is likely to become the 'oil of
the next century'".
Even the World Bank's Vice-President, Ismael Seageldin, has
once said
"Many wars this century were about oil, but the wars of
the next century
will be about water" (Daily Mail and Guardian, 20
December 1999). It is
such scenarios that make up the content of Hydro-(Water)
Politics. In
simple terms, hydropolitics prevails when water disputes
shape the political
landscape in a region and when it is taken as a strategic
resource of
political significance. Put explicitly, "hydropolitics
is the systematic study of
conflict and cooperation between states over water resources
that
transcend international borders" (Elhance, 1999:3).
For historical and geographical reasons, all the basin's
riparian states have not been
in a position to utilize the waters of the Nile equally.
Egypt has been the most
aggressive user of the Nile waters. Next in line comes the
Sudan and to some extent
Uganda. The other riparian states remained more of mere
onlookers than users. The
utilization of the Nile waters by Egypt, be it for flow
regulation or power production
or irrigation, which until recently has been confined within
the Nile basin, has since
the mid-1990s made a digression involving out-of-basin
moves. These so-called New
Valley Development Projects embrace the newly designed
Toshka and El-Salam
(Peace) Canals. In the first project, also called South
Valley Scheme, they are actually
building up a canal that would be fed by 25 million m3 of
water per day from Lake
Nasser (eventually carrying 5.5 billion m3 of water a year)
whereas in the second it is
intended to transfer the Nile water to the huge land
reclamation project in Sinai
Desert at a rate of 160 million m3 per second (BBC News
Online, 27 October 1997).
The hydraulic works that are carried out or planned to be
carried out within and
out-of-basin have been conducted without establishing a
basin-wide comprehensive
agreement or treaty on the utilization of the Nile waters.
The existing legal
agreements, that are in most cases bilateral, fail to be
binding for two reasons (a)
most of them have been induced by colonial forces and (b)
they lacked
comprehensiveness involving all the riparian states. Most of
the treaties were
signed by colonial powers during their rule in the basin. In
the process, these
powers either ignored independent Ethiopia and the then
colonized upstream
co-basin countries or imposed their will on them. For
strategic and economic
reasons, the treaties favored the British colonial interests
in their colonies of Egypt
and the Sudan with the former being literally given a
unilateral right to the use of the
Nile waters as if the river rises, gushes and ends within
its territory. None of the
agreements protected the natural rights of the upper
riparian states. The upstream
countries had not been parties to those agreements, nor do
they legitimize them
(Yacob, 1997). The Egyptians have, hence, all along
attempted to create continuity
without change. As has succinctly been put by Elhance
(1999), the Egyptians
inherited the colonial-era mentality after independence
pursuing the same
protectionist policy.
This paper is intended to address the above-stated issues in
the context of the Nile.
A brief analysis of the hydropolitcal positions of the
co-basin states will be followed
by the discussion of the moves that have so far been made to
forge cooperation
amongst the Nile riparian countries. Some plausible win-win
solutions will also be
forwarded before wrapping up the paper.
2. The Hydropolitical Positions of the Nile Riparian
States
This section will attempt to examine the hitherto existing
positions of each
of the Nile riparian states on the question of Nile water
utilization. By doing
so, it tries to reveal the raison d'ętre for taking up
divergent positions, its
continuity and change, if any, and how these, in turn, have
created
stalemate and/or grounds for despair in the Nile community.
Besides, the
rhetoric and bluff of war that lead to mutual suspicion will
be uncovered.
2.1. Egypt's 'Water Security' Policy
Egypt claims that she has natural, acquired and historical
rights on the Nile
and will be governed by the hydrpolitical doctrines of
'primary need', 'prior
use' and 'acquired water rights'. As a result of these
claims, "her [Egypt's]
top foreign policy priority has always been to safeguard the
uninterrupted
flow of the Nile water" (Yacob, 1997: 15). To make both
ends meet, they
argue that 'the Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the gift of the
Nile'. Reacting to
this age-old dictum, Kinfe Abraham countered by saying that
"Egypt may
be the gift of the Nile but is not the Nile also a gift to
the countries where it
originates and from where it carries rich alluvial soil to
the terraced fields of
Aswan?" (1997: 8). The Egyptian Ambassador to Ethiopia,
Marawan
Badr, went even further by stating that "the concern
with the Nile waters
[by Egypt] is not just a national security issue but rather
a national survival
obsession" (Addis Tribune, 7 August, 1998). As a result
of the 'Nile water
obsession', the Egyptian position concerning the development
and
utilization of the Nile waters has all along been governed
by the principle of
'absolute territorial integrity', which is in
contradistinction to the Helsinki
and International Law Commission (ILC) Rules.
