Tanzania and Uganda are both countries with a population of 30MM each. Water available to them through rainfall also puts them among the riches in the world in terms of water resources, while their water consumption is the poorest in the world.
50% of Uganda’s population is below poverty line. 16.4% in Tanzania and close to a third of the population in Ethiopia. These countries certainly look at the disparity in income and resources in Egypt, where only 7.6% of the population is below poverty line and close to 100% of water resources in Egypt come from the Nile that emanates from these countries. Upriver countries eager to develop and prosper are certainly looking to increase their water utilization to correct what they see as historical injustices.
The Egyptian View Point
Egypt has a natural historical right on the Nile River, and principles of its acquired rights have been a focal point of negotiations with other upstream states. The fact that this right exists and that Egypt has virtually no other source of water means that any perceived reduction of the Nile water supply to Egypt is tampering with its national security and thus could trigger potential conflict. There have been occasions when Egypt has threatened to go to war over Nile water. This has been because of a threat to Egypt's water supply by neighboring states.
Egypt perceives that colonial treaties have resulted in rights to the use of Nile water between the countries of the Nile Basin. A summary of those treaties are:
April 15, 1891 – Article III of the Anglo-Italian Protocol. Article III states that "the Italian government engages not to construct on the Atbara River, in view of irrigation, any work which might sensibly modify its flow into the Nile". The language used in this article was too vague to provide clear property rights or rights to the use of water.
May 15, 1902 – Article III of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ethiopia. Article three states “His Majesty the Emperor Menilik II, King of Kings of Ethiopia, engages himself towards the Government of His Britannic Majesty not to construct or allow to be constructed any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tana, or the Sobat, which would arrest the flow of their waters except in agreement with His Britannic Majesty’s Government and the Government of Sudan" This agreement has become one of the most contested agreements over the use of the Nile waters.
May 9, 1906 – Article III of the Agreement between Britain and the Government of the Independent State of the Congo. Article III states "The Government of the independent state of the Congo undertakes not to construct, or allow to be constructed, any work over or near the Semliki or Isango river which would diminish the volume of water entering Lake Albert except in agreement with the Sudanese Government". Belgium signed this agreement on behalf of the Congo despite the agreement favoring only the downstream users of the Nile waters and restricting the people of the Congo from accessing their part of the Nile.
December 13, 1906 – Article 4(a) of the Tripartite Treaty (Britain-France-Italy). Article 4(a) states “To act together... to safeguard; ... the interests of Great Britain and Egypt in the Nile Basin, more especially as regards the regulation of the waters of that river and its tributaries (due consideration being paid to local interests) without prejudice to Italian interests". This treaty, in effect, denied Ethiopia its sovereign right over the use of its own water. Ethiopia has rejected the treaty their military and political power was not sufficient to regain its use of the Nile water.
The 1925 exchange of notes between Britain and Italy concerning Lake Tana which states "...Italy recognizes the prior hydraulic rights of Egypt and the Sudan... not to construct on the head waters of the Blue Nile and the White Nile (the Sobat) and their tributaries and effluents any work which might sensibly modify their flow into the main river." Ethiopia opposed the agreement and notified both parties of its objections:
"To the Italian government: The fact that you have come to an agreement, and the fact that you have thought it necessary to give us a joint notification of that agreement, make it clear that your intention is to exert pressure, and this in our view, at once raises a previous question. This question which calls for preliminary examination, must therefore be laid before the League of Nations."
"To the British government: The British Government has already entered into negotiations with the Ethiopian Government in regard to its proposal, and we had imagined that, whether that proposal was carried into effect or not, the negotiations would have been concluded with us; we would never have suspected that the British Government would come to an agreement with another Government regarding our Lake."
May 7, 1929 – The Agreement between Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. This agreement included:
Egypt and Sudan utilize 48 and 4 billion cubic meters of the Nile flow per year, respectively;
The flow of the Nile during January 20 to July 15 (dry season) would be reserved for Egypt;
Egypt reserves the right to monitor the Nile flow in the upstream countries;
Egypt assumed the right to undertake Nile river related projects without the consent of upper riparian states.
Egypt assumed the right to veto any construction projects that would affect her interests adversely.
In effect, this agreement gave Egypt complete control over the Nile during the dry season when water is most needed for agricultural irrigation. It also severely limits the amount of water allotted Sudan and provides no water to any of the other riparian states.
