Hydropolitics along the Nile Basin: Setting the scene

 Transboundary water management is perhaps what immediately comes to mind when someone mentions hydropolitics. The political stability of East Africa is dependent on its hydrological stability, which is only achieved through the cooperation between the 11 riparian states that are home to the River Nile. ‘As populations and economies have grown, water has become scarcer and more variable in certain locations’ placing even more pressure the Nile (Petersen-Perlman, 2017).

 

Colonial legacies, and the power imbalances that developed as a result, remain central to the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin. The 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, among others, has worked to ‘structurally deny upstream riparian countries access to, and use of, the Nile’, instead granting ‘Egypt extensive and monopolistic use’ (Mahlakeng, 2017: 76-77). Today, the World Bank continues to protect Egypt’s ability to ‘veto any construction projects along the Nile and its tributaries’ (The Conversation, 2020), overtly stating that ‘the World Bank will not get behind any initiative that leaves them [Egypt] out’ (Mahlakeng, 2017: 80). Preventing financial institutions, both regionally and internationally from funding large-scale hydropower developments, is one of Egypt’s most common, and successful, methods of retaining its dominance over the Nile (Waterbury, 1979: 80).

 

The inability to develop hydro-electric power has led to a huge gap in energy poverty across the Nile Basin, with Egypt’s power shortages running at 2%, Uganda’s at 91% and Tanzania’s at 89% (KPMG, 2011: 23-35). It is clear that the ‘World Bank has played a major role in denying other riparian states access to the Nile’ (Mahlakeng, 2017: 79). The motives behind doing so are perhaps linked to Egypt’s geopolitical might, and the importance of the Suez Canal. ‘Treaties [further] solidify power imbalances’, reinforcing colonial era power dynamics (Petersen-Perlman, 2017) and halting development in upstream states, despite their natural wealth of water resources. However, it is important to note that Egypt’s stranglehold on the Nile is because it is concerned with its own self-preservation, rather than hostility for the sake of it. Egypt relies on the Nile for 90% of its water, and is therefore classed as having a ‘very high’ stake it its management (Salman, 2011).

Map of the Nile Basin with the countries colour coded
according to stake held in the Nile Basin (Salman, 2011)
(Illustrations my own)

Disagreements regarding Nile Basin management usually fall into two camps. Depending on whether a state is upstream or downstream, they want either ‘absolute riverine integrity’, which is the natural flow of a river across its borders, or ‘absolute sovereignty,’ which would mean the state has absolute rights to the water flowing through its borders (Wolf, 1999: 6). Downstream riparians are likely to argue for absolute sovereignty, whilst more vulnerable upstream riparians such as Egypt and Sudan, argue they should have access to their natural share of water, without undue interference. The extremity of these positions, namely their ‘absoluteness’, serves to stifle compromise ‘leaving very little room for bargaining’ (Wolf, 1999:6). International cooperation is further compromised by deficiencies in international law. Often portrayed as a powerful legal framework, more often than not the reality of international law is ‘pliable’ Sometimes termed ‘soft law’ in the sense it’s not designed to be legally binding (Cano, 1989: 167), ‘international water law is ambiguous and often contradictory’, focusing on ‘vague and relative terms’ such as equity (Wolf, 1999: 4). The Nile Basin Initiative works to counter the lack of international cooperation. However, with the World Bank acting as its main financier (Mahlakeng, 2017: 79), some upstream riparians, such as Ethiopia, see its interference as an undiplomatic extension of Egyptian hegemony.

 

The centrality of international financial institutions throughout Nile Basin goes to show how, despite their depiction as 'neutral' and 'professional' (Escobar,1995), the allocation of development finance is innately political, and often propagates existing power dynamics in the region.

 

Next week, we will take a closer look at how these dynamics play out in Tanzania.