Irrespective of the objections raised against the hitherto
existing colonial
and post-colonial treaties and agreements by the other
co-basin states,
Egypt still considers them as legally binding and
non-amendable. They are
repeatedly heard stating that they are willing to discuss
future development
plans on the Nile with other riparian states, particularly
with Ethiopia, on
condition that the legitimacy of the 1959 agreement is
acknowledged or the
status quo is maintained. As has been shown time and again,
Egyptians
seem to be more interested in talks on technical issues
leaving aside
fundamental principles of international water law and
equitable water
sharing. This has been succinctly put by Yacob, (in Sisay,
April, 1999),
where he said that Egyptian interest revolves around
"...drops of water that
could be conserved and acres of land that could further be
irrigated". If
one is willing to come out with a fair and equitable
distribution of the Nile
water, the agenda of the various Nile meetings should
gravitate away from
science, technology and data towards the redistribution of
the Nile water.
The other items become meaningful and effective if and only
if one could
be in a position to put the horse before the cart and not
the other way
round, as it has been the case so far.
The Egyptians also forward another argument to maintain the
status quo.
They argue that 98% of their country is desert, their
rainfall amount is
literally nil (the annual amount in Cairo being 25 mm only
reaching to the at
most 200 mm in Upper Egypt on the Mediterranean coast),
disallowing
them to carry out rain-fed agriculture. On the other hand,
they say that
Ethiopia and most of the other riparian states receive
enough rainfall to
conduct rain-fed agriculture that may not necessitate
irrigation agriculture.
By so saying, they forget the facts that firstly, rainfall
amount in Ethiopia is
erratic and not uniformly distributed and secondly, the
areas that are
located within the Blue Nile (Abbay) and the other Nile
catchments in
Ethiopian territory are frequently hit by drought and
famine. In addition to
these, as has rightly been confirmed by Zewdie Abate (in
Waterbury,
1994:52), the highlands of Ethiopia that lie on the Nile's
watershed are
over-farmed, over-populated and have already exhausted their
cultivable
potential. According to the same author, Ethiopia has no
other way except
turning its efforts to the development of its western
watersheds where there
is an irrigable potential land area of 900,000 ha in the
Blue Nile (Abbay)
basin and 1.5 million ha in the Sobat (Baro-Akobo) basin.
Historically, a number of hydropolitical conflicts arose
between the Nile
riparian states. As it could be guessed, Egypt has always
been the central
figure in almost all of the discords. Yacob (in Sisay April,
1999) explicated
the situation when he said that as part of the wider
strategy of incorporating
the entire Nile basin, Egyptians have incited sixteen major
conflicts against
Ethiopia spanning between the Gadarif battle of 1832 and the
battle of
Gura in 1876. In the past two decades alone, Egyptian
leaders have, on
several occasions, threatened to go to war with Ethiopia if
it develops the
Nile tributaries in its territory for purposes of irrigation
and power. There
is, hence, a continuity in the axiomatic policy of every
Egyptian regime. In
what follows, I will cite some instances where threats of
war and
conflict-laden statements have been issued by Egyptian
leaders and
politicians.
(1) Shortly after signing the US-sponsored Camp David Accord
in 1979, President
Anwar Sadat stated that "...the only matter that could
take Egypt to war again is
water" (Postel, 1991: 12).
(2) Immediately after the Camp David Accord, Sadat intended
to supply 400 million
m3 of the Nile water per year to the Israeli Negev desert
and to the Gaza Strip in
exchange for a Palestinian solution and the liberation of
Jerusalem (Anderson, 1991:
13 and Falkenmark, 1989: 351). In fact, when Mengistu, the
then Ethiopian head of
state, heard Sadat's plan, he retaliated by saying that
"...he will press ahead with
hydraulic projects on the Blue Nile" (Anderson, 1991:
13). Sadat then reacted by
saying that "...if Ethiopia takes any action to block
our right to the Nile waters, there
will be no alternative for us but to use force"
(African Recorder, cited in Anderson,
1991). The plan, nonetheless, did not materialize but was
again raised as an issue in
1993. Surprisingly,
Mr. Arafat is said to have pointedly "...solicited the reaction of
prime minister Meles Zenawi on the idea of building the said
canal to pump water
from the Nile to [the] Gaza strip" (Kinfe, 1997: 5).
This shows that the issue is still
hanging.
(3) As Hultin has pointed out, "...it is not so much
what Ethiopia or other
riparian states for that matter have done with regards to
the waters of the
Nile, but rather what they might be doing that is the cause
of anxiety in
Cairo" (1995). This potential threat is the basis of a
very real fear that
dictates much of Egypt's water security policy. This is best
testified by
Boutros Ghali's speech, (who was then Egyptian Minister of
State for
Foreign Affairs) in September, 1989 to the members of the US
congress
where he said that
what is worse is that each Nile country expects different
benefits from the control
and management of water resources. ...The other African
countries have not reached
the level of agriculture through irrigation that we have,
and therefore are not as
interested in the problem of water security. It is the
classical difference in attitudes
found among upstream and downstream countries which are on
the same
international river (Starr, 1991: 22).
