The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI): Business as usual? [a]

By: Nabil M. El-Khodari [b]

CEO, Nile Basin Society, Canada

Paper accepted for presentation at

International Conference of Basin Organizations,

Madrid, Spain, 4-6 November 2002

[The paper was scheduled in the final program. However, as no sponsorship was received, the paper was not presented at the conference]

Executive Summary:

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is the greatest plan for a better future of the Nile Basin country ever put into play. However, nothing is perfect. The author discusses some of the perceived short-comings of the plan particularly regarding the social and environmental aspects of sustainable development and the involvement of civil society.

Background:

The NBI process started long ago, as early as 1992 when the Council of Ministers (Nile-COM), the highest authority in the Nile Basin, formed the Technical Co-operation Committee for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin (TECCONILE). Within this framework, the Nile River Basin Action Plan (NRBAP) was prepared with support from CIDA. One of the projects (Project D3), whose objective is to develop a co-operative framework for management of the Nile, was endorsed by all countries during the 3rd meeting of the Nile-COM (Arusha, 9-11 February, 1995) and is being implemented with UNDP funding. However, the NBI was officially launched at the Extraordinary Meeting of Nile Basin Council of Ministers, Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, 22 February 1999; where the minutes were prepared,adopted and signed, formally establishing the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). [1]

Up till now, the NBI does not have a formal legal framework, though this is currently looked after. Its secretary however does have headquarters established 1 June 1999 in Entebbe, with Mr.  Meraji Msuya [c] as the 1^st Executive Director. The headquarters was officially opened in 3 September 1999.

The World Bank accepted to coordinate the process in partnership with UNDP and CIDA at the request of the Nile-COM.

The NBI process reached one of its milestones on the first meeting of the International Consortium for Cooperation on the Nile (ICCON1), which took place from 26-28 June, 2001, in Geneva, Switzerland, where its projects were submitted to the international funding agencies. 140 US$ million dollars were allocated to the NBI projects at that meeting (by 12 funding agencies, with the promise of 3 US$ Billion to come [2] .

Discussion:

The NBI is by all rights presents an honorable aim for better future for the Nile Basin region, containing 6 of the poorest 10 nations of the world. The fact that direct and indirect conflict characterized relations between most Nile countries, water is not yet a cause of conflict, though other natural resources were/are. Nonetheless, threats of war over Nile water was abundant in the late 70s and 80s particularly between Egypt, the most downstream country yet controlling the Nile since the Pharos, and Ethiopia the source of more than 84% of the Nile water arriving at the Aswan High Dam [3] . Tensions were high at times, e.g. when President Sadat promised Nile water to Israel and the start of El-Salam canal project in Northern Sinia following that promise.

The Nile is not an infinite resource. The control of its waters has almost reached its limit. The gap between demand and supply is bound to increase, bearing in mind that riparian countries have population growth rates over 2.6 percent per year. The possibility of a technological breakthrough in agricultural practices and production is remote. Poverty added to internal conflicts in the Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea has helped to postpone possible conflicts over the Nile waters.

In fact a Sudanese Researcher in 1997, then an Assistant Professor, Khartoum University, concluded his EIA study by stating that “is high time that water wars should start within each country. Wars to convince the traditional players (engineers and diplomats) that their strategies have not worked out to our expectations. Other players from other disciplines should join the team if goals are to be attained.

Wars should be started to convince riparian to integrate, to harmonize the use of the shared and other resources, starting with the Nile. War to convince riparian countries that the basin is an indivisible whole. Traditional rights should be counter-balanced by obligations towards each other. In that respect the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement between the Sudan and Egypt should be revised to include the interests of the other riparian countries.” [4]

Fortunately, such huge sacrifice is not required (?Yet) though not all players are currently involved (see later). That the Nile Basin countries agreed on the NBI shared vision peacefully is an achievement in itself.

Fig. (2): The NBI Shared Vision.

