Nile News

• Volume 1, Issue 2
• Wednesday, November 25th, 2001

• Editor: Nabil El-Khodari
• Founder & Interim CEO

Editorial: The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)

The NBI is the hope for real development in Nile Basin countries (NBCs). As you know the 10 countries of the Nile Basin include 6 of the 10 poorest nations of the world. But, is the NBI taking the right way to development? Most probably it is, in view of the sensitive political issues it has to address.

Here are some of the issues that the NBI has to address to make the path to development more sustainable, if not achieveable:

• Secrecy: The NBI is a 'secretive' organization. This is most probably dictated by the sensitive political issues it discussed and enforced by the World Bank. A look at the NBI web site or even the World Bank web site will show that there is no updating of information may be since last July. Their e-mail update is practically useless. The NBS had covered the NBI in its discussion topic better than the NBI site as it relies on multiple information sources and active Internet search of related topics. As an example of the secrecy, I knew that an NBI meeting (Ministers and TAC members) was held in Bonn, Germany, Sept. 10-12, 2001. I contacted the NBI Secretary for information and got no response.
  
• Lack of effective NGO participation: Though I was sponsored (thanks to Rockefeller Foundation) to attend the Workshop on the Establishment of an International Discourse on Development in the Nile Basin: Finding a Platform for Engagement which sole aim was to design a discourse to ensure active participation of NGOs the recommendations were not approved till May 17th, 2001. A hastily organized meeting was arranged in Entebbe, Uganda for local NGOs only few days before ICCON 1 in early June. The author was invited but not sponsored, so could not attend. In the ICCON meeting itself only 'selected' local NGOs were invited. There was no parallel NGO forum. The time frame did not allow even the invited NGOs to share in the planning stage of the projects. They were already finalized by the governments for presentation to the donor community. This did really backfire, as one NGO (National Association of Professional Environmentalists, Uganda) did file a complaint to the IMF IFC and obtained a CAO assessment highly critical of the project, the consultation process, the studies done and eventually the NBI. We however hope that the new GEF fund would take care of the true respresentation of all stakeholders, including those who are opposed to some of the projects proposed, and those who reside outside the region, like the NBS.
  
• Selectivity: It appears that those who are responsible for the NBI are selective of the NGOs they engage, most probably 'recommended' by the government. Added to this is the fact that NGOs are mostly under 'government control'. In spite the fact that the Workshop recommended that NGO participation be an inclusive one, some of the 'governmental' local NGOs were critical and wanted "ownership".
  
• Lack of effective public information/participation: Engaging the civil society and the wider general public in the NBI objectives and projects was not implemented universally by the concerned governments. With the exception of Sudan and Ethiopia, it seems that little has been done.
  
• Lack of trust between Nile Basin countries: There are current conflicts that involve multiple Nile Basin countries. These have not yet been completely resolved. Moreover, a recent article "Uganda is suspicious of Egypt" demonstrates that there is lack of trust in a basin-wide approach for the benefit of all, even between the Ministers themselves. The same mistrust exist between Egypt and other Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) members.
  
• Jumping from Shared Vision Programs (SVP) to Subsidiary Action Programs (SAP): The SVPs were meant to foster cooperation between Nile Basin countries in activities related to general development projects. However, specific water-related projects, e.g. the Bujagali Dam in Uganda, which should belong to SAP, is premature and backfired.
  Also, it seems that other SAPs are in the works in other NBCs.
• Lack of legally binding agreement on the distribution of the Nile waters: Up-to-date, there is still no legally-binding agreement between the Nile Basin countries on the distribution of the Nile River waters. Though the concept may have been to build confidence between them through the SVPs, yet the jump to SAPs immediately puts these projects under suspicion by other riparians.
  
• Sudan and global conflicts: The on-going civil war in Sudan and the USA antagonism to the Islamic government in Khartoum would severely impede the most useful projects to increase the yield of the Nile, if not the financing of the NBI as a whole. The recent aftermath of the terrorist attack on the USA is no help either. The international community now do have a new set of priorities:
  
  1. local spending (in an atmosphere of economic depression) on anti-terrorist measures
     
  2. Global spending on the Afghan re-construction and humanitarian aid.

New members:

We welcome the following members who joined us last month:

1. Ms. Fatoumata Toure, Kenya.
2. Dr. Anam Khondaker, Canada, Ph.D.Zoology
3. Mr. Marc-Antoine Fleury, Canada
4. Mr. Fred Kayondo, Uganda (National Association of Professional Environmentalists)
5. Mr. Kimbowa Richard, Uganda (Joint Energy and Environment Projects; JEEP)
6. Dr. Stéphanie Janet-McComiskey, USA (PhD, Political Science).