(4) Boutros Ghali again stated on another occasion in 1990,
that "...the
next war in our region will be over water and not
politics" and added that
"the national security of Egypt is in the hands of
eight other African
countries in the Nile basin" (Rowley, 1993: 195). By so
saying, Ghali was
trying to underscore water's special role in Egyptian life
and the
international friction that could result if a change of the
status quo is
attempted.
(5) In 1991, Cairo warned that it was ready to use force to
protect its access to the
waters of the Nile in case Ethiopia and the Sudan plan to
build dams on the Nile
(BBC News Online, 16 March, 1999).
(6) More recently, being suspicious of Addis Ababa's designs
on the Nile, President
Mubarak of Egypt threatened to bomb Ethiopia if they plan to
build any dams on the
Nile (BBC News Online, 11 October, 1999).
The Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, did consider
Egypt's continuous
threat as an "...irresponsible instance of jingoism
that will not get us anywhere near
the solution of the problem" and added that
"...there is no earthly force that can stop
Ethiopia from benefiting from the Nile" (Addis Tribune,
30 January, 1998).
As pieces of evidence suggest, besides the rhetoric and
threats of war, the
Egyptians have been seen leaving no stone unturned to
destabilize Ethiopia. This
was aptly put by Daniel (1999), when he said that
"Egyptian national security has
always been either to dominate Ethiopia or to neutralize
whatever unfriendly regime
that might appear there". Elhance (1999:65) has also
underlined Egyptian position
towards the other upper riparian states by stating that
"...Egypt has an interest in
ensuring that the upstream riparian states remain weak,
unstable and
underdeveloped and thus incapable of constructing large
water projects upstream".
Three recent instances could be cited to testify to Egyptian
expediency in
undermining and destabilizing Ethiopia: (a) they impounded
the Somali reconciliation
process in which Ethiopia was mandated by the Organization of
African Unity
(OAU) and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), when they
brought the warring Somali factions to Cairo. This was done
to "...undermine
Ethiopian aspirations and meanwhile reduce its dependence on
Blue Nile water"
(Africa Confidential, June, 1998: 5) or as has been put by
Gilkes (1999:577) "Egypt
[used] Somalia as an element in its efforts to influence
Ethiopia's policy on the Nile";
(b) after the assassination attempt against the Egyptian
President, Mubarak, in June
1995 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Egypt impaired
and dashed Ethiopian
efforts in bringing the culprits to justice by blocking
United Nation's sanctions
against the Sudan and (c) as has been stated by The
Economist magazine editor,
Richard Dowdon, quoted by BBC News Online (11 October,
1999), "part of Egypt's
motivation for supporting Eritrea in its conflict with
Ethiopia is its mistrust of Addis
Ababa's plans for the Blue Nile".
The rhetoric, uncompromising stand, stubbornness and
confidence of the
Egyptians is borne out by the following two factors:
(i) They are confident that Ethiopia, as a poor country in
the Horn, could not
generate financial resources internally to undertake
hydraulic works. This is also
confirmed by Rowley who stated that "Egypt need not
worry too much as yet if
Ethiopia threatens to dam the origin of the Blue Nile
because she [Ethiopia] is not a
financially fit state to afford such an expensive
scheme" (1993: 95). This is a weak
argument simply because even if the international financial
institutions such as the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do
apply their
double-standards and reject Ethiopia's financial request,
they should not overlook
the possibilities of developing own sources to fund
hydraulic projects, if not now at
least in the foreseeable future,. For instance, the Blue
Nile (Abbay) and Atbara
(Tekeze) base line studies have been conducted with own
resources in the face of
the financial institutions' refusal to fund them. This could
as well be replicated in the
building of dams and canals in Ethiopia.
(ii) As one of the biggest recipients of US aid ($2.2
billion/year) and good friends to
the West, a friendship that was forged after the signing of
the Camp David Accord
with Israel in 1979, the Egyptians are sure they have both
the political clout and
economic leverage over the giant international financial
institutions such as the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [Smith,
1990]. In 21 years
since 1979, Egypt has received some $21 billion in economic
aid from the US plus
over $25 billion in military aid (Sullivan, 1997: 36).
