Donors back Egypt, Sudan on Nile water pact

Sources present at that meeting told The EastAfrican that some ministers wanted the Nile CoM to officially condemn the development partners’ actions by asking them to respect the sovereignty of the riparian states and reminding them that they are only observers.

This would, however, have been hard to pull off, given that Egypt, which is the new chair of that body, gains from the donors’ outburst.

Other countries opted not to fuel a confrontation with the development partners, whose collective commitment to the Nile Basin Initiative programmes exceeds $250 million in grants, and is close to $1 billion in loans.

During the same meeting, Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Allam said, “We still want historical uses of the Nile water to be recognised by other Nile Basin countries because this is the only source of water we have, although we also recognise the need for others to use the water. So we want historical rights to be recognised in the agreement before it is signed.”

Article 14 of the agreement, which has caused a stalemate for years, reads: “Nile Basin states therefore, in a spirit of co-operation, a) agree to work together to ensure that all states achieve and sustain water security, b) not to significantly affect the water security of any other Nile Basin state.”

Whereas seven countries want this text to stay as above, Egypt and Sudan want part b) of this article to read, “Not to adversely affect the water security ‘and current uses and rights’ of any other Nile Basin states.”

The downstream countries fear that if the text remains as it is, other countries will use a lot of water and deny them enough flow downstream, while the seven countries fear that they will not be able to use the water reasonably if historical rights and uses of the water by some countries are maintained.