So, the Nile now seems to be more a catalyst for cooperation rather than for conflict. However, the Nile Basin is still categorized as “threat” with a fatality level of dispute >10 [5] . This is in my opinion unlikely to change in the near future, in fact there is all the reason to believe that the tensions over water may increase in spite of the NBI – or may be because of lack of pushing a legal framework for the Nile Basin sooner – as the demographic tensions alone, not to mention expected global warming scenarios, would increase the water scarcity in the Nile Basin.

As more of the nations in the Nile valley develop their economies, the need for water in the region will increase. And while the demand for resources increases, the supply is likely to remain unchanged, drastically increasing the chances for armed conflict over the waters of the Nile River. In addition, development projects that are aimed at increasing the flow of the Nile remain endangered by tension and instability in the region, as well as by environmental and financial concerns [6] .

The problems that are facing the NBI:

Legal: Lack of binding agreement between Nile Basin countries on the equitable and just distribution of the Nile Water

This may be considered as the thorniest issue that would cause the NBI to break apart.

In this regard it is important to note that:

1. As of August 15^th, 2002, none of the Nile Basin countries have ratified the Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (1997) that took more than 20 years in preparation [7] . According to Dr. Patricia Wouters, director of the International Water Law Research Institute at the University of Dundee, Scotland, the convention provides two important principals; it stresses that states should use watercourses in an equitable and reasonable manner, and secondly it defines a procedure to follow when planned schemes may have adverse impacts on other states [8] . In fact, when the convention was presented to the UN General Assembly, Sudan was the only Nile Basin country in favor; Burundi opposed; Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania abstained; while Eritrea, Uganda and DRC (Zaire) were absent! [9]
2. During the International Conference on Freshwater, Bonn, Germany, 3-7 December 2001 attended by the author, the Egyptian delegation objected on using the term “International watercourses” and favored the use of “trans-boundary waters” in formulating the conference final report.

To further expand on this crucial issue, there are only two treaties Egypt insists must be respected in any water negotiations with other riparian countries:

A. The 1959 treaty: The most complete agreement on the use of the Nile waters remains the 1959 agreement between Sudan and Egypt. This agreement was only bilateral and did no include any of the other riparian countries of the Nile despite the fact that it portioned out all of the Nile's water. Ethiopia, from which 80% of the water comes from was not even consulted and no water was even allotted for future usage by any upstream country except Sudan. All of the Nile's average water flow is divided between the two most downstream countries. Nevertheless, this 1959 agreement is still the most comprehensive agreement ever signed on the use of the Nile's waters.

This agreement, however, did not put an end to the conflict over the rights to the Nile waters. A strong tension still exists between the Nile basin countries whenever a new Nile development project is proposed. The water needs of all of these countries are barely being met now and will probably not be met in the future, especially in view of the development plans in Ethiopia and Sudan. In addition, Egypt, as the country most in danger of losing access to the Nile waters by development projects in other countries, remains willing and able to intervene militarily in order to keep the status quo [10] .

B. The 1929 Treaty: This is an “exchange of notes” between Egypt and Britain in which Egypt accepted the findings of the1925 Nile commission restricting the amount of water impounded by Sudan except during the flood period. Egypt and Sudan would agree before any new construction took place to increase local water supply. [11] This ‘treaty’ does not only bind Sudan to Egypt’s approval before undertaking any irrigation project, but also gave Egypt rights in the use of Lake Victoria and other water bodies around the river Nile. The treaty was last revised in 1959 but retained clauses barring Nile basin countries from using the waters for large-scale irrigation and other projects without permission from Egypt. (for more info about Nile treaties visit: http://www.nilebasin.net/discus/messages/12/235.html?1008851315)

The list of grievances of upper Nile riparian countries for those two treaties is endless in literature and news, merely because they were not party to any of them, nor were their rights taken in consideration.

It seems from a couple of sources, that the ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses [d] (or at least another form of legal agreement that repeals the above two treaties) may happen by all Nile Basin countries probably within the next 2 months [12] .

If, and only if, this happens then the NBI will be on the right track and we should all look forward to at least a peaceful, if not prosperous, future of the Nile Basin.

