The second annual, Nile Day was celebrated on February 22, 2008, among the 10 riparian countries. Ethiopia was a host country commemorating it colourfully and with various activities ranging from a ministerial briefing to exhibitions, and from panel discussions to songs. All these were meant to emphasise the theme “Cooperation on the Nile: Sustaining Our Life, Our Future”.
 

Beyond these niceties, though, I want to reflect on the crucial issue of why we, in Ethiopia, have failed to utilise the Nile waters.

Ethiopia, the ‘water tower’ of northern and eastern Africa, grapples with intractable abject poverty to a degree where its name is synonymous with famine. Famine has punctuated the whole span of Ethiopia’s recorded history. The mother of all famines was the 1888-92 Great Ethiopian Famine, dubbed by Ethiopians of the time as Kifue Quane, literally translated Evil Days. But, this was only “great famine” until the gravest catastrophe of the 1984-85 famine occurred, which undermined the appropriateness of the epithet “Great” into a question mark.
 

And today, both Ethiopians and the whole world are wondering whether the country could ever come out of this vicious cycle of poverty; and start to deliver themselves from the grip of food insecurity, in order to achieve sustainable development.
 

Why is famine an intractable and persistent problem in a country that is the source of the Nile River? What will stop another ‘Great Famine of All’ from coming? For how long do we remain undignified due to our country’s association with hunger despite its pride in its centuries-old civilisation and Adwa’s Victory, the latter we are celebrating today? How long do we remain unable to utilise our water resources but moan over hunger? How long does Ethiopia endure its misfortune of being a land of proverbial famine?
 

It is frustrating to note that agriculture in Ethiopia still remains at the mercy of erratic rainfall, and for centuries. This is when Ethiopia contributes 86pc of the Nile waters utilised by the lower riparian countries with no reciprocity; it has been able to benefit only marginally - less than one per cent - from the waters of the Nile for its rural poverty mitigation programmes. Nonetheless, the potential irrigable area of Ethiopia is estimated at 3.5 million hectares, of which about 2.3 million hectares are found in the Blue Nile basin, particularly along the streams of Abbay, Tekeze and Baro-Akobo.
 

These are the issues that should haunt us Ethiopians when we not only celebrate but also host “Nile Day”.

That the “Nile Day” is annually celebrated in countries of the region should not be surprising: The Nile River covers most of Uganda, almost the entire cultivated and settled area of Egypt, one third of Ethiopia, a substantial portion of The Sudan, and parts of Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Eritrea. The basin area represents one tenth of the area of Africa and about one third of the area of these 10 riparian countries which covers nine million square kilometres, and is inhabited by approximately half of the African population.

Since the 1960s, Africa’s river systems have been the focus of development planners; and many of the major water resources have been dammed and utilised for irrigation, hydroelectric generation, navigation, as well as flood control. Nevertheless, none of the other rivers in Africa have captured the imagination and interests of such a large number as much as Nile River.
 

Exceptionally, the Nile enabled ancient civilisation to flourish in its lower reaches and formed the earliest political societies. It is a major source of livelihood in the riparian states which try to ensure food security for growing populations. Even today, it has been utilised to develop irrigation, power generation, water supply, fishing, tourism, flood control and water transportation, although it is the irrigation that has been given much priority thus overshadowing all other benefits in the basin, particularly in Egypt and The Sudan.
 

In Ethiopia, there were some few and far between attempts to develop the Blue Nile (Abbay), even though their rural poverty alleviation significance was almost insignificant.
 

During the time of Emperor Haile Selasie, there was a plan to develop Lake Tana that was studied and surveyed by J. G. White Engineering Company of New York; the aim was to build a barge on the outlet of Lake Tana with all the expenses to be born by the firm. In return, Ethiopia had agreed to let the company sell the water to The Sudan, while it had hoped to collect royalty. The American firm conducted all the surveys and feasibility study of the project, only failing because of Britain’s influence against the project and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

In 1935, a deal between the Anglo-Sudan and Egyptian governments to construct a dam on Lake Tana had failed because the Ethiopian government would not accept the project that was planned by and believed to be benefiting the lower riparian countries. Further, the Emperor signed a cooperative agreement with the United States (US) Bureau of Reclamation to conduct a comprehensive data gathering project on the Abbay Valley in order to employ the result during negotiations with downstream nations. However, this negotiation did not take place, as Egypt and The Sudan went ahead with their own, and signed the 1959 partial agreement.

According to a scholar, “the injudicious nature of this treaty is self-explanatory from its title ‘Agreement for the Full Utilisation of the Nile Waters.’ “
 

There are two divergent views on the Imperial regime’s attempt to use the Nile waters: That the regime tried its best to use the water resource potential of the country and invited foreign capital. However, the envisaged programmes failed to materialise due to internal and external factors.
 

On the contrary, there are experts who argue that the regime was more focused on regional issues such as the Pan-African movement than making a genuine attempt to make a big voice against Ethiopia’s exclusion from the 1959 agreement. The Emperor was too busy in forming the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at the time than engaging himself in the real Nile talk.
 

The military regime of Mengistu H. Mariam (Col.) is characterised by attempts to continue the previous regime’s programmes and develop new minor water resource projects. For instance, the small hydroelectric power plants at Tis Isat Falls, below Lake Tana, and at Fincha, one of the tributaries of the Abbay, were constructed with the aim of expanding the country’s power supply and agro-industrial capabilities. It was during his time that major irrigation projects on the Ethiopian Nile Basin - Tekeze, Angereb and Guang rivers (on 1.6 million hectares); Baro Rivers (one million hectares) as well as around Abbay (400,000hct) - