Land and Hydropolitics in the Nile River Basin: Challenges and New Investments by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317414346
Google: _OPLDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 31381626
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

7

Transboundary water resources and the political economy of large-scale land investments in the Nile

Sudan, hydropolitics and Arab food security

Ramy Lotfy Hanna

Introduction

The end of the status quo in the Nile Basin

Egypt and Sudan are two key downstream countries in the Nile transboundary river basin. A significant part of the Nile Basin’s ecosystem and its watershed’s natural resources within both countries were under the control of the Ottoman Empire and its succeeding khedives and kings since Mohamed Ali’s invasion of Sudan in 1821. With the increased British influence in Egypt and Sudan in 1882 and 1897, respectively, coupled with colonial strategic interests in both countries – especially cotton cultivations and trade (Waterbury, 1979) – the Nile River flow was governed by the 1929 Agreement.1,2 Sudan eventually gained its independence in 1956 and signed the 1959 Nile Treaty3 between Colonel Abboud and Nasser, whereby Egypt and Sudan were granted full rights for the utilization of the Nile waters with annual shares of 55.5 and 18.5bcm (billion cubic metres), respectively.

Today, the Nile River Basin is far from its hydropolitical shape of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries during the eras of the Ottomans, British colonialism and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956). Sudan4 is now split into two countries: Sudan and South Sudan.5 Sudan’s quota based on the 1959 Nile Agreement also includes South Sudan’s share, with no clear rules on how this allocation will be divided between both countries6 – a fundamental question that has not been addressed yet in the complex hydropolitics of the Nile River Basin. Egypt and Ethiopia are also key countries likely to affect and be affected by transboundary water resources politics related to both Sudan and South Sudan. Egypt’s population grew by 46 per cent between 1994 and 2014 (Youssef et al., 2014), currently at 87 million citizens (CAPMAS, 2014a), forecasted to exceed 100 million by 2025, mostly concentrated within the narrow Nile Valley constituting 6 per cent of the country’s total area dominated by the desert. While the available per capita water resources have reached an annual rate of 663 cubic metres/inhabitant in 2013, forecasted to reach 582 cubic metres in 2025 (CAPMAS, 2014b), Egypt’s annual share from the Nile based on the 1959 Agreement has been facing political contestations by upstream countries led by Ethiopia – the source of the Blue Nile contributing 84 per cent of Egypt’s share of water resources. Ethiopia is also witnessing a demographic boom forecasted to reach 124 million by 2025 (UNDESA, 2012) with serious socio-economic and poverty challenges. Both Sudan and Ethiopia are undertaking several mega infrastructure developments accompanied by increased unilateral investments in dams, water resources projects and large-scale irrigation (LSI) schemes with the active participation of the private sector. The Nile River Basin is indeed witnessing ‘the end of its status quo’ (Verhoeven, 2013).

Perhaps the tripartite agreement signed between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in Khartoum on 24 March 2015 indicates a new chapter of cooperation in the Nile. Yet, it is just a beginning that requires a myriad of institutional arrangements

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