It was using these changing political and economic
circumstances that the
Egyptians have in the past blocked loans that were directed
to finance hydraulic
projects in Ethiopia. For instance, in the early 1990s,
Egypt was reported to have
blocked an African Development Bank loan to Ethiopia for a
project that Cairo feared
would reduce downstream supplies (Postel, 1992). Egypt is
also said to have "…tried
strenuously to bloc World Bank financing of an irrigation
project in Ethiopia
(Finchaa) which would use water from a tributary of the Blue
Nile" (Whittington &
Haynes, 1985:147). Such kinds of moves may create a
temporary set back but fail far
from being a lasting solution to the hydropolitical problems
enveloping the Nile
basin. How long will Egyptians go on threatening and
destabilizing Ethiopia and
how long will they be successful in blocking development
loans that are directed to
Ethiopia? These would not take the Egyptians any where.
Instead of becoming
myopic focusing on small conduits, it would be preferable to
look at the problem
from a long-term perspective so as to find a lasting
basin-wide solution (for details
refer to Part 4).
2.2. Sudan's Hydropolitical Dilemma
Sudan looks at Egypt as the only sister Arab country in the
Nile basin
whereas Egypt considers Sudan as the key to their
appropriation of the
Nile water. The relations between the two countries have,
however, been
changing their rhythms from time to time. It went lower
after the ousting of
Nimeiry, more particularly after the military coup d'etat
that brought Omer
el Beshir to power. Tensions rose higher after the June 1995
assassination
attempts at the life of the Egyptian President, Husni
Mubarak, in Addis
Ababa, where the Sudanese had been alleged to be behind it.
Given the facts that about two-thirds of the area of the
Nile lies within the
Sudan and its closeness to Egypt have galvanized Egyptian
special interest
in the Sudan across history. This is best illustrated by
Howell et al
(1988:32) when they reiterated by saying that "…what
means life or death
to Egypt means only the difference between sufficiency and
stringency to
the Sudan". This is the reason why the Egyptians have
gone time and again
to the extent of meddling in Sudanese internal affairs
because they have
"...a fear that a hostile government [in the Sudan]
could restrict the [Nile]
river's water" (Wedeman quoted on CNN Online, 30
October, 1999).
Sudan, however, finds itself in a real dilemma. On the one
hand, it would
prefer to have a cooperative agreement with Ethiopia because
the water
that could be stored on the Blue Nile (Abbay) can easily be
delivered to
Sudan's agricultural lands by gravity flow at the same time
reducing siltation
in the already existing dams in their territory which costs
them lots of
money (Kliot, 1994: 68-69). That is why Whittington and
McClelland
have commented on this issue by stating that "...the
status quo that
excludes Ethiopia is not to Sudan's advantage" (1992:
153). On the other
hand, they have a neighboring state downstream, viz. Egypt,
which
frequently knocks at their door when anything imagined or
real surfaces on
the Nile water utilization. For instance, in August, 1994,
Egypt had planned
and subsequently cancelled an air raid on Khartoum, when a
dam had
presumably been planned to be built in the Sudan (Bleier,
1997: 116). The
Egyptians do also have other vested interests in the Sudan.
In case of
Ethiopia's utilization of the Nile water, they would like to
use Sudanese air
space and airbases to bombard Ethiopia (Waterbury, 1994:
46). The
Sudanese dilemma is further exacerbated by the fact that
they are
economically dependent on Egypt. It is reported that there
are an
estimated 2 million Sudanese working in Egypt (Kliot, 1994:
88-89). One
thing that can also be stated with certainty is that the
Sudanese government
would like a quick revision of the 1959 agreement which
entitled them to
only one-fourth of the total flow of the Nile.
2.3. Ethiopia's Position
The share of Ethiopia in terms of the Nile's drainage area,
length and above all mean
discharge warrant the relative importance of all the three
rivers that originate in
Ethiopia. The paradox lies in the fact that although
Ethiopia provides 85 % of the
Nile's water, it has systematically been excluded from any
treaty; nor has it been
allowed to utilize the portions of the Nile water that flow
within its own territory.
The various Ethiopian governments have recognized no
obligations to limit
their use of the Blue Nile for the sake of Egypt and/or the
Sudan. No
Ethiopian government has recognized the various treaties,
including the
1959 one, as binding. Ethiopia has always been the silent
partner in all the
Anglo-Egyptian and later Egyptian-Sudanese negotiations.
This
non-recognition of the colonially-induced treaties is also
shared by other
upstream riparian states particularly Tanzania, where Julius
Nyerere
repeatedly dismissed the treaties as null and void and
non-binding.