The 1959 Nile agreement between the Sudan and Egypt for full control utilization of the Nile waters. This agreement included:
The controversy on the quantity of average annual Nile flow was settled and agreed to be about 84 billion cubic meters measured at Aswan High Dam, in Egypt.
The agreement allowed the entire average annual flow of the Nile to be shard among the Sudan and Egypt at 18.5 and 55.5 billion cubic meters, respectively.
Annual water loss due to evaporation and other factors were agreed to be about 10 billion cubic meters. This quantity would be deducted from the Nile yield before share was assigned to Egypt and Sudan.
Sudan, in agreement with Egypt, would construct projects that would enhance the Nile flow by preventing evaporation losses in the Sudd swamps of the White Nile located in the southern Sudan. The cost and benefit of same to be divided equally between them. If claim would come from the remaining riparian countries over the Nile water resource, both the Sudan and Egypt shall, together, handle the claims.
If the claim prevails and the Nile water has to be shared with another riparian state, that allocated amount would be deducted from the Sudan’s and Egypt’s and allocations/shares in equal parts of Nile volume measured at Aswan.
The agreement granted Egypt the right to constructs the Aswan High Dam that can store the entire annual Nile River flow of a year.
It granted the Sudan to construct the Rosaries Dam on the Blue Nile and, to develop other irrigation and hydroelectric power generation until it fully utilizes its Nile share.
A Permanent Joint Technical Commission to be established to secure the technical cooperation between them.
Clearly in the eyes of Egypt those agreement constitute safeguards to its historical rights in the Nile water. In the eyes of the upstream states, those agreement were made during the colonial era and do not reflect the growing development needs of the upstream countries.
Complicating Factors
Africans have suffered for a long time from under development and poverty. Many African and even Arab nations have failed to create democratic institutions and sustained development mechanisms. While in the 1950s, Gamal Abdel-Nasser was a revolutionary ideal in the eyes of his African contemporaries; the Egyptian disengagement from Africa that started after the 1967 War resulted in loss of Egyptian influence on African countries and people. It was also easy for some African governments to blame their own deficiencies on a distant enemy. The Egyptian government represented that perfect enemy given the water imbalances described above.
I have met many African émigrés in the United States. All of them, including Sudanese, are willing to blame their plight on the Egyptian government. While Israel exports $3B/year to Africa, Egyptian trade with Africa is minuscule. As a matter of fact, Iran’s trade with Africa is more than that of Egypt despite the absence of any strategic ties between Iran and Africa. Egyptian involvement in arm selling in Rawanda.
On Monday, 16 October 1990, the Rwandan ambassador to Egypt, Celestin Kabanda, had gone to a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo. For seven years Egypt had refused to sell arms to Rwanda. Now there was added urgency.
Kabanda's meeting that day was with Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who had not yet launched his campaign to become the sixth Secretary-General of the UN. He was for the time being an obscure professional diplomat, a lawyer and author of books and articles on international law and political science. He was a minister of state for foreign affairs and he had recently helped oversee a state visit to Cairo by Habyarimana. Kabanda said he desperately needed Boutros-Ghali's help and handed him a list of weapons. Egypt had mass-produced cheap weaponry for sale. Buying weapons from Egypt, with its low production costs, showed a competitive advantage. Kabanda wanted Boutros-Ghali to intervene with the Egyptian government on Rwanda's behalf, saying that military aid from Belgium had just been cancelled.
So desperate had Rwanda been in the past to get Egyptian arms that at one point it had even asked for weapons as gifts. Egypt, though, had always declined. The only gift so far was the statue of a pharoah, placed with fanfare in the centre of one of Kigali's strategic roundabouts. During the recent head-of-state meeting in Cairo, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president, had told Habyarimana that Egypt could not supply the weapons that Rwanda wanted. Yet, when the meeting with Boutros-Ghali was over, Kabanda was optimistic. He telexed Kigali to tell the Foreign Ministry that Boutros-Ghali had promised his help and assured him that he personally would deal with the request.
Twelve days later, on 28 October, a first arms contract between Rwanda and Egypt was signed. It was for US$5.889 million. The weapons purchased included 60,000 grenades (weighed in kilos), some 2 million rounds of ammunition, 18,000 mortar bombs, both 82mm and 120mm, 4,200 assault rifles, rockets and rocket launchers. The Egyptian signature on the contract was that of Colonel Sami Said Mohamed, chief of the friendly countries branch in the Egyptian Ministry of Defence, and the deal proceeded quickly. The first consignment of weapons, described as 'relief materials' was loaded at Cairo international airport and was flown to Kigali on 28 October in a Boeing 707 by the Egyptian airline ZAS at a cost of US$65,000 for the round trip. Habyarimana gave authority for the money to be paid through the Commercial International Bank of Egypt.
