The rights of the Nile

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This blog drills into how the Nile basin’s colonial history has influenced its resulting water rights and management debates. I will explore how there are still lingering remains of the treaties which were established to propagate British colonial power. More than 300 million people rely on the waters of the Nile and of its 11 riparian countries, many rely on it as their exclusive source of freshwater. Consequently, the unequal power relations left over from these treaties predominantly threaten the lives and livelihoods of local people like Abdullah and Hassan seen in Figure one.

Figure one: Sudanese farmers who rely on the Nile (left): Abdullah Ali, an alfalfa farmer, and (right): Hassan Khallafallah, a cotton farmer.

The Nile is a prime example of the “stubborn legacy of unequal powers relations in that it governs the use of a common resource fostered by colonialism”. British colonial scramble for Africa and its resources resulted in a partitioning by European colonisers who at the time knew very little of African history, culture, and topography. Anglo-Ethiopian and Anglo-Egyptian treaties of 1902, and 1929 saw Britain, on behalf of Sudan, serve to establish an Egyptian hydro-hegemony of the Nile. Since the British conquest of Egypt in 1882 it is clear that these treaties held colonial interests at the heart of the Nile management, continuing to produce unequal power relations and tense relationships between riparian states. Furthermore, even after Sudanese independence, a revised Egyptian-Sudanese treaty in 1959 did little to resolve the situation with the interests of other riparian states such as Ethiopia ignored it is no wonder Ethiopia refused to acknowledge this treaty, asserting their own right to utilise the Nile’s resources for its people. The complexity of connections between riparian states is illustrated below and Figure 2b indicates that Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, and Sudan are key players in signing agreements.

Figure two: Nexus of economic and political links between riparian countries and collaborative groups (A) The median rank of all variables used to calculate trade connections between countries. (B) The number of shared international environmental agreements.

Whilst the Nile Basin Initiative had some influence on reconfiguring the Egyptian hegemony on the Nile Basin, offering a platform for upstream states to express their needs, it also allowed Egypt to maintain a façade of cooperation whilst, stalling negotiations and rejecting solutions to maintain the status quo. The development of the Nile Basin Corporate Framework Agreement (CFA), promoting collaborative development and management of the Nile Basin water resources, as of 2011 has been signed by six countries and involves the establishment of the Nile River Basin Commission (NRBC). Implemented in 2006 however, it is yet to diffuse years of bitter relationships which include the utilisation of war rhetoric by Egypt as a coercive strategy to sustain its dominance over the Nile. Additionally, the ambiguity of the term water security in this agreement is enough to sustain the legitimacy of the past treaties I have mentioned. Therefore, upholding past unjust treaties only perpetuates the already difficult task of managing the Nile basin.  

This blog has explored how both past and post-colonial relations have prevented the successful collaboration between riparian states. Evidently, the Nile is in desperate need of basin-wide, multi-lateral collaboration to create clear and fair agreements which appropriately share resources between riparian states whilst promoting the sustainability of the Nile’s resources.