From the most remote source at the end of the River Luvironzo near Lake Tanganyika, to its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, at 6,500 km the Nile is the longest river in the world. The River Nile is formed by three tributaries, the Blue Nile, the White Nile, and the Atbara. The White Nile rises from its source in Burundi, passes through Lake Victoria and flows into southern Sudan. Near the capital city of Khartoum, the White Nile meets up with the Blue Nile which has its source in the Ethiopian highlands, near Lake Tana. Over 53 percent of the Nile’s waters come from the Blue Nile. The two flow together to just north of Khartoum, where they are joined by the waters of the Atbara, whose source is also located in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Nile then runs north through Lake Nasser, the second largest man-made lake in the world, and the Aswan Dam before splitting into two major distributaries north of Cairo.
The nations of the Nile basin have classified access to the waters of the Nile as a vital national interest. So far, there has been enough water to satisfy most of the nations needs but according to Terje Tvedt, struggle over the Nile’s waters “could fan existing conflicts in the Horn of Africa and Somalia, threaten the peace agreements in the Sudan, and influence the power balance in the Middle East in the future.
The recent historical development of the Nile Basin includes three major phases over the last 150 years. The first phase from the late nineteenth century to after World War II was almost totally dominated by European powers. From after World War II to the late 1980s there was a period of decolonization characterized by nationalistic ideologies developed within the cold war bipolar world.
The third major shift has taken place from the end of the 1980s onwards. The cold war gave way to a new political order dominated by one superpower. Consequently, many basin states opted for more open, free-market economic systems which paved the way for the Nile Basin Initiative (1999) which forms the most important approach to cooperative development of the Nile waters ever undertaken, and its significance extends well beyond the Basin itself.
Efforts to control the Nile during the British colonial period are well documented but there is a lack of information concerning the ten sovereign states’ efforts to manage the River Nile. This detailed study of the River Nile in the post-colonial age fills this gap and helps us understand its complex history.
Throughout the post-colonial period, Egypt has benefited the most from the Nile policies initiated by the British. Under Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt aimed at liberating itself from external pressures by building the new Aswan Dam. Completed in 1971, the dam became the foremost symbol of Nasser’s vision of an independent Egypt. It is one of the great architectural accomplishments of the 20th century. It now stretches 4 kilometers across the river’s path, rises over 100 meters for its base, and is almost a kilometer thick. Behind it, the waters have formed Lake Nasser, which is 600 kilometers long and up to 50 kilometers wide in some places.
Although, the damage to Egypt’s environment caused by the Dam has been much less than originally predicted, it is still quite significant. One major problem is that the silt from the river which for millennia fertilized Egypt’s cropland is no longer being allowed to flow down the river. This means that more chemical fertilizers are being used. It is also causing erosion along the banks of the Nile, which were previously replenished by the silt carried down the river. The Nile is also bringing more salt to the fields of Egypt because of the increased evaporation which takes place in Lake Nasser.
Since the mid-1990s, Egypt has abandoned the principle of “exclusive user rights” and its official policy has been to instill cooperation and goodwill among the countries in the basin. However, the fact remains that Egypt’s entire water resources come from outside its borders, and mainly from Ethiopia.
Terje Tvedt who edited this series of essays on “The River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age”, is the author of “The River Nile in the Age of the British” (AUC Press, 2006) which was shortlisted for the British Society for Middle East Studies Prize. Tvedt believes “the issue that will define the future of the River Nile and thus the region as a whole remains: Under what circumstances would sovereign states, some water rich and other water poor, some upstream powers and other downstream powers, voluntarily agree to manage their shared water resources for the greater good of all the states and all the inhabitants of the basin? The problem of the Nile is also related to the general question of how to share common resources in an optimal way”.
Water scarcity has triggered two scenarios. Some experts say that water wars have taken place in the past therefore armed conflicts over how to control and share the Nile cannot be ignored. Others believe that instead of causing a war, water will foster a greater cooperation among states, and that rivers are pathways to peace.
“For the Nile countries both options have been available and continue to be available, and the Nile issue will never be settled once and for all: The Nile waters might become a pathway to peace or a currency of war, or both, at different historical junctures,” said Tvedt.
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), signed in 1999, is based on a revolutionary idea: That the River Nile is a shared treasure of all the basin states. Despite its failure to create projects that achieve positive results, the NBI has succeeded in fostering more trust among the riparian countries. The NBI has set up a framework for basin-wide planning under the control of the Nile basin states themselves. However, the NBI and the way it has operated so far might even reveal that the present situation is unsustainable, and a new approach is needed to control the Nile in an optimal way.
“The River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age” sheds light on the water management policies of all the countries of the Nile basin. It also reveals how developments in these riparian states followed “their own particular pattern, structured and made possible by historical, ecological and power configurations in the Nile basin”. This instructive book helps us understand the complex history of the Nile Basin, an area of 350 million people and the efforts made to manage optimally and equitably.
Managing the Nile’s precious resources: The politics behind the river that feeds 9 nations
Publication Date:
Wed, 2010-07-14 22:07
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