Double-Edged Hydropolitics on the Nile - Center for Security Studies ...

5 Shaky ground:
Ethiopian water policy making
and Nile Basin cooperation
Abstract
T
his chapter explores domestic determinants of the Ethiopian position in
the Nile Basin negotiations. It challenges the common conceptualization
in the transboundary river conflict literature of riparian states as unitary
rational actors. A qualitative two-level game approach is applied. The winset
of domestically acceptable policy scenarios is constrained mainly by
two factors: 1) divides between domestic advocates of different strategies,
e.g., supply and demand management, and 2) the limited capacity of water
sector institutions to design and evaluate integrated water development
strategies due to overlapping levels of planning, lack of inter-sectoral
coordination, and insufficient stakeholder participation. The nature of
the water policy processes can partly explain the high priority attributed
in the ongoing negotiations to the issue of de jure water quota allocation
and to joint large-scale infrastructure projects. A transfer of the negotiation
mandate from the water sector to the national planning level could improve
the ability of the basin states to evaluate and exploit trade-offs between
different domestic and cooperative water management options.
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