Procedural: Lack of transparency:

May be due to the sensitivity of the negotiations or due to the fact that the World Bank is the main agency managing the NBI, information are scarce and often late from the NBI or its web site. In fact, the author is aware that instructions were given to the NGO participants in ICCON1 not to discuss what took place/promised in the meetings! The same happened when the author himself was earlier engaged in the first NBD workshop.

Lack of involvement of all specialized agencies:

The World Bank and the Nile Basin governments may be more interested in the short- medium-term economic development. However, the aim should be set higher than that; i.e. sustainable development.

Sustainable development, as well known, has three pillars; economic, social and environmental. The Socio-Economic Development and Benefit-Sharing Project is the only one that may be related to the social pillar of sustainable development among the Shared Vision Programs (SVP) of the Nile Basin. However, that is not true.

Fig.(2) Summary, goal and objectives of the NBI’s Socio-Economic Development and Benefit-Sharing Project.

Source: NBI: Public Documents http://www.nilebasin.org/pubdocs.htm

The same applies to the Environmental component of the SVP, which deals mostly with the sustainable use of water in irrigation and managing the Nile River. There is no mention for example of the notion of water for the ec osystem.

Apparently this is the scope from a macro point of view, but even though the focus should have been on what would make the quality of life of the ordinary Nile Basin citizen more productive and enjoyable.

In the author’s opinion, there cannot be true development except with advancing democracy, education, health, respect for law and human rights, etc. This is the social development that is required to ensure that what would be gained by the economical development will not be lost to corruption and abuse of powers. Major constitutional changes are required in all Nile Basin countries, including the voting system, the terms of presidency, government accountability, anti-corruption programs, etc. This issue would become clearer when the NBD is discussed.

This notion of social development is not new nor the author’s. In fact, the G8 at there meeting this year in Calgary, Canada, agreed to increase aid to Africa conditioned with democratic changes. NEPAD is also about similar issues, though in the form of ‘peer review’.

A recent example is illustrative and will help also with the discussion of the NBD (to be published). This example is the Bujagali Hydro-electric Dam Project in Uganda (US$550m hydro electric power project).

A group of Ugandan environmental organizations, headed by the National Association of Professional Environmentalists [e] and with the help of the International River Network (IRN) and other international organizations who formed Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Lobby Group (ENGO-LOG), opposed the project on the grounds that:

• That AES [f] project was privileged over other potentially better projects due to pressure from Ugandan and United States governments. There is available press evidence.
• Unethical intimidation has been used to help guarantee local support.
• Placing / building 3 dams; Owen falls, Owen falls extension and Bujagali within a short stretch of the Nile is not only a security risk but also perpetuates uneven development between the North and the south of the country. The proposed Karuma dam is a viable alternative to Bujagali, but has not received a special political privilege that AES has received or Bujagali
• Contrary to internationally acceptable best practices, there was no competitive bidding in the selection of AES to build the dam.
• The details of the proposed resettlement of the local affected people by the project remains unclear.
• Bujagali falls dam is just one of a series of dams that the government is considering to erect on the Nile in Uganda. However, environmental impacts were never done for either Owen falls or the Owen extension. And the cumulative impacts of the proposed dams are unknown.
• The details of the governments' energy export are still unclear. Will the Bujagali project benefit the majority of rural Ugandans who cannot afford modest standards of living?
• The EIA for Bujagali transmission lines is not yet out. And is the Bujagali project going to be financed before we discuss the EIA for the transmission lines?
• There is a need for a comprehensive management plan for the Nile river basin, since many projects are proposed. And we believe the Bujagali project should be re-valuated within a context of other options such as solar, sustainable fuel-wood use and small hydro projects. [13]
• There is a need to widely involve NGOs and CBOs and other stakeholders. We request for meaningful participation and involvement of NGOs and CBOs, rather than imaginary participation that has been project standard so far.
• The Bujagali dam will cause irreversible damage to the natural beauty and cultural significance of the Bujagali falls.
• Jinja district has a number of characteristics that make it potentially great source of revenue for Uganda which include L. Victoria, and the stretch of R. Nile from Bujagali to Kalagala. The dam will deprive Jinja and all the people of Uganda of tourism revenue by submerging the falls and changing the landscape forever.