It is not known whether President Mubarak was aware of the details of the arms deal but as a gesture of goodwill he gave Rwanda a gift of two field ambulances, later shipped by sea. There may have been other pressures elsewhere to persuade Egypt to sell arms to Rwanda. But Kabanda later wrote to thank Boutros-Ghali: 'Your personal intervention helped the conclusion of the contract. I thank you sincerely.' Kabanda wrote to his foreign minister, Casimir Buzmungu: 'the personal intervention of Boutros-Ghali with his colleague in the defence ministry was a determining factor in the conclusion of the arms contract for he was following closely the events on our borders.
Bizimungu wrote to Boutros-Ghali on 31 December 1990 to thank him for his help in hastening the arms deal. A year later, when Boutros-Ghali was selected Secretary-General of the UN, he received a telegram of congratulation from Bizimungu who had unforgettable memories of their frank and profitable collaboration reinforcing the friendship between their two countries.
The arms deal with Egypt was kept secret. It came at a time when strenuous international efforts had begun to prevent a civil war between the RPF and the Rwandan government forces. The Belgium prime minister, Wilfried Martens, had flown to Nairobi on 14 October to try to open negotiations between the Rwandan government and the RPF. Peace talks had begun on 17 October with Habyarimana, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and President Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania. The talks were facilitated by Mwinyi, who feared the creation of a larger refugee crisis. On 26 October, two days before the first arms deal between Egypt and Rwanda was signed, a ceasefire was agreed between the Rwanda government and the RPF following diplomatic efforts by the Beligian government.
Ceasefire or not, from now until the genocide began in April 1994 Rwanda would become the third largest importer of weapons in Africa, ranked behind Nigeria and Angola. An estimated US$100 million was spent on arms by this tiny African country. For the next three years, among the military hardware which entered the country, there was a seemingly unstoppable flow of small arms and light weapons.
Boutros-Ghali, when later interviewed about the arms sales, described his role as that of a 'catalyst'. He was a minister of foreign affairs, he said, and it was his job to help to sell his country's weapons production; he would have helped any government wanting arms from Egypt. Egyptian arms were cheap and the Egyptians prided themselves on the speed of delivery. Kabanda made the approach, said Boutros-Ghali, because he would not have known who else in the Egyptian government to contact. About the wisdom of arranging an arms deal while international peace efforts were under way, Boutros-Ghali said that he did not think 'a few thousand guns would have changed the situation'.
While Egyptian arm sales in Rwanda and the allegations that Egypt sold arms to both warring factions may not constitute a material impact on the outcome of the Rwandan genocide, the allegations and the fact they were left unanswered made them facts in the eyes of many Africans and created bitter taste that only complicates the already straining relations between Egypt and its upstream neighbors.
It is certainly sad that Dr. Ghali as one of the proponents of Egypt’s deeper involvement in Africa would lose sight of the strategic implications of limiting Egyptian involvement to arm dealing and the political consequences of such a behavior.
Another complicating factor is the unstable and confused environment in Cairo. The positioning to succeed Mubarak senior is in full swing. His son yearns for it along with many influential figures of Egyptian business. A consortium of Saudi and Emirati business and political elites who are aided by Israeli circles supports the aspirations; all of them view the continuation of Egypt’s Mubarak as the only guarantee for maintaining their comfortable status quo in the Middle East. However, most in Egypt know real well that Mubarak Junior aspiration is not popular. The collision between desires and facts is leading to confusion in Egypt upper echelon, while absorbing significant attention span that should otherwise be dedicated to more crucial issues facing the nation. This leads to 2 specific consequences affecting the River Nile:
1- Mubaraks both Senior and Junior know that they suffer from absence of legitimacy on the Egyptian street. This prevents them from making any compromises on the Nile River situation, compromises that will be critical to any negotiations but can be seen as unpopular by most Egyptians. Mubarak Senior is concerned about making compromises that will tarnish his legacy and Mubarak Junior is concerned that unpopular compromises will derail his aspiration to succeed his father. The natural tendency therefore in Cairo will be to stick to the old agreements and postpone any compromises with the upstream countries. Some accusations to the Israelis wont hurt either in promoting Egyptian nationalistic fervor.