New Volunteers:

The following remarkable people have joined us during the last month as NetAid volunteers:

1. Dr. Stéphanie Janet-McComiskey, USA (PhD, Political Science).
2. Ms. Heidi Green, USA
3. Mr. Kivumbi Issac, Uganda

Developments to follow:

• The reactions to the IFC CAO Assessment: The Ugandan government introduced a draft law that gives it the power to suspend NGOs that "do not conform to any government policy or plan", according to Human Rights Watch. It does not need much intelligence to identify the National Association of Professional Environmentalists as the intended target for that law. The reaction of the World Bank and the NBI to the same assessment is something that you should look forward to. In particular, the CAO assessment identified the following two problems in its conclusions:
  • A comprehensive study of the cumulative impact of a cascade of dams along the Nile remains a problem, because those impacts have only been partially addressed in the EIA for the hydropower facility and technical appendices. In addition, the use of the LAC approach in the Strategic Impact Assessment remains a problem because of its methodology.
  • The lack of a comprehensive management plan for the Nile raises long-term management issues for the river, people and environment.
• The Ethiopian & Eritrean internal developments: Those are typically contradictory. While Ethiopia announced great changes in the presidency, cabinet and announced an ambitious 5 year plan and easing press restrictions, the Eritrean governmet, on the other hand, detained 11 senior members of the ruling party (supposed members of the G15 critical of the government) in addition to the expulsion of Antonio Bandini, the Italian Embassador and head of the EU delegation in Asmara. This led to the recall of EU embassadors to Eritrea and would certainly affect EU aid to Eritrea. Whether these changes in both governments will affect the resolution of the Ethiopian/Eritrean conflict remains to be seen.
• Us/Egyptian relations: Following the terrorist attack on the USA September 11, and the implication of Egyptians in the attack, the US/Egyptian relations may see a change. There was already some unconfirmed rumours that US aid to Egypt have been reduced. A recent valuable documentary "Looking for Answers", produced by FRONTLINE and The New York Times, question the US aid to Egypt and considers it "a bribe". Of course, with the rising tensions inside Egypt and the deterioration of the Palestinian/Israeli relations, the Egyptian government would be forced to take less pro-American position. The Egyptian/USA relations are very fragile since the EgyptAir 'accident'.

An Int'l Intern:

Ms. Kimberly Foulds, a senior student for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Diplomacy and World Affairs; Minor in History at the Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, USA have joined the NBS as an intern. Her aim is to gain experience in conservation and public policy in the Nile Basin.

Ms. Foulds will be visiting Ethiopia and possibly Egypt around December. Miss. Fiona Flintan, an active member of the NBS who is heavily involved with gender-related research in Ethiopia would be mentoring Kim's activities in Ethiopia. Nabil will be helping with contacts and accommodation for Kim in Egypt, if situation permits.

 We ask our Ethiopian and Egyptian members to help us in making Kim's trip a fruitful and enjoyable one. Please feel free to contact her directly at foulds@oxy.edu.

This internship - that is totally financed by Occidental Colleg, would hopefully open the way to more interns who are interested in Nile Basin issues.

We also hope to be able to provide volunteers to work in the Nile Basin in collaboration with our affiliates.

Upcoming GM of the NBS:

The first General Meeting of the Nile Basin Society members will be held Thursday January 3rd, 2002. Nominations for the board directors and for the Cheif Executive Officer will be open till the end of this month. Proposed amendments of the by-laws are welcome to be voted on by the members during the GM.

Current nominees for board membership are:

1. Dr. Mohamed Elzeir, Egypt
2. Nabil M. El-Khodari, Egypt
3. Ms. Fatoumata Toure, Kenya
4. Jean Bigagaza, Rwanda/Burundi

There are no nominees for CEO after Nabil's decision not to nominate himself for the position. He believes that this would be counter-productive particularly under the current circumstances, stating that he is satisfied by being the founder of the society.and a member of the board. We hope that someone with the required qualities and initiative will step in soon and nominate him-/her-self for the position. Under the current by-laws, the nominees must be either from Nile Basin countries or Canada.

Nabil proposed an amendment to the by-laws that will change all memberships to active ones, thus giving all members of the society a shot are running the NBS.

The GM will mark the end of the Interim board, formed by Nabil, Shewarega and Desalegn.

The nominations and suggested bylaws modifications are available at the discussion board under "About NBS", a private topic for NBS members. Now the NBS members can follow the delebirations of the board under the topic NBS: Board Business. The NBS is proud to engage in a democratic transparent process.

For the GM to be effective we need volunteers to be responsible for the voting process, hopefully from the members outside Canada and Nile Basin countries.

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