 NAPE succeeded in obtaining a highly condemning document from the CAO (Compliance Advisor Ombudsman) in September 2001 (Annex I)

The  CAO conclusions contain 2 ‘outstanding issues’ [See Annex I: Page vi) that directly relate to the NBI

·         A comprehensive study of the cumulative impact of a cascade of dams along the Nile remains a problem, because those impacts have only been partially addressed in the EIA for the hydropower facility and technical appendices. In addition, the use of the LAC approach in the Strategic Impact Assessment remains a problem because of its methodology.

·         The lack of a comprehensive management plan for the Nile raises long-term management issues for the river, people and environment.”

Unfortunately the CAO based his recommendation on the fact that the IFC has not made a final decision to participate in the project.

The Ugandan government resorted to concomitant pressures to pass the project, in the form of:

·         President Yoweri Museveni sent a letter (dated October 09, 2001) to the World Bank President James Wolfenson to approve the project. The letter was a result of threats by EAS to pull out of the project due to the delays in approval by the World Bank and also the fears of the likely outcome of the investigations panel set up by the World Bank to investigate the EIA of the project [14] .

·         Ugandan Government proposed a draft law, which allows for the suspension of NGOs in Uganda that do not conform to any government policy or plan. The law "threatens the legitimate activities of civil society", warned Human Rights Watch [15] .

On December 18^th, 2001, the World Bank approved financial assistance totaling up to US $225 million for the Bujagali Dam [16] .

The ‘sudden’ decision brought the following reaction from NAPE’s President “In July, we again lodged another complaint with the inspection panel of the World bank. In October, three members of the panel came to establish the eligibility of the complaints. Their findings will be out in January next year. So how does the World Bank go ahead to approve the project before the panel has issued its findings?" Frank Muramuzi, asked.

Some Ugandan MPs wrote to the World Bank discouraging it from financing the project [17] .

Then (exact date is not known to the author) the World Bank Investigation Panel “confidential” [18] stinging report to the World Bank Group (WBG) directors was revealed. Major points were:

·         That the terms of the confidential power purchase agreement (PPA) reveal that the dam will double electricity prices with in seven years. If the shilling (Uganda Currency) depreciates even by a mild 10% to the dollar per year. The panel criticises the Bank and Government for keeping the PPA secret form the Public. "It seams evident that full disclosure of the PPA is vital if the intent is to place the public in a position to analyse, understand, and participate in informed decision about the viability the project and its impacts, on the economy and wellbeing of Ugandans" says the report.

·         the World Bank Staff failed to properly assess the viability of the project, the possibility of other alternatives, and its likely impacts on the Environment, thus violating the World Bank's guidelines that require prior assessment of the project's economic viability and impact on environment.

·        It pointed out that the Western Rift Valley has a potential for 450MW (Geothermal) compared to 250MW proposed by Bujagali.

Of course the local population affected by the project were rapidly and adequately compensated by EAC, even before the IFC approved the project!!! This is not the issue of this long historical review. The issues are mainly the role of NGOs in Nile Basin countries, the role of adequate public participation, the true cost to the consumers and the way the World Bank deals with such issues.

To understand the intricate interaction between companies/investors, World Bank Group, NGOs, public participation and monitoring, the CAO’s “Situation Assessment” proves invaluable (See Annex I: pages iii-v).

Some of the questions raised by the Bujagali experience are:

1.      EIAs: The role played by Acres [g] (directly contracted by the WBG), a company with vested interests in hydropower on the Nile. [19] How were its cost/effectiveness analysis biased towards the EAS project (as stated by the NGOs and by the WBG investigation panel). How can we rely on EIAs made by private companies which best interests lies with the client (whether government or International Agency)? Why not rely on the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) experts, who most probably would charge less?

2.      Is the Bujagli Project part of the NBI’s SVP (Shared Vision Programs) or the SAP (Subsidiary Action Programs)? My understanding is that the concentration should be at first on the SVP part, where most of the studies and public information take place. This is actually proven by the following NBI diagram (left). Supposedly SVP paves the way to acceptance of SAPs, unless both are meant only from governmental perspective and not the general public.