2- The confusion in Cairo reflected itself particularly in the Nile Basin Initiative negotiations. Shortly after appointing Abu-Zaid as minister of irrigation in Egypt with responsibility for a negotiated settlement, he was summarily dismissed without known reasons. Speculations are centered on 2 issues. First is his stance during negotiations and his flexibility with the upstream countries, which was rejected by Mubarak, even though it is known that compromises will be necessary. Second, Mr. Abu-Zaid has attacked Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal for not utilizing his land lots allocated to him in the Toshka project. Even though water has reached the Prince land there, it is now mostly lost to evaporation, which is seen by Abu-Zaid as undermining Egypt’s stance during negotiations. What Mr. Abu-Zaid didn’t know is that Prince Al-Walid together with many other figures in Saudi Arabia and other countries are the key figures supporting the regime in Egypt. The prince doesn’t see investment value in that land but he sees it as a necessary cost to support Mubarak’s big projects and continuation of his regime in Egypt. Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel fear that any transition of power in Egypt that doesn’t ensure continuity even to a democratic secular figure like Ayman Nour would open floodgates of democratization and change in the Middle East and could undermine their regimes. In the case of Israel that would undermine its plans and aspiration to settle the Palestinian issue at its own terms. Certainly Mr. Abu-Zaid successor will be a lot more cautious.
The Geopolitical Constants
The Nile Basin situation is governed by lasting geopolitical constants that cannot be ignored and are unfortunately being currently ignored by all the players. There are underlying geographical and climate factors that are the reasons why Egypt is 100% dependent on the Nile and why the Nile emanates from Africa. This is called the “Hadley Cell!” That cycle is what is putting the Nile basin countries at odds and at the sametime it is the one that holds the key to solving their problems.
Let us first understand the Hadley Cell.
Ethiopia and other upstream countries are all located near the Equator. Therefore, they receive more solar intensity than virtually any other place on earth. Solar rays heat the air in those countries. Therefore, that air becomes lighter so it rises; leaving behind it destabilized low-pressure areas. Cooler and moist air from above the neighboring Indian Ocean and the Arab Sea replaces the rising hot air creating rain, monsoons, and thunderstorms particularly in the summer when heating of the Indian Ocean makes the air above it to be extremely mobile and full of energy. This leads to significant rainfalls in the upstream countries particularly in Ethiopia because of its proximity to the Indian Ocean. This water is what eventually goes into the Blue Nile and is responsible for historical Nile floods during the summer. The rising air starts to cool down because its thermal energy is converted to potential energy (or increased elevation). Therefore, any moisture it may have will condense leading to more rain. This type rain is more constant throughout the year and is responsible for the White Nile constant flow throughout the year.
The rising air journey does not end there. As that air loses its moisture, it becomes dry air and it travels northward and southward away from equator at elevations of 8-10 kilometers above ground. This journey is because the rising air still has significant mobility due to the energy it acquired from the solar heating at the equators. At approximately latitude of 30N (approximately where Cairo is for example), that air starts losing its energy and descends downward toward the Sahara. That descending movement of a very dry air creates an area of high pressure above the Sahara. That area of high pressure has several consequences:
1- Water evaporation from the Red Sea or the Mediterranean cannot rise high enough because the descending air is suppressing it. Therefore, water evaporation cannot reach elevations where it can cool down to become clouds and results in rain. No rain means no vegetation. Therefore, the reason North Africa is a desert is highly connected to the fact that Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and other Nile upstream countries have rain. This effect explains why many people living around the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea or the Mediterranean can easily see moisture in the atmosphere but not a single cloud. Most don’t realize that this is largely because of phenomenon that happened thousands of miles away.
2- Similarly, because the descending air has emptied all its moisture over the tropics, it now lacks any moisture and doesn’t result in any rain.
The Hadley Cell is responsible for why Egypt is a desert and why most of the Nile comes from Ethiopia। Note the air rising from the tropics traveling all the way to approximately 30N latitude (approximately where Cairo is) and descending into the Sahara creating a desert.
Air Speed Distribution: -ve means upward while +ve means downward. Note the concentration in and around the Nile basin. Air rises from Ethiopia and descends into the Sahara and the Mediterranean.
After creating the desert in North Africa, that air circulates back to the tropics but at lower altitude causing the trade winds along the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Trade winds were crucial for exploration and trade in history particularly in the European trade with India and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope.
