A cooperative future?

Hi, this will be my seventh and final blog, where I hope to sum up the issues we have investigated over this term - finishing with an eye to the future - to assess cooperative opportunities.  

As I have detailed in previous blogs, cooperation and sharing of benefits in the Nile Basin has further to go. Even though the Egyptian hydro-hegemony over economically lagging Sudan and Egypt is now being challenged and disputed (Tesfaye 2013), and the Nile Basin Initiative has continued to encourage collaboration, mainly upstream (Soliman 2019). Challenges (including the Cooperative Framework Agreement), are yet to form a new status quo throughout the basin, due to the self-interested priorities of key players in the basin.

 

All three large states on the Nile have prevented transboundary cooperation through self-interested actions. Legacies of colonial treaties afforded Egypt hegemony over water-share, however, recent instability after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution has put Egypt in a vulnerable position, now afraid to lose valuable water share, the formation of the CFA without Egypt demonstrates its declining authority (Tekuya 2020). Zenawi's tenure as president and then prime minister from 1991-2012 saw Ethiopia shift toward a fast-growing market economy - driving the development of unilateral large-scale hydrological infrastructure and irrigation investment, like the GERD, where downstream states were threatened, and tensions grew (Cascao 2009). Sudanese hydrological vulnerability has come out of its large water deficit, food scarcity post-2008 requiring enhanced irrigation (Mielnik 2021), and the secession of South Sudan - causing the nation to prioritise water security, reject the CFA, and align more with Ethiopia than its historical ally Egypt (Swain 2010). This has created a status-quo of water security prioritisation as nations' short-term self-interest trumps collaboration (Swain 2002).

 

Therefore, there has not been enough effort in negotiating inclusive frameworks that go beyond the CFA to create a collaborative environment for the various interests in the basin (Tekuya 2020).

 

However, Egyptian investment in desalination and water-saving technology shows a willingness to adapt and the potential for cooperation in the future (Mensah 2022).

Looking forward, creating an environment of transboundary cooperation in the Nile Basin relies on the use of the NBI, without mistrust and self-interest. Successful collaborative projects like the Rusumo Falls Hydroelectric Project, a dam safety office and joint flooding forecasting between Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia are examples of the NBI's potential, but more must be done to include and tie together all states in the basin  (Soliman 2019). The focus of multilateral approaches must be shifted to incorporate both downstream and upstream nations to interlink the water, food, and energy goals of these countries and best deal with the challenges of water sharing (Cascao 2018).

 

I hope you have found this blog series informative and interesting!