The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security - Unu-inweh ...

involvement and empowerment of local communities is essential.
It was discussed that it will be crucial to establish effective policy and legal frameworks in order to develop, carry out and
enforce rules and regulations that govern water and land use. This will need to be done at local, national and regional
levels through appropriate networks to facilitate cooperative, integrated policy-making that will ease water-related
tensions in the region.
Financing is an essential component that cannot be overlooked, and will be required in order to offset the considerable
costs involved in harnessing and managing water. This will require third sphere partnerships with the private sector in order
to tap into potential resources and develop solutions that promote socially and environmentally acceptable trade-offs.
Technological innovation will be key for managing water resources and ensuring continued water security in the region.
Such innovations can act as a driver for change in overcoming social, financial and environmental hurdles, creating
successful and sustainable solutions.
Cross-sectoral cooperation via institutions, such as those in the agricultural, industry and energy sectors, can help in dealing
with current and future challenges through reforms such as decentralisation, stakeholder participation and transparency,
capacity building, establishing partnerships and coordination (public-private, public-public, public-civil society), and
developing new supra-national (regional) administrative systems.
4. Water and Political Security: Case Studies from the WANA Region
4.1. The Nile Basin Initiative
The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a regional initiative covering 10 countries aimed at harmonising the transboundary water
conflicts in the Nile basin. The dispute over the sharing of the Nile River waters surfaced recently through the introduction
of the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in 2011 1 . Burundi is the latest signatory to the CFA in 2011, joining Kenya,
Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda. The upstream Nile countries, in their struggle for receiving an equitable share of
the river’s waters, have negotiated the CFA for years without a full agreement in sight. Egypt, Sudan and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, even with the latter expected to sign, are still not party to the CFA. Article 14(b) on water security
in the draft CFA has been used as a stopping block by both Egypt and Sudan. The article states that member countries
would work together to ensure that they will not “significantly affect the water security of any other Nile Basin State”
(Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement, 2010); Egypt and Sudan would like for the article to read that the
countries will not “adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile Basin States”, without
the qualification “significantly” (Nile Basin Initiative, 2012). Through the CFA, the upstream countries seek to substitute
the 1959 treaty between Egypt and Sudan that gave nearly 90% of this resource to the two downstream countries –
that is, 55.5 billion m 3 to Egypt, and 18.5 billion m 3 to Sudan (Mekonnen, 1999). This treaty did not include any of the
upstream countries, including Ethiopia, which contributes 85% of the river’s water. Based on a provision carried over
from an agreement signed with Britain in 1929, Egypt has veto power over any new treaties or proposed agreements
that would affect their allocated share of water resources of the Nile River, which it has been using ever since to protect
its share of the water resources.
The signing of the CFA by Burundi came at a crucial time during a major political transition in Egypt following the Arab
Spring and the Tahrir Square uprising, followed by the regime change of long-time president Hosni Mubarak. It can be
expected that whatever governance structure is established in Egypt, the issue of the Nile waters will be taken very seriously
by its new leaders. In fact, during the first meeting of the Egyptian Military Council following the change in regime, the
Nile water issue was the first item on the agenda as it is considered to be a national security issue (AhramOnline, 2012).
Although it remains to be seen what the water diplomacy of the future democratically elected Egyptian government will
be, it is anticipated that the new democratic wave will bring with it a new attitude in Egypt towards the sharing of the
Nile River with upstream states.
1 For a copy of the Agreement, see:
http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/documents/regionaldocs/Nile_River_Basin_Cooperative_Framework_2010.pdf.
50 The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue