Nile Basin nations call for stronger relations

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June 22, 2013 (JUBA) – Members of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) have been urged to deepen cooperation among them to enable inhabitants of the River Nile basin enjoy its tangible benefits.

Minister of water resources and irrigation, Paul Mayom Akec (ST)

The call came at the end of a one-day Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-COM) conference, which was held last Thursday in Juba, the South Sudan capital.
The meeting, among others, addressed strategic issues to advance the Nile cooperation as well as operational business issues within NBI countries.
The conference, Nile-COM chairperson in a statement, resolved that cooperation is the only way forward to achieve the shared vision of sustainable socio-economic development, through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.
“The Nile is one of the world’s great assets and its sustainable management and development is essential if the countries of the Nile Basin are to continue to reduce poverty and to gain economic prosperity”, Paul Mayom Akec said in a statement.
Nile-COM, Akec further noted, applauded Sudan’s resumption in the full participation of NBI activities, after its suspended last year over differences with other countries on the Cooperation Framework Agreement (CFA).
“Nile-COM members call upon the Arab Republic of Egypt to follow the example of Sudan and return to the cooperation platform for Nile issues, the Nile Basin Initiative that it has contributed to building”, the statement reads in part.
Akec, also South Sudan’s minister for water and irrigation, pledged to strengthen the Nile cooperation and work towards member states’ continued support to NBI, which he described as the only viable mechanism for equitable resource utilisation.
The one-day conference, among others, discussed institutional strengths of NBI countries, investment financing, transboundary water resources analysis, donor partnerships and NBI business activities.
Meanwhile, Sudan has been earmarked as host of the next Nile-COM meeting, expected to place, mid-next year.
Established in 1999, NBI serves as a forum through which member states seek to develop the River Nile in a cooperative manner, share substantial socio-economic benefits and promote regional peace and security.
(ST)

>sudantribune

Possible collapse of Ethiopia dam may threaten cities along Nile – expert

A woman rows her boat on the Egyptian Nile River in Cairo June 13, 2013. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

June 22, 2013, Cairo (Aswat Masriya) – Ethiopia’s dam is completely made of concrete, which decreases its safety factors and raises the potential for its collapse, a water resources expert has said.

The Nile River is an international river and is registered at the World Bank, therefore Ethiopia has no right to build dams on the river with Egypt’s and Sudan’s consent, a water resources professor at Cairo University said.

Ethiopia wants to assert its right to build dams along the Blue Nile without referring to Egypt and Sudan, professor Nader Nour al-Din told the Kuwait News Agency.

Unlike Egypt’s earth-rock dam, Ethiopia’s concrete dam will annihilate the Sudanese city of Khartoum in case of its collapse.

A collapse will bury all cities north of Khartoum under nine metres of water, Nour al-Din said.

The collapse of the Ethipian dam may cause Egypt’s dam to collapse as well if water levels the lake behind the dam are high.

If our dam collapses, all Egyptian governorates north of it until the Giza governorate will be submerged.

This dam must not be built, Nour al-Din said.

Nour al-Din warned against the outcome of Ethiopia’s dam in case it collapses, adding that Ethiopia will not be affected but that the results will be catastrophic for Egypt and Sudan.

–Aswat Masriya

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