Ethiopia has time and again reiterated her positions in the
utilization of the
waters of the Nile river for irrigation and hydropower
generation. The first
of such an official attempt was made as far back as February
1956, one
month after the independence of the Sudan (Ethiopian Herald,
1956). The
same Ethiopian claim to her natural rights to the Nile was
aired some
months later in the midst of the Suez crisis. These views
were again echoed
in an Aide Memoir of 23 September, 1957 to the diplomatic
missions in
Cairo. The Memoir's content has been paraphrased by Daniel
(1999) as
follows: "Ethiopia has the right and obligation to
exploit its water resources
for the benefit of present and future generations of its
citizens [and] must,
therefore, reassert and reserve now and for the future, the
right to take all
such measures in respect of its water resources".
Similarly, at the 1977
Water Conference at Mar del Plata, Argentina, Ethiopia aired
her rights to
exploit her natural resources and also did the same in the
1981 UN
Conference on the Least Developed Countries. It even came
out with a
ten-year investment plan, which, among other things, listed
fifty irrigation
projects that could utilize 704,000 ha of cultivable land.
Of these, 381,000
ha or 54% had been sited in the Blue Nile (Abbay) basin and
15,000 ha or
a mere 2% in the Sobat (Baro-Akobo) basin (Kliot, 1994:
67-68). In
short, as has been testified by Collins (1990: 277),
Ethiopia has time and
again declared in official notes to Cairo and international
organizations that
the country reserved its right to utilize the water
resources of the Nile for
the benefit of its people, whatever might be the measure of
utilization of
such water sought by other riparian states.
If the present rate of population growth (3-3.2% per annum)
continues
unabated, which is highly likely to be the case, Ethiopia's
population would
climb up from the current 60 million mark to 112 million by
the year 2025.
The country is also frequently hit by recurrent droughts and
famine and as
Kliot (1994:3) has correctly put it, "...drought and
famine seem to be
permanently, if undeservedly, associated with the name of
Ethiopia". The
Economist (1995:57) has also confirmed the desperate
situation that
prevails in the country by stating that "Ethiopia,
which supplies the bulk of
the water [to the Nile], suffers from dreadful famines and
would clearly like
to store water and so increase its food production".
Howell et al (1988:82)
have also depicted the agonizing situation that would tempt
Ethiopia to
utilize the Nile water by stating that "Ethiopia, hard
pressed to find
solutions to its crippling agricultural problems, will turn
its attention to its
western watershed". Some 60 per cent of the country has
a low moisture
balance index that would impede the carrying out of rain-fed
agriculture
and, additionally, there is rampant soil erosion and
environmental
degradation that lower agricultural return per unit area.
All these situations
would necessitate the utilization of available water
resources to attain first
and foremost food security. It goes without saying that
Ethiopia's natural
right to the Nile, which is supported by the Helsinki and
ILC Rules, would
entitle her to a fair and equitable share of the waters of
the Nile. In fact, as
reckoned by Jovanovic (1985: 85), Ethiopia has all the right
to claim up to
40 billion m3 of water per year for irrigation, reducing the
flow to Sudan
and Egypt by 23% for irrigation within the Nile Basin and
39% if irrigation
is extended out-of-basin. However, due to lack of basin wide
agreement
and financial bottlenecks Ethiopia's potentially irrigable
land on the Nile,
which is estimated at about 3.35 million hectares, has
remained untapped
to this day. The country presently utilizes not more than 1%
of its irrigation
potential and 0.7% of its hydropower potential which is
estimated at 8380
megawatts.
The problems in Ethiopia are two-dimensional. On the one
hand, Ethiopia's
negotiating position in contrast with Egypt is weakened
because of the
absence of facts on the ground i.e. irrigation or HEP
projects and, on the
other hand, it has problems in terms of finance and
man-power to harness
the river. Contrary to expectation, the on-going hundreds of
earthen small
dam projects that are located in the northern parts of the
country on the
watersheds and tributaries of the Nile may not push up
Ethiopia's
negotiating position in the future. Besides, international
funding requires
basin-wide agreement for which firstly, Egypt is adamant and
reluctant to
strike a pact with Ethiopia and secondly, the funding
organizations
themselves exercise a double-standard marginalizing 'less
important'
countries like Ethiopia and favoring 'more important' ones
such as Egypt.
And clearly, let alone Ethiopia even economically 'better
off' riparian states
such as Egypt cannot undertake hydraulic projects without
substantial
external funding from multilateral funding organizations.