3.      Appropriate public participation: AES Nile Power (AESNP), again a private company, carried out the “public participation” meetings. The affected people were compensated even before approval of the project (pressure?).

4.      Monitoring: InterAid [h] was paid by AESNP to monitor AESNP In-country consultations. The CAO raises the issue of impartiality; I raise the issue of experience in public participation.

5.      Constitutional guarantees for NGOs and civil society: This will be discussed in the next section.

It is obvious that either the agencies financing the NBI has developed a sense of ‘ownership’ of the NBI, or that was imposed on them by the Nile-COM as a way to ‘hasten’ the process through focused economical discussions or even that it was a necessity agreed upon by both parties due to the sensitivities of the political negotiations.

Furthermore, these agencies became more involved with each other in long ‘partnerships’. For example:

·        The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) recently signed a strategic Framework Agreement, the first of its kind, under which CIDA will contribute $5 million to IUCN [20] .

·         The IUCN is involved in a partnership with the World Bank, the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) that was formalized in June 2000.

·         CIDA now allocates the money for the NBI directly to the WBG and that for the NBD directly to the IUCN. This is against the usual practice of having a Canadian organization/Business/Consultant responsible for the fund through advertising in the Canadian Government tender web site (Merx). In fact, 2 NBI project proposals announced at CIDA’s site, to be tendered at a later specified date, just disappeared from its website, never to appear on Merx’s website (http://www.merx.bmo.com/Services/AboutMERX/English/MK_SiteMap.asp).

In fact, though the UNDP was involved in the NBI at first through Ms. Inger Andersen, she now became a World Bank official with no substitute from UNDP [21] . So it seems that the circle is tightening rather than widening. It is true that FAO and SIDA and may be other International organizations are currently involved in the NBI, but this is not in the “macro-planning” process, but rather to execute specific components.

Conclusions:

This paper does not by any mean undermine the work so far done, nor does it lay blame on any organization/government involved (simply because it is not known whether the procedural/planning process is controlled by the governments (Nile-COM), the World Bank or the funding agencies (CIDA). What was achieved is huge, but what is needed is more than just economic or water resources development. This ‘sustainable development’ will not be achieved by the current NBI plans/procedures or even by just the current players.

It is recommended that:

The UNDP, UNEP, FAO and UNESCO must be involved in reviewing or adding specific macro-plans to address the social, developmental (in its wider meaning), cultural and environmental sides and not just that for water resources or sharing water, electricity, communication, roads, etc between governments. The focus should be the ordinary citizens of the Nile and the basin ecosystem as a whole including climatic changes either due to the projects themselves or to the global warming, if the NBI is to be a sustainable development project and not just an economic development one.

Specifically Environmental Impact Assessments (including social assessment) must be carried by the UNEP for the holistic NBI SAP plan(s) (including resulting increased industrialization in some countries and the effects of the ‘cascade of dams’ mentioned in NAPE’s complaint) as well as the individual component SAP projects. It is important also that the UNEP be in charge of the Environmental classification of the different projects as well as the mitigation plans for each. The WBG is renowned for underestimating the environmental risks. I do not believe that there is any private consulting company that can carry out the EIA of a project that big, simply because there is no history of such huge development on a river basin.

Public participation must be as wide-spread as possible and involve all sectors of the civil society (including opposition parties), academia, media and international agencies/NGOs with the required skills to debate a project or suggest a better alternative. Till then, no prepared SAP or even SVP should be engraved in stone. Who will conduct/monitor such activity should be selected carefully I suggest by funding agency(ies).

Finally, the following quote is most appropriate:

“It is time to bring the debate home. The controversy over dams has appropriately been raised to the international stage. A dissipation of that controversy, however, should allow decisions about fundamental water and energy development choices to be made at the most appropriate level—one where the voices of powerful international players and interests do not drown out the many voices of those with a direct stake in the decisions [22] .”