Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan Agree to Develop Nile

When activists such as Bono or former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil talk about what Africa needs, they often refer to water. Plain and simple, much of Africa, especially West Africa, needs clean water and sanitation. Unfortunately, though the Europeans may have given the Africans their independence years ago, they left without providing any real sort of infrastructure and what was left was destroyed by the Africans themselves through various civil wars and episodes of ethnic cleansing.

Though all three above cited countries are still having difficulties ranging from on-going ethnic strife to political upheaval, it's fairly good to see that whatever governmental institutions are in place are attempting to do appropriate things to help their respective countries.

Here's the story:

In a move that could be described as a breakthrough, the three countries of the eastern sub-basin, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, are forging ahead with a plan to jointly develop their share of the water in the Nile Basin.

Details of the meeting and its outcome are not out, but water resources ministers from the sub-basin have met at the 7th Eastern Nile Council of Ministers (ENCOM) annual meeting, which was convened in Addis Ababa last Saturday.

The ministerial level meeting was supposed to deliberate on the findings of an earlier meeting of experts which discussed some of the joint development projects for tapping the Nile.

Speaking at the opening of ETCOM meeting, Shiferaw Jarso, the Ethiopian Minister of Water Resources Development noted that the initiative started a couple of years ago by the three countries has taken firm ground. Shiferaw said, "We have now created the conditions necessary, the preparedness and resolve to launch the action on the ground. The course we have taken is irreversible and should be carried on until we attain our objectives"

The minister emphasized confrontation and exclusion must give way to cooperation, based on the principles of equitable share of transboundary rivers, without causing significant harm to other riparian states.

"Ethiopia is fully committed to this process, and remains engaged until we see concrete results on the ground, which we believe is needed for building the necessary confidence among the riparian states," minister Shiferaw added.

The Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Mahamoud Abou Zeid, was equally up-beat about the programme developed within a short period of time since the three countries embarked on the initiative. "The experts have moved from planning to action, and I must say that the level of achievement is extraordinarily satisfactory," the Egyptian Minister said.

The three countries are already involved in the realization of an initiative called the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP) under which they have agreed to cooperate, among others, on irrigation and drainage, hydro power development and river regulation.

According to Ethiopian and Egyptian officials, "Donor Consortium" is to convene in June, in Geneva, where it is expected that donor countries and multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and the EU, will committee themselves in support of the Eastern Nile Initiative.

At the sixth ENSAP meeting in Cairo, the three countries came up with a total of 57 hydropower, irrigation and water management projects. Most of these projects, about 46, were proposed by Ethiopia.