Therefore, the upstream countries argument that they own and are exporting water to Egypt and Sudan is incomplete since that water cycle is only part of a global climate pattern. If the upstream countries want to stop the Nile flow they should also think about stopping the Hadley Cycle, which consequently will eliminate rainfalls in the tropics and allow rainfall in the Sahara and the subtropics leading to the creation of Egyptian independent supply of water. The Nile Basin countries are therefore linked in more ways than their political deadlock suggests.
Countries such as Iran or Israel have no geopolitical basis in the Nile Basin. They can only utilize the differences and accentuate them to achieve political gains. Israel has the following objectives:
1- Israel feels unsettled by the prospect of its allies in the Arab World. Succession in Egypt can prove unexpectedly messy making its peace treaty with the largest Arab country in jeopardy and unraveling gains that Israelis have made in securing its strategic position. The Nile basin relation can prove useful on the long run in case of an unexpected turn of events at the top in Cairo that could bring unfriendly Nasserite like regime there. Nile basin can prove to be a useful card against such a regime. Situation in Jordan, even though calm at the moment, can turn easily at the prospect of change in Cairo as history proved before. Other countries such as the Gulf Emirates or Lebanon could easily unravel leading to the collapse of the unified pro-Israel pro-US front in the Arab world. Already countries like Qatar or Oman are balancing their relation with Iran. The Omani Sultan spent a week in Teheran trying out quell the situation in his boarder Yemen where a civil war has erupted with what appears to be Saudi vs. Iranian sponsorship. Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco although pro-US for now can easily switch and are too distant to cause a significant impact on the balance of power in the Middle East.
2- Another alarm is the gradual shift in Turkish and Pakistani politics toward being more pro-Arab and pro-Iran. Turkey was particularly unnerving to Israelis as relations flared between the two staunch allies over Gaza. This was a significant blow to the string of allies that Israel has built over the past 40 years in which Turkey played a significant role in providing training grounds, intelligence and political support, and even threatening Syria and Iraq to affect their balance of power vs. Israel. Therefore, the ring that Israel built to avoid the Arab noose around it which included Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Pakistan, all of which are non-Arab and sometimes anti-Arab countries, that ring is now unraveling finishing the process that started with the Iranian revolution.
3- The fear of a collapse of Israel Arab allies and the ongoing collapse of its second layer ring of allies (Turkey, Iran, Pakistan) leaves Israel in a potential position with no regional allies, a position that never happened since the creation of the state.
This leaves Israel with only the following options:
1- Prop the pro-US pro-Israel Arab regimes, particularly ensuring continuity in Cairo.
2- Salvage the relationship it has with Turkey at least to secure at least Turkey’s neutrality.
3- Build a third tier of allies that extends to East Europe (former Yugoslavia), India, and the Nile Basin. Although that tier is too distant to affect a powerful impact on the ground, it can serve a variety of purposes. For example, Nile basin relation can secure a stable status in Cairo. Former Yugoslavia and Greece can impact Turkey, while India can balance off Pakistan and potentially even Iran given the possible Iranian gas export to India.
There are side benefits to Israel particularly in selling arms to all of those countries. It is worth noting that Lieberman visited former Yugoslavia, Nile Basin, Africa, and plans to visit India…quite consistent with Israel’s newly found strategic objectives after the defeat they suffered in Lebanon on the hands of Hezbollah.
Iran on the other hand has almost diametrically opposite objectives to those of Israel.
1- Iran views the security of the Gulf (which by and large is its own security) as intimately related to the security in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Iran could not escape to note that the main attack missiles on Iraq were mostly launched from the Red Sea, not from the Gulf. Therefore, Iran sees a strategic objective in forming allies in the Red Sea region particularly those in control of the main arteries. This means Yemen (striding Bab Al-Mandab), Oman (striding straits of Hormuz), Kenya (main intelligence hub in the region and the vital observation ground on the Indian Ocean and the Arab Sea), and Egypt.
2- Iran sees the regime in Egypt as particularly hostile but not to the extent of an overt political fight with Egypt. Iranians generally also view Egypt with certain aura so do Egyptians toward Iran and therefore overt diplomatic hostilities between the two countries can be counter-productive. Both countries also lack the will and most likely the means to engage in open physical fight. A situation like that will make both Iran and Egypt to lose the upper moral ground in the Muslim world, something that particularly Iran is keen to maintain as a strong strategic asset. However, Iran wants to be able to monitor and engage in Cairo in a covert manner. Sudan is certainly a road to doing so. The rest of the Nile basin is also wide open to monitor and influence the situation in Cairo.
