Welcome to the Nile Basin Society

The Nile Basin Society (NBS) is a Canadian membership-based non profit organization independent (organizationally and financially) from both the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), and the Nile Basin Discourse (NBD).

We aim at real involvement of true relevant NGOs in the Nile Basin Initiative that is driven by the NGOs and not by the NBI donors/countries. Real involvement that include participation from project planning to project evaluation/monitoring and not just as 'implementers".

The NBS had exposed the falacies of the NBD leading to closure of the NBD office in Entebbe, Uganda. We shall continue to do so, in spite of all reactions/retaliations.

The Nile Basin Society had succeeded in obtaining crucial files about the NBD from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), only after inacting the "Access to Information Law". These files include the Evaluation Report (and its annex 5) and the Audit report.

We have succeeded in stopping a fund proposal drafted by ODI, UK and submitted by IUCN-East Africa to the EU Water Facility to re-fund the Nile Basin Discourse.

The above raises the question why the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK is funding the same people with the same administrative structure (IUCN-East Africa)? We have recently (March 18th, 2006) received the project proposal funded by DfID, the administrator is IUCN-East Africa that will receive £2,804,000 over 2 years period starting November 2005.

NBS comments on that project will follow.

Technical:

At the Nile Basin Society, we have been busy creating new sites and features. The newest addition being a new domain http://niledialogue.org, that currently hosts the discussion forum. The new domain does not come alone, in fact we have added a new server (linux) to our battery, in addition to our old hybrid (linux/Windows) server. As usual, most of the new services allow for 2-way communication and encourage active user participation. We hope you like the new services. Here is a quick update:

A public/group/individual calendar is now available. It will be used as a calendar of events for the public.
The Nile News mailing list, updated version, now accepts new subscribers.
The discussion forum had returned to its original structure including all topics relating to sustainable development of the Nile Basin.
A new version of Gallery2 has been installed, see Nile Basin Photo Gallery. We hope to see photo contributions from media, artists and NGOs.
A new version of WordPress had been installed; see Nile Basin Blog. As usual with most of our projects, they are open for public contribution. The Nile Basin Society firmly believes in 2-way websites, where the user is not only a passive consumer of information, but also a source of information and opinions.
For our valued members, we have created a new portal, using DotNetNuke.

As we practice our mission of empowering people and NGOs, we extended the DotNetNuke to support 'web farm', meaning enabling other Nile Basin NGOs to use the framework to easily design/modify web sites. We have also sarted a Media Wiki, which also allows easy website design with no HTML experience.

We offer free initial hosting for serious organizations, e.g. Association for the Environment and Wetlands, Uganda and Save Our Planet Earth (SOPE), Uganda, Our battery of services to Nile Basin NGOs includes - in addition to free design and initial hosting the following services, thanks to new versions of server software:

Mailing lists
Photo Gallery
Group Calendar
Domain registration, e.g. http://sope-uganda.org and http://aew-uganda.org together with their unique e-mail addresses.
Other services, e.g. project management, surveys, groupware, etc.

The NBS online membership form is now active. All previous NBS members are required to re-apply effective March 1st, 2006.