Nile Basin Tension Mounts as Waters Decline

Ethiopia Continues to Build Grand Renaissance Dam While Basin Neighbors Argue on Water Rights

Nearly abillion people in the developing world don't have access to clean, safe drinking water. In sub-Saharan Africa, people's true potential is restricted by time lost trying to gather water and energy spent suffering from water-borne diseases. Education is lost to sickness. Economic development fails when people have to fight for survival.

As water supplies get tighter, conflicts will inevitably emerge, warns Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Predictions of an economic crisis

Brown predicted an economic crisis as water losses make it more difficult for countries to grow enough grain which leadsto the rise in internal food prices.

The Nile River basin is not well managed, he said."I don't think there has been a serious effort at improving the efficiency of irrigation water use, or efforts by governments' to shift to less water intensive crops."

Brown said a lot of rice is grown in Egypt and rice takes about twice as much water per ton of grain as wheat does. "But there is room for restructuring agriculture to substantially reduce water use," he added.

Need for policies on population

Brown decried the lack of effort in coordinating water policy and population policy.

The Nile is the world's longest river. It flows 6,700 kilometers through eleven countries in northeastern Africa. Egypt and Ethiopia are members of the Nile Basin Initiative, a partnership among those countries inNile Riparian states. The initiative"seeks to develop the river in a cooperative manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security."

Another effort to reach agreement

Water and irrigation ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan meeting in Khartoum reached an agreement to create a committee of experts tostudy the impact of the Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam. The committee will be supervised by an international consultancy firm.

Egypt argues that Ethiopia's multi-billion dollar hydro-electric dam project near the Sudanese border would eventually diminish Egypt's share of the Nile's water flow. It further asserts that the dam, which is the largest along the Nile River, would reduce the amount of electricity generated by the Aswan Dam and adversely impact its agricultural production.

Source: Voice of America

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