'The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water.'

 

So far, I have explored how Africans can gain better access to fresh water supplies as well as the relationship between water and food. Previously, I examined private sector interventions and groundwater extraction, all of which has been at a local or national level. But what happens when large water resources are shared across national boundaries? Who has control over the water supplies, often divided up geographically and hydrologically unequally across nations? In this post, I will be investigating the hydro-politics of the Nile Basin, specifically looking at the relationship between Ethiopia and Egypt. 

Boutros-Ghali argued that ‘the next war in Egypt will be over the water of the Nile, not politics’ but throughout this post, it will become clear that conflicts over water resource are inherently political. You may be wondering how is water a political matter? As shown by Lautze and Giordano (2005:1053), ‘every African country has territory in at least one transboundary river basin’ with over 60% of the African population living in a transboundary river basin. This quote begins to illustrate the complexity of transboundary river basins because there are millions of people affected by the water resource. Each stakeholder will have a different idea of how they want to manage and use the water, which will inevitably clash with other players. There is an implicit postulation that ‘…water resources are assumed to be the river runoff formed in the territory of a given region plus half the river water inflow from outside’ (Shiklomanov 2000:28), implying that there is an equitable share of transboundary water resources. However, this does not happen in practice. I will demonstrate that conflicts over the Nile are inevitable because each country is heavily reliant on the resource, with focus on Egypt’s agricultural sector.

As it stands, 97% of Egypt’s freshwater comes from the Nile and freshwater is essential to support livelihoods and with growing population, food insecurity issues are widespread (Altchenko and Villholth 2012; Goulden et al 2009). Egypt is heavily reliant on this resource to support its population and to continue the growth of its economy. However, this resource runs along 11 borders, as shown in figure one, which has resulted in disputes over who has control over the Nile. Egypt is claiming riverine integrity but upstream riparians like Ethiopia are claiming territorial sovereignty (Deng 2007). Ethiopia has clearly exerted its absolute claims through the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which will take between five and fifteen years to fill. Regardless of how long this process takes, Egypt will be deficient in its prized resource. 

Figure 1 – A map to illustrate the transboundary nature of the River Nile (Kolas 2013)

Egypt views the GERD as an existential threat as it is having detrimental impacts on its food production. Water is key to sustaining their population and plays a huge role in the food exports as agricultural exportation accounts for one-eighth of Egypt’s GDP. The GERD is controlling how much water is flowing into Egypt, and as the dam is being filled up, water flow to Egypt has decreased. Ethiopia has full power. Heavy reliance on the Nile has resulted in 27 million Egyptians facing food and water shortages (Mekonnen & Hoekstra 2016). Moreover, reduced access to the Nile has been exacerbated by climate change as the GERD has resulted in increased evapo-transpiration (Goulden 2009), which has directly affected the irrigation of crops. It is clear that millions of Egyptians need the water source to support their livelihoods and to increase their food security. Reduced access to this source has already resulted in a 9-19% decrease in agricultural production across Egypt (Elsayed et al 2020), and these impacts are likely to be prolonged until the reservoir is at optimal capacity. So, what is being done to ensure equitable distribution across the Nile basin and to prevent a civil war?

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) seeks to generate a consensus around the sharing of data and enhancing monitoring infrastructure. Though the NBI is aiming to promote integration among users, it is not a legal framework which means it is not obligatory and there are loopholes. For more information, head over to https://nilebasin.org

The future is uncertain for Egypt. They have started looking into desalination as a way to mitigate water deficiency (Swain 1997) however, to truly avoid conflict, there must be full cooperation between users. Unfortunately, Egypt and Ethiopia have both maintained a rhetoric of inevitable conflict if their demands are not met. So, what does the future hold for the Nile basin?