Untangling Colonial Links to Modern Water Management in the Nile River Basin (2)

Hi! In this week's blog we outline the complex state of water rights, resource management, and current debates with the Nile River Basin as they connect to the region's colonial history. The Nile River lacks a basin-wide shared vision for the usage and allocation of water resulting in a splintering of bilateral agreements and unilateral actions to the detriment of the vast majority of the people who rely on river (Hussein & Grandi, 2017). I lay out in this blog post how that is a consequence of the colonial legacy of the region, and focus on the specific case of Egypt to illustrate the links between European colonialism and water access in the Nile River Basin.

Colonial map of Africa in 1878. (Source: Facing History and Ourselves)

Egypt is home to an ancient civilization which has sustained itself by utilizing water from the Nile River for millennia (Kendie 1999). After the end of colonial control in the region, other riparian states gained independence, and eventually developed the capacity to increasingly extract more water from the Nile and its tributaries, pitting their interests at odds with Egyptian water security (Kimenyi & Mbaku, 2015). Current treaties on water access in the region are wrought with the legacy of earlier colonial objectives (which overwhelmingly favor Egypt given its status as a British protectorate) rather than working toward the goal of equitable water access for all states in the region (Kimenyi & Mbaku, 2015).

The conflict essentially boils down to this: Egypt and Sudan (downstream states) support the continuity of colonial water agreements which solidify their own control of access to the Nile while Ethiopia and other upstream states reject colonial agreements which they argue gives Egypt not only a specific water allocation but hegemonic control of the river basin (Tawfik 2016). Egypt's dominant position stems from a series of treaties, predominantly of two themes: first, between Egypt and Britain on behalf of upstream riparians and, second, between Britain and Ethiopia which effectively established Egypt's hegemonic control of the area and banned hydraulic development upstream (Hussein & Grandi, 2017). Consider treaties such as the 1959 Nile Water Agreement which split the entire flow of the Nile between Egypt and Sudan (split 75/25), putting the water access of these two states above all others. This treaty was signed amid the backdrop of an Egyptian-led military coup of Sudan (Kendie 1999). Further solidfying Egyptian dominance is the fact that Sudan previously lacked the ability to make large-scale withdrawals from the Nile; however, population growth and increased usage of technology (primarily irrigation to meet rising food demands) has resulted in a growing encroach of Egyptian dominance in the basin.

These hydropolitical conflicts are defined by centuries-old colonial precedents that persist into modern day. However, the relationship between states in the basin is shifting. A rapidly growing source of conflict is the increasing capacity of upstream riparians to divert, utilize, and otherwise withdraw from the Nile. Some upstream riparians are unilaterally constructing hydraulic projects to increase their withdrawals from the Nile, most notably the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) which will be discussed comprehensively in a further blog post.

A new hydro-political order in the Nile River Basin is emerging. Whether that order represents a new basin-wide consensus on the equitable sharing of water resources or follows the colonial legacy of undercutting competitor states is still yet to be determined.