There are now various indications that suggest Ethiopia's
commitment to utilize the
Nile water. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, Tekeda
Alemu, (quoted in
Tsegaye, 1998), has made Ethiopia's position clear by noting
that "talks or no talks,
Ethiopia will exercise its rights to utilize its own water
for its development". The
Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, too, reiterated
the same position saying
that "...if our [Ethiopia's] proposal for an equitable
sharing falls on deaf ears, we will
be forced to join in the scramble [for the Nile water] in
order to obtain our fair share"
(Addis Tribune, 30 January, 1998). By the same token,
Ethiopia's Prime Minister,
Meles Zenawi, has repeatedly called for changes in the way
the waters of the Nile
are shared between countries in the region (BBC News Online,
17 April, 1998).
2.4. Complacency of the Upper White Nile Riparian States
Even though the Upper White Nile riparian states consider
the colonially-induced
Nile water agreements unacceptable, they seem to be
indifferent to the vital question
of a fair and equitable distribution of the Nile waters or,
better said, it is not their top
priority at the moment. By omission or commission, they too
dwell upon issues
related to hydro-meteorological data, water technology,
water saving, etc., shoving
aside the real issue of Nile water redistribution. Such an
indifference or complacency
of the Upper White Nile riparian states could be explained
by two factors: (a) unlike
the principal Nile countries of Egypt, Ethiopia and the
Sudan, they possess small
tails in the basin. Due to evaporation and seepage within
the equatorial region and
the Sudd swamp in the Sudan, they contribute a relatively
small amount of inflow to
the Nile (b) they have a relatively large and stable amount
of rainfall and water
sources outside the Nile basin. So, except Uganda, all the
other Equatorial riparian
states have a peripheral dependence on the Nile waters. That
is why they are not
immediate threats to the downstream countries of Egypt and
Sudan. But things
would certainly change in the future, particularly when the
populations of the Upper
White Nile basin countries expand, generating the need for
more water. A sign along
this direction has been reflected by Tanzania's Minister of
Water, Musa Nkangaa,
when he said that "Water will top the list of priority
policies of our countries in the
future" (Daily Mail & Guardian, 26 May 1999).
3. Moves Towards Cooperation: Breaking the Stalemate?
With the basic aim of forging cooperative agreements on a
variety of issues, various
attempts had been made to set up a number of Nile-based
organizations in the last
thirty years. The first such attempt was made back in 1967
when some Nile riparian
states established the Hydromet (The Hydrometeorological
Survey of Lakes
Victoria, Kioga and Albert). The organization facilitated
the collection of data on the
equatorial lakes. The fact that the objectives of the
Hydromet failed to include water
redistribution persuaded Ethiopia to distance itself from
the organization for the first
four years. It later joined the organization as an observer
in 1971. Hydromet was
financed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
for the first two
phases till 1982 and later using own resources till 1992.
Most of the projects that had
been proposed by the Hydromet grouping remained far from
being realized.
The Hydromet was followed by the formation of Undugu
(Swahili for 'brotherhood')
grouping in Khartoum in 1983. It drew its members from
riparian states viz. Egypt,
Sudan, Uganda and Congo Democratic Republic (the former
Zaire) and non-riparian
state viz. Central African Republic. The objectives of the
Undugu grouping had
been to forge cooperation in areas of infrastructure,
environmental cooperation,
culture and trade. Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya opted to
remain as observers in the
grouping. As stated by Bram (2000), the grouping was
disbanded without achieving
what it ought to. The undugu grouping was later succeeded by
the installment of
three more organizations till 1997: the Nile Basin
Integrated Development [1986],
Technical Cooperation Commission for the Promotion and
Development of the Nile
(TECCONILE) [1992] and the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework
[1997]. Almost all of
the above-stated organizations concentrated more on issues
dealing with water
saving, storing and utilization; preparation of master plans
in the co-basin states and
capacity building. The organizations secured financial
support from the UNDP, the
World Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA) [Ministry
of Water Resources, Ethiopia, January, 2000].
The organization that is designated as 'promising' by some
writers (Bram, 2000;
World Bank, 1999) is the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). It was
incepted back in 1998 and
is still functional. Unlike its predecessors, this
organization secured the membership
of all the Nile riparian states save Eritrea. It embraces
projects at the macro (whole
basin) and micro (sub-basin) levels with the former
designated as 'Shared Vision
Program' and the later 'Subsidiary Action Programs'. Its
objectives revolve around
themes that are dealing with confidence building measures,
awareness creation,
project identification and implementation. The various
programs and measures of the
NBI are financed by the World Bank.
There have been various gatherings of water ministers and
experts from the co-basin
countries recently. The seventh ordinary session of the Nile
Council of Ministers for
Water Affairs (Nile-COM) took place on May 12, 1999 in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
The need for basin-wide cooperation was reiterated in the
meeting. It was at that
juncture that Ethiopia made its position clear by calling
for an "...equitable utilization
of the resources of the Nile for effective and sustainable
development of all
concerned towards a shared vision amongst the nine basin
countries" (BBC News
Online, 12 May 1999). Following that, the Nile Basin
Secretariat, which was formed in
Dar Es Salaam in February 1999, met in Entebbe, Uganda, in
September of the same
year. It was decided at this meeting that there should be a
joint discourse with a
common pursuit of the sustainable development and management
of Nile waters
(Walta Information Center, 06 September, 1999). Last, but
not least, the three
principal riparian states, viz. Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan,
established the Eastern
Nile Subsidiary Action Program Team (ENSAPT) at their
ministerial meeting that
took place in Khartoum on November 19, 1999. They approved
an accord for the
joint utilization of Atbara (Tekeze), Sobat (Baro-Akobo) and
the Blue Nile (Abbay).
