Nile Basin Initiative |
Since 1999 the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) has provided the institutional basis for cooperation between the Nile Basin states based on a shared vision: ‘To achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin resources.’ With strong international backing and success in attracting funding the NBI has progressed rapidly in the last six years and is now at the stage of project preparation and implementation.
Many of these projects represent an unprecedented opportunity to develop the waters of the river and the environment within the basin to optimise the benefits available to all countries. This can significantly advance socio-economic development within all basin countries whilst helping to reduce conflict and insecurity. The NBI’s policy guidelines set out the primary objectives:
- Target poverty eradication and promote economic integration;
- Develop the water resources of the Nile Basin in a sustainable and equitable way to ensure prosperity, security, and peace for all its peoples;
- Ensure efficient water management and the optimal use of the resources;
- Ensure cooperation and joint action between the riparian countries, seeking win-win gains.
To achieve these objectives the NBI has established a ‘Strategic Action Program’ (SAP) with two complementary subsidiary programs:
- A basin-wide ‘Shared Vision Program’ (SVP) to articulate a common purpose among the riparians and implement activities to coordinate and enable implementation of the shared vision;
- ‘Subsidiary Action Programs’ (SAPs)—in the Eastern Nile (ENSAP) countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan) and in the Nile Equatorial Lakes (NELSAP) countries. Each SAP plans and implements physical infrastructure projects and other actions on the ground at the lowest appropriate level, taking into account the benefits and externalities of planned activities on other countries. Many of these are specifically designed to operate across national borders to develop the confidence of the Nile Basin States in working together to address sustainable development and poverty alleviation.
Some of the investment projects are ‘fast track’—specifically to show that actions on the ground are possible thus helping to maintain cooperative momentum—whilst others are longer-term, of potentially higher impact and are described as high-impact multipurpose projects. Projects currently under preparation include substantial watershed management in upland areas in the Eastern Nile, power generation and transfer including the construction of new hydropower dams under both NELSAP and ENSAP, river basin planning tools, irrigation and drainage development, and flood control and impact mitigation within ENSAP.
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©2010
