«Nile River Basin»

'' The Nile is a river that runs through ten riparian states including five among the ten poorest countries in the world.Their poverty, coupled with alarming population explosion and environmental degradation requires the participation of all riparian States of the Nile resources development. "The treaty for the total use of the Nile waters", concluded between Egypt and Sudan in 1959, divides the river between the two countries.The other riparian countries, including Ethiopia - which has a population of over 60 million inhabitants (and will reach 120 million by 2025), where 86% of the Nile water comes from its shelves - uses to date only less than 1%.Despite the existing needs, Ethiopia has failed to develop its water resources to feed its population, mainly due to lack of financial resources.The policies of international financial institutions such as the World Bank, which increased the difficulties of the upstream riparian countries to obtain funding for development programs without the consent of downstream countries, have helped to aggravate the situation.Bilateral funding sources have not changed the problem.Foreign investment in the Nile water operations was virtually nonexistent.The downstream countries have therefore retained the right to object to the state upstream development companies.The situation is such as Ethiopia, whose name inevitably evokes drought and famine, is condemned to wait while some States use all the waters of the Nile.Moreover, to make matters worse, they continue to introduce new large-scale irrigation programs.Accordingly, the upstream countries have no choice but to take steps unilaterally.However, many countries in the Nile basin, including Ethiopia, believe that even if the sharing of water resources could trigger conflict, it is important to act jointly.Cooperation on the Nile development is not new.Efforts have been made to give countries the right to operate the river - through joint ventures such queHYDROMET, UNDUGUetTECCONILE.However, attempts have ended in failure, mainly because they have failed to win the confidence of the riparian States or to encourage their participation.Many, including Ethiopia, have refused to join these programs considering they were intended to institutionalize the unjust status quo on the Nile, as evidenced by the 1959 Bilateral Agreement efforts on cooperation had, either, no chance of success.There never existed a minimum degree of confidence to ensure cooperation.But the situation is not hopeless;a ray of hope shines on the horizon.The World Bank and other international organizations, from the point of view of some coastal States, were involved for too long in this situation, decided it was time to make decisions.The funds released by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) helped launch the Initiative for the Nile Basin (NBI) and LECADRE cooperation on the Nile, both qualitatively very different programs which, the first time in history, brought together all the riparian countries.Given the level of distrust which characterized the situation, ensure the participation of all countries in the Nile waters for development programs is an important step towards cooperation.The vision of BNI - promoting sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of the Nile Basin waters and a fair distribution of the benefits of this common resource - was adopted by all the riparian countries.They even went further and tried to define and translate this vision by proposing concrete study projects.This initiative is a great success.But we must not forget that the task that we face is much more difficult and much more complex.Everyone knows that the real strategy of the NBI is to get the consensus of all the countries bordering on the least controversial issues by giving an unspecified date, or caring for future generations, fundamental and contentious issues.There is no doubt that the programs established within the framework of the NBI main objective to build confidence.The questions therefore arise as to whether these measures of "confidence-building" have a chance to improve the chronic state of distrust and suspicion that characterized the Nile water development. "