Apparently, the creation of the aforementioned organizations
and the various
endeavors that are made to attain a variety of objectives is
a welcome sign that
indicates a glimmer of hope. But given Egypt's highly
guarded water security, its
historical dominance and the various war threats that it has
advanced against the
upper riparian states, most particularly against Ethiopia,
it may be difficult to discern
a sudden change of heart by the Egyptians that could bring
the stalemate to an end.
The Egyptians may go to the utmost in agreeing to divide
newly acquired water by
reclaiming say the Machar and Sudd swamps that are located
in the Sobat
(Baro-Akobo) and the White Nile river basins respectively. A
fresh redistribution of
the Nile waters nullifying the 1959 and all the previous
agreements remains an
Achilles' hill and the starting point of any discussion.
This would literally imply that
the ball is in Egyptian court. Hence, the panacea to the
problems enveloping the Nile
basin does not revolve around the multiplication of
organizations but rather in the
anticipation of a breakthrough. It could be far from being a
nerve-racking exercise if
the Egyptians revoke the 1959 and all the tilted colonial
arrangements.
4. Plausible Win-Win Solutions
The most fundamental solution to the problems enveloping the
Nile water
utilization is regional or basin-wide cooperation in water
development.
Egypt has more to gain than any other co-riparian from
increased
cooperation. According to Kinfe Abraham "...the attempt
by Egypt to
maintain the status quo [leaning] on historical rights will
be untenable
morally, ethically and politically, for it would be
tantamount to depriving
others of life while caring for their own" (1997: 2).
Zewdie Abate's
remarks deserve to be mentioned here: "...water
management in the highly
water dependent Nile basin is a complex and multi-faceted
challenge. A
broad and integrated approach should be taken" (1990:
149).
It is very difficult to come out with a cookie-cutter
solution that can satisfy
each and every Nile basin state. Some suggestions could,
however, be
made by way of a win-win solution to break the stalemate and
pave the
way for settling such an overarching problem.
(a) First and foremost, Egypt and the Sudan must scrap the
unfairly handled 1959
agreement, which was a bilateral deal that ignored the
natural rights of all the other
riparian states. It should be revised and renegotiated to
accommodate the interests
of the other co-basin countries, particularly Ethiopia,
which contributes 85% of the
Nile waters. To this effect, an independent panel of
international specialists could be
established who could come out with clearer guidelines for
equitably distributing the
Nile water supply. The panelists would have to do their
utmost to do justice and
equity in the distribution of the waters of the Nile by
considering a number of
variables in the equation including water contribution to
the basin, economic
conditions, degree of dependence on the river, food security
status and potential
water demands.
(b) Some Nile experts such as Whittington and McClelland
have suggested
the establishment of reservoirs on the Blue Nile in
Ethiopia, for, they say
"...it offers the greatest opportunity over the long
term for dramatic
improvements in the overall management of Nile
resources" (1992: 152).
Wild also echoed an identical proposal by saying that
"…the main method
of achieving this [the exploitation of joint gains in the Nile
basin] would be
the transfer of much of the storage of Lake Nasser upstream
to the
Ethiopian highlands" (1995). Elhance too has underlined
the same
argument when he reiterated that "…such a storage [on
the Blue Nile in
Ethiopia] would have much lower evaporation rate than any
alternative
storage reservoir that could be built within Egypt or Sudan
or on the
headwaters of the White Nile" (1999:67). These and some
other writers
argue by saying that the transfer could be of help in having
much water in
the basin, reducing evaporation to a much lower rate than at
Egypt's
Aswan High Dam, eliminating the annual Nile flood and
diminishing
siltations in dams and barrages in the Sudan and Egypt. What
is interesting
in this regard is that the water savings so made, which
could be in the order
of 12-21.4 billion m3 per year (Kliot, 1994), would
quadruple Ethiopia's
irrigated area without reducing supplies to Egypt and the
Sudan.
