New Nile treaty offers win-win deal

Until the River Nile riparian states began negotiating a new treaty with Egypt and Sudan that were bestowed the exclusive rights to harness the water by the British colonial government, the cause of endemic food insecurity was scarcely understood.

The obstructionist 1929 Nile Treaty outlawed damning the water for irrigation, power generation and commercial livestock development.

Famine in the region — like the one Ethiopia witnessed in 1984 — is largely man-made and the result of the flawed colonial treaty is part of the cause.

The Nile Basin Treaty that the two downstream states have declined to sign fundamentally alters the agreement by giving upstream states the right to use the water for economic and social development.

Out of the Nile’s total flow of 84 billion cubic metres, the colonial agreement allowed Egypt access to 55.5 billion cubic metres of the water annually and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres. The Nile stretches more than 6,600 kilometres from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, which makes it a vital water and energy source for the countries through which it flows.

It is against this backdrop that upstream riparian states have, over the past 10 years, been prodding Egypt and Sudan to negotiate a new treaty that allows them to use the water for agricultural production and hydropower generation to no avail.

Yet these are the strong pillars of any economic and social development. Without food and power, little if any, development can take place.

Now these counties are demanding the sustainable use of the water for irrigation, power generation and livestock industry development. This demand was bound to come along because save for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the other nine Nile River riparian states are water-stressed. The irony of it all is that some of these countries like Kenya and Uganda are forced to import water from Egypt.

The eight states that have signed or promised to sign the new treaty therefore find it insulting to be held hostage by Cairo’s intransigence and depraved diplomacy on matters conservation and sustainable utilisation of natural resources.

It is regrettable that Egypt is resorting to unorthodox manoeuvres to arm-twist Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Chad and the DRC into rescinding the new treaty. It has even threatened to go to war unless the new treaty is annulled. This is tantamount to blackmail and totally unacceptable.

While Sudan has shown it is amenable to the treaty so long as the Nile water regime is not interfered with, Egypt’s foreign minister arrogantly declared in February that any interference with the water is cause of the next major war in Africa.

The type of arrogance being displayed by Cairo is unfortunate and out of sync with modern day international relations.

Egypt should take into account that to reverse the effects of climate change, the onus of conserving the Nile ecosystem lies with the upstream states.

Therefore for Egypt to use war threats, trade barriers or embargoes to bend the treaty in its favour is tantamount to denying upstream states their inalienable right. War, economic sanctions or protectionist trade tariffs ring hollow and are betray the skewed and unfair regime anchored by the retrogressive colonial treaty.

The new agreement signed on May 14 establishes principles governing the sustainable use, management, development and conservation of the Nile water resources and details the rights and obligations of Basin states.

It is unfair for Egypt to cite a minor aspect of an otherwise excellent document that guarantees freedom to water for nearly 300 million people who would be denied access to this valuable resource.

Egypt and Sudan would lose nothing by engaging in dialogue, but gain everything by working in concert with other Nile Basin countries. The new treaty provides a win-win situation for all the countries along the Nile.