The Nile Water Agreement

The leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan signed a cooperation agreement on the Great Renaissance Dam in 2015 to ease tensions. The agreement is expected to pave the way for continued diplomatic cooperation. Fundamental principles of the agreement include prioritizing downstream countries for electricity generated by electricity generated by the dam, a dispute resolution mechanism and compensation for damages. Indeed, this agreement gave Egypt full control of the Nile during the dry season when water is most needed for agricultural irrigation. It also severely limits the amount of water allocated to Sudan and does not supply water to any of the other riparian countries. In 1999, the Nile rim states, with the exception of Eritrea, signed the Nile Basin Initiative (NIL) to improve cooperation in the development of «common water resources in the Nile Basin.» Under the aegis of the NBI, the neighbouring countries have begun to develop what they see as a permanent legal and institutional framework for the management of the Nile basin. The Framework Cooperation Agreement (CFA), as the agreement is known, officially introduced the concept of equitable water allocation into discussions on Nile governance, as well as a complex concept called «water security.» The Egyptian government agrees that a settlement of these issues (irrigation issues) cannot be delayed as long as the two governments (Britain and Egypt) manage to agree on the status of Sudan, but at the conclusion of this regulation, they explicitly reserve their full freedom in the negotiations that might precede such an agreement. The American candidate H. T.

Cory preferred to get closer to the subject. After a long analysis of the situation, he found the «adequate» supply of Egypt at 40,000 million cubic meters and that of Sudan with 1,855 cubic meters. After establishing this assumption, he tried to distribute the «unworn» water that was to be extracted from the planned new work. Its study deserves the attention of all those who are interested in irrigation problems, whether from a technical, legislative or legal point of view. Following his review, Mr. Cory formulated the principles that the current use of Nile water by Egypt and Sudan should be adopted as rights to the natural river; and that excess water should be distributed equally between Egypt and Sudan, beyond these free movement rights. The following table shows [2] the availability of water in each country within the Nile basin and the researchers` estimates of the decrease in water availability in these countries, mainly due to an increase in the population of the countries. These bilateral agreements have completely ignored the needs of other coastal countries, including Ethiopia, which supplies between 70 and 80 per cent of the Nile`s waters. As a result, none of the other countries in the Nile basin ever approved the agreement.

In 1875, the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli purchased the 44% stake of the indebted Egyptian ruler Ismail on the Suez Canal for $4 million to secure control of this strategic waterway, a shipping channel between the United Kingdom and India since it opened six years earlier under Emperor Napoleon III. The Anglo-French joint financial control over Egypt ended in 1882 in a genuine British crew.