The Political Situation
Therefore, neither Iran nor Israel has the same lasting geopolitical interests that Egypt has but both are utilizing the current political situation in the larger Middle East to enhance their security. In both cases, their security enhancement is detrimental to Egypt’s security arrangements both in the Nile basin and in the Middle East as a whole.
Egyptian pundits are correct in seeing the danger, however, their read of that danger is mistakenly narrowed down to water security and the threat of either Israel or Iran helping Nile basin countries to erect dams that would restrict the flow of water to Egypt. Neither Iran nor Israel has the know-how necessary to build such dams. Both countries do not have large rivers or significant dams. Also, projects capable of restricting the Nile flow (the largest river on earth) require credit facilities that neither Iran nor Israel can provide. The Aswan high dam cost $1B in 1960’s to build equivalent to about $7B in today’s dollars. The 3-gorge project in China is costing $37B. Some where in between these costs is likely the answer since the Aswan high dam was unique in being constructed at one of the best hydraulic potential areas in the world therefore saving tremendous costs. Uganda’s GDP is 14B while Ethiopia is 67B. None can withstand such a project. Neither Iran nor Israel has the wherewithal to provide credit facility of that magnitude. Israel or Iran may help in providing agricultural expertise which are largely benign and Egypt should see no imminent danger in that given that Egypt itself is unable or unwilling to provide such aid.
The United States has the know-how and credit capability. However, there is very limited interest in the US to provide foreign aid or to engage in large old-technology hydraulic projects that have significant environmental impact. There will be million lobbies in the US against such projects. Besides, there is no upside for the US in alienating a staunch ally such as Egypt who is needed to deliver important outcomes with regard to Middle East peace and Israeli security.
The only country to fear here is China, which has the wherewithal, and credit capability to fund dams and hydraulic projects of that magnitude and has no environmental lobbies to fear. China approaches world issues such as this with caution and secrecy. China certainly wouldn’t want to upset the largest Arab country and biggest Arab market but with the same token, it will want to establish a strong African foothold because of its own need for natural resources security. I wouldn’t be surprised that China, in its traditional Chinese fashion, approaches this problem through the establishment of many small dams that wouldn’t pique Egyptian interest and at the same time would appease China’s new African allies. This again is detrimental to Egyptian long-term security since it dismantles any possibility of long lasting security arrangement between Egypt and the Nile Basin countries. The Chinese position is also mitigated by the fact that it just helped Sudan construct a $1.4B dam on the Nile that was approved by Egypt, so why not do the same in other African countries even if Egyptian approval is not begotten?
The Current Circumstances that Most Egyptians Do Not Know
"Ethiopia is poor because it doesn't use its enormous water potential,“ claims the World Bank. True, in the rugged mountainous regions, precipitation is normally quite high. It is also true that most of the waters there rush down the steep slopes unused, dragging along vegetation, soil, stones, roads and bridges, digging ever more and ever deeper gullies, and causing heavy floods down in the lowlands.
Coming with the tags "economic growth“ and "poverty reduction,“ solutions are being offered to the Ethiopian government by the World Bank: Dams would control the floods and utilize the abundant waters for energy and agriculture. Therefore, whoever builds them should be considered "holy men“, says John Briscoe, until recently the Bank's senior water adviser. For new hydraulic infrastructure, the Bank and other multilateral finance institutions are willing to lend billions of dollars to Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world.
The Bank's new Country Water Resources Assistance Strategy for Ethiopia says that to develop water storage capacity "must be seen as a development priority across the entire country“ in order to improve water availability year-round. With just 43 cubic meters of storage capacity per capita, Ethiopia is far behind South Africa, whose 750 cubic meters of storage capacity per capita is being put forth as a rough measure of water-security standard by the World Bank. The cost of attaining the "South Africa standard" is estimated at US$35 billion – impossible to do for a country like Ethipoia. Because of the "far reaching potential benefits of multi-purpose dam development, and the unique qualifications of the Bank to support these investments,“ the Country Strategy argues, a first priority for future Bank assistance in water resource management should be support for large dam development and river-basin water transfers in the Nile River Basin.
The idea itself is not so new. As early as the nineteenth century, Ethiopia's Emperor Menelik II had plans to divert the Blue Nile from its deep gorge into the arid, sparsely populated lowlands in the western part of the country. Since then, time and again governments in Addis Ababa have devised elaborate plans for dams and irrigation projects. But again and again, Sudan and especially Egypt have managed to torpedo the implementation of these projects with diplomacy and military threats. They were afraid that any diversion of water in the upper regions of the Nile would negatively impact their own farmers downstream and their expansionist plans for huge new plantations and settlements in desert areas.
