No Nile water deal
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Egypt and neighboring Sudan are the Nile’s largest consumers. Egypt, which lies at the end of the river as it flows into the Mediterranean, does not contribute any water to the Nile system. But it has the largest population — 80.24 million — and the greatest military power among the riparian states and thus the highest demand for water. For Cairo, safeguarding the Nile water is a strategic objective.
The problem stems in large part from the absence of multilateral agreements concerning water-sharing. The only agreement that does exist lies at the heart of the dispute — the 1929 accord between Egypt and Britain, then the predominant colonial power in Africa. It gave Cairo veto power over upstream projects that could impede the Nile’s flow levels — as Turkey’s current ambitious dam-building program is cutting off the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates to Syria and Iraq.
Britain claimed it had acted on behalf of its African colonies, but its motivation undoubtedly had a lot to do with maintaining strategic control over the Suez Canal to hold its empire together. A bilateral treaty between Egypt and Sudan in 1959 allocated Egypt 55.5 billion cubic meters of water annually — 87 percent of the Nile’s flow — with Sudan getting 18.5 billion cubic meters.
The other riparian states say this is grossly unfair and demand an equitable water-sharing pact that would allow for much wider irrigation for crop-growing (an increasingly vital issue because of global food shortages) and hydraulic power projects.
Egypt argues that the upstream countries have far greater rainfall than Egypt — which has hardly any — and other sources of water than the Nile.
The river provides 87 percent of Egypt’s water resources. An Egyptian government report in July warned that the country’s water requirements would exceed its resources by 2017.
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