| dc.description.abstract | This research takes a closer look at one of the most current natural resource conundrums dealing with transboundary waterways, the Eastern Nile River Basin. Composed of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, the Eastern Nile River Basin has been an area of contention over water quantity allocations for centuries. International law has been lacking in the dispute. According to Wolf (1999:4), “international water law is ambiguous and often contradictory, and no mechanism exists to enforce principles which are agreed upon”. Keeping this in mind it comes to no surprise then that the current status quo is that each transboundary river basin is managed through its own individual protocol. What happens when the protocol is informal, i.e. non-legally binding? This research aims to take this question a step further by investigating the influence of these informal management protocols on the national water policies of the riparians involved. How often are the informal protocols reflected in national legislation? The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was launched in 1999 as an effort to establish total basin cooperative management of the Nile River Basin. The informal NBI was created as a forum to help solve riparian issues and manage the basin of one of the world’s hotspots for potential water conflicts.
The NBI is focused on achieving socio-economic development of the region as well as equitable use of the Nile. The mission statement reads, “To achieve sustainable socio-economic development, through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile basin water resources” (NBI, 2009). As of today the NBI has been in existence for over 10 years. Each of the three riparian states of the ENB has written national level water policy after the implementation of the NBI in 1999. In order to explore the progress made by the NBI in the national water policies of the ENB, this research has the following objective:
To assess the value and effectiveness for cooperation of political commitments in the absence of legal treaties in transboundary river basins through exploring the national water policies of the Eastern Nile Basin in terms of achieving the objectives presented in the Nile Basin Initiative.
Each sub-question is answered in successive order utilizing a framework created from the five NBI Policy Objectives, the overall policy goals of the NBI. Policy contents indicators are then created as a means to measure the NBI Policy Objectives against the content of the current Post-NBI water policies of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. These indicators are taken from the growing field of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) to create a final assessment framework. To determine NBI influence on the individual water policies, alternative explanations are identified, discussed and ultimately accepted as plausible reasons for the Goal Attainment increase. Global IWRM adoption, environmental urgencies and population growth are given as credible catalysts for the increase in Goal Attainment, refuting possible influence from the NBI on the current water policies of the ENB riparians. Hence the answer to the main research question is, little to no influence.
This research concludes with a discussion as to why the NBI has not been influential on the national water policy contents of the ENB. Unilateral thinking fueled by centuries of mistrust, the overreaching hegemonic power of Egypt, a disproportionately developed professional and technical capacity for water resources management among the riparian states, and internal civil strife are identified are possible contributors to the lack of influence. Limitations of the research include inherent selection bias of the policy contents indicators as well as data availability issues that plagued every stage of this project. Partially due to these limitations, many areas exist for further research. The process for the NBI to become a legally binding Nile River Basin Commission is currently unfolding and is now at a stalemate between Egypt and Sudan versus the remaining seven upstream riparians. Lastly, recommendations are given for improving the impact of the NBI on the national water policies of the ENB. They include a new water allocation treaty as well as the creation of a reservoir in Ethiopia and the dissolution of Lake Nasser in Egypt. It is argued that these actions will relieve some of the water stress felt by all the riparians by creating a greater volume of water resources, thus alleviating the mistrustful competitive nature held by the riparians towards each other. Only then will transboundary cooperation be an integral component of national-level water policies in the ENB. | |