(c) There are some scholars who have made their own
suggestions regarding the
future share of Ethiopia from the Nile waters. For example,
Whittington and
McClelland have suggested that Ethiopia's share of the Nile
water should be at least
equal to Sudan's. The approximate allocations they have
forwarded are 52 billion m3
for Egypt, 14 billion m3 for the Sudan and 14 billion m3 for
Ethiopia (assuming 6
billion m3 or more of water could be saved by building
storages in the Blue Nile
basin of Ethiopia). However, the Egyptian engineer Shahin
(1986: 19) proposed the
diversion of 2 billion m3 of water from Aswan to Ethiopia as
a sign of good gesture
to alleviate drought problems in Ethiopia. The author of
this paper has strong
reservations on both of the above proposals. As one could
also easily guess, such
overtures may not be acceptable to Ethiopians. The author of
this paper presumes
that the future share of Ethiopia should fall somewhere
around the suggestions
made by Kliot (1994:95) where he says "...if principles
of equity are adopted by all
the co-riparians of the Nile, and Ethiopia is allowed to go
ahead with its Blue Nile
basin plan, Egypt and the Sudan would benefit from the
construction of the
reservoirs on the Blue Nile and would lose no more than 25
billion m 3 of water".
(d) For an international river basin such as the Nile where
there is water scarcity that
would fall short of satisfying the various human needs in
the basin, scholars such as
Tony Allan (1997) suggest the import of 'virtual water' in
food staples instead of
relying on shared 'watershed water'. It is under a situation
where it takes about 1000
tons of water to produce every ton of grain that 80% of all
the water consumption in
the Nile basin goes to agriculture. This should, somehow, be
changed if one opts to
have water security in the future. The economic and
financial situations in Egypt
and the Sudan could permit them to import 'virtual water'
embedded in food staples.
Egypt has a huge oil and tourist revenue while the Sudan has
recently begun
exporting oil with the first consignment of 600,000 barrels
shipped to Singapore in
August 1999 (BBC News Online, 30 August, 1999). On the
contrary, Ethiopia does
not have the financial resources to do so now. So, if Egypt
and the Sudan import
some 'virtual water', they would leave some water to the
hitherto disadvantaged
riparian states such as Ethiopia.
(e) Increasing joint efforts in the use of water-saving
technologies such as
drip irrigation which pipes only as much water as crops need
delivering it
directly to their roots (so-called green water). Besides,
more efficient
on-field use and reduced release of water at Aswan for
navigational
purposes could also save the much needed water in the Nile
basin.
It could, in the final analysis, be stated that the
allocation policy should establish
the minimum acceptable flow from each basin, the advantage
of which is that it can
be used flexibly to set seasonal standards for natural and
local anomalies and river
quality in fluctuating demands (Zewdie: 1990). Mechanisms
should, somehow, be
sought by which "...an accommodation could be arrived
at through direct
negotiations based on the principle of equitable share,
common interest and
legitimate needs of each user state" (Shuval &
IWRA, 1992: 133)
5. Summary and Conclusions
The Nile is one of the longest rivers in the world that
flows south-north from the
Equatorial Lakes Region towards the Mediterranean Sea. In
its long journey, it
traverses about ten independent African countries from
Tanzania in the south to
Egypt in the north. About 85% of the total annual discharge
of the Nile comes from
Ethiopia leaving the remaining 15 per cent to the Equatorial
Lakes Region.
Unlike some other shared river basins in the world, there is
no comprehensive
agreement in the utilization of the Nile waters. The
hitherto existing treaties are either
bilateral or are deliberately planned by colonial forces to
serve the interests of the
downstream countries, particularly Egypt. These have been
done in violation of the
Helsinki and ILC Rules. Egypt's 'water security' policy is
based on Nile water
obsession. They attempt to block all venues that can lead to
a fair and equitable
distribution of the Nile waters. Whenever any co-basin
country lays a plan to use
the water in its own territory, the Egyptians react by
making threats of war. The
Sudan, on the other hand, has always been forced to fall
under the whims of
Anglo-Egyptian and later Egyptian hegemony. Treaties,
agreements and hydraulic
works in the Sudan have always been designed first and foremost
to suit the
interests of Egypt. Ethiopia has all along aired her
objections and reservations to the
water-sharing agreements and out-of basin transfers. It has
also repeatedly made it
clear to both the downstream countries that it has a
legitimate right to use the Nile
waters that flow within its own territory. The White Nile
riparian states have so far
developed a peripheral interest in the distribution of the
Nile waters.
The Nile riparian states could bring the stalemate to an end
if and only if (a) the 1959
bilateral deal between Egypt and the Sudan is discarded; (b)
water redistribution to
the basin countries is made by giving weight to factors such
as present-day water
demand, food security status, degree of dependence on the
Nile waters, the volume
of water contribution to the river, basin area, portion of
the river within one's own
territory; (c) pragmatic solutions that could save water in
the basin are made (e.g. the
establishment of dams and reservoirs in Ethiopia to reduce
losses caused by
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