The pressure worked on the World Bank too. As part of an effort to get consent from Khartoum and Cairo for funding new dams on the tributaries of the Nile in Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, the Bank spearheaded the Nile Basin Initiative about 10 years ago, functioning as the donor coordinator while the Ethiopian government serves as the facilitator. Progress to bring the riparian states together for an integrated river basin management plan benefitting all member states has been slow. But recently, the Council of Ministers has accepted four hydropower and four irrigation development projects proposed by Ethiopia.
The biggest and most ambitious ongoing project is not part of this initiative. It is fundamentally altering a remote area at the tail end of a Africa's deepest canyon (2,000 meters deep in places) cut by the Tekeze River. In this remote and stunningly beautiful canyon, construction is underway on a huge dam. At 185 meters high, Tekeze Dam looms 10 meters higher that the gigantic Three Gorges Dam on China's Yangtze River. Tunnels several kilometers long are being driven through the rocks, and will divert the water of the Tekeze into a huge reservoir, generating 225 MW of power, thus increasing Ethiopia's installed capacity by nearly one third.
Because Addis Ababa became impatient with the slow pace of negotiations at the Nile Basin Initiative, six years ago the government decided to go it alone on this project. There were no consultations with neighboring Sudan, nor with its longtime foe Eritrea, which would like to use the border river itself. In far-away Beijing, which is systematically building up its engagement in Africa, Addis Ababa found a sympathetic financier for the $224 million project. The project size exactly fits Beijing’s attitude, not too big to pique Egyptian interest, not too small to let down the Ethiopian allies. The state-owned China Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corporation not only undercut all other competitors, but also offered valuable experience with mega-projects because of its involvement in the Three Gorges Dam. "Tekeze Dam is for Ethiopia what Three Gorges is for China“, claimed Sun Yue, Director of the international department of the CWHRC, at the contract signing ceremony. And it looks as if this is only the beginning. China's Gezhouba Water and Power Co. also won the contract to build a 100 MW hydropower dam on Ethiopia's Neshi River.
Tekze's Dam in Ethiopia। A medium size dam that was built without consulting the Egyptian government and with finance from China. A dangerous omen for what to come next for Egypt as well as in its environmental effects on Ethiopia.
Although the World Bank has concerns about this bilateral move, economically, it thinks along the same lines: Tekeze's power could help Ethiopia's economic growth, the water storage would reduce the threats of floods and create opportunities for an intensification of food production. David Grey, the World Bank's Senior Water Advisor for Africa, contends that large-scale dams like Tekezze would be to the advantage of Ethiopia’s poor. ""There is no precedent for a country developing without harnessing its rivers and utilizing its water resources," says Grey.
But there is a fundamental flaw to this argument. This dam's power will go mainly to the cities or will be sold to neighbors with more developed industrial economies, and the water will irrigate fields downstream in the lowlands. But the poor –like Tadesse Desta, who year after year are in need of food aid – live in the densely populated highlands far above the dams. The expansion of irrigation will only benefit richer farmers and foreign-owned plantations, because they have the influence and the money to make use of the new opportunities, developed with public money. Such developments also don't mean that there will be more food, because the production of low-priced food crops for local markets is is not considered economically viable against the cost of new large dams. Instead, water and newly reclaimed lands will be used for the production of flowers, fruits or spices for export, or for cotton and sugar cane – water for cash and for profit, not for food.
In addition to these projects, the priority for water development in Ethiopia is also being place on many thousands, even tens of thousands, of small and medium sized dams like the one in Adi Nifas, says Helmut Spohn, who has been assigned by the German funding agency Bread for the World to assist small farmers in Ethiopia. The dams should be accompanied by afforestation, gully plugging and terrassing of the hills to avoid further erosion of the remaining soils. That would allow the rains to seep into the ground and recharge groundwater and aquifers which still are the best and cheapest water storage, releasing it slowly over time, giving new life to perennial streams. It would also stop soil, sand and stones from being washed into the rivers with every rain.
Without such a program, the new megadams and their reservoirs will be silted up after a few years. The result would be less additional power than calculated, less irrigation, less economic growth and less foreign exchange for the government in Addis Ababa. By that time, the consultants and construction companies would long have been gone, with their booty. But the government would still be sitting on its debt with the Chinese government or with the World Bank – rather like Tadesse Desta, who still owes the local moneylender for the blue plastic sheet on his own water-harvesting project.
Therefore, Ethiopia faces many challenges of its own: poverty, lack of know-how, debt, environmental problems, and a terrain that is not conducive to large hydraulic projects. Ethiopia as such is desperately looking for help from anybody be it Israel, Iran, or anybody. Nevertheless, Egyptian pundits in a traditional approach sees Israel under each rock while what they are really seeing now is the shadow of their own government mistakes.
The Solution
Egypt should pursue the following policy.
1- On the short run, Egypt should communicate to China that it sees its involvement in large Nile basin projects without Egyptian approval as counter productive to their long term relation. Egypt should rally the Arab world in that direction too. An official statement from Arab countries in that regard can put brakes on Chinese liberties in the Nile basin given the vast Chinese interests in the Arab world. The solution to the Nile Basin Initiative deadlock over granting Egypt a veto over Nile projects doesn’t lie in the hands of the Nile basin countries but in the hands of China, Egypt, and the rest of the Arab world. Despite Egypt’s waning influence in the Arab world, it is possible that such a position can be established given the Syrian and Iraqi fears from facing similar issues in the future. A summit over Arab water resources that ends with an open hand for cooperation to Arab river upstream countries and a strong warning to China and other non riparian players (reference to Iran and Israel) can achieve most of its goals if followed by active diplomacy.
2- Egyptian demand to have veto power over Nile basin projects is so passé. Not imaginable in today’s world. Imagine if the United States asks Egypt that whenever Egypt wants to construct projects on the Suez Canal, it must get approval from the US. Who in Egypt would approve this? Nevertheless, that is probably a de facto statement because it is in Egypt best interest to keep the waterway optimally operated. Egypt should alternatively ask that every time a project is constructed on the Nile basin, its impact on the basin countries must be studied by the riparian states and if found to have negative impact on the basin then the project finance must include a similar project that creates equivalent water production for other states. For example, the construction of a dam in Ethiopia can be coupled by the construction of water desalination nuclear power in Egypt that creates equivalent water supply for Egypt. Egypt should accept that some of these new projects would be more costly that Nile hydraulic projects and that because it is a richer country than the rest of the Nile basin, it can afford proportionally more expensive projects such as nuclear desalination.
3- The concept of free water in Egypt is over and the faster Egyptian accept that, the better off the Egyptian economy will be. One can easily ask: is it less expensive to grow cotton in Egypt or in Sudan or in Uganda. It is easy to determine that Egypt is running out of cheap fertile lands to expand its crop production. So, is it easier and less expensive to add one hectare of land in Sudan or Uganda to cultivate wheat or do that in the deserts of Egypt? It is clear that the deserts of Egypt are not the answer. Egypt should start searching for its food security in precisely those countries it is currently at odds with, namely Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Egypt as a party to hydraulic and irrigation projects in Sudan or other Nile basin countries can provide credit facilities through its more vibrant banks, loan guarantees through its more vibrant economy in exchange for guaranteed imports of wheat at stable prices. This can be the solution to Egypt’s chronic wheat importation problem. This can divert Egyptian land to cultivation of flowers, fruits, and vegetables and other crops sensitive for European exports. This massive exchange across the Nile basin will improve the Egyptian economy through trade. For this trade to create true food security, collective military security measures need to be established across the Nile basin countries including the stationing of Egyptian troops for example in key ports on the Red Sea and at key observation posts along the Nile Ethiopia and Uganda can gain similar access to the Aswan dam.
4- When Egypt creates a proper pricing structure for water, it will accelerate its move toward export sensitive crops and creates a sense of food security for itself through its relation to Nile basin countries.
Therefore, Egyptian reaction so far has been mediocre at best and unfortunately too consummated by its own biases against Israel and inhibited by its succession plans in Cairo। Egypt certainly deserves better than that। The tie between Egypt and the Nile basin is more fundamental that some in Cairo want to believe. It is not just water, it is also in the air, and in the future of security of several nations. I am surprised unfortunately at the political stupidity and strategic blindness prevailing in Cairo right now.
If Egypt doesn't pursue the above policy, it is likely that all Nile basin countries will call Egyptian bluff and continue what they started which is a path to go alone। Egypt will not be in a position for a military confrontation with any of these countries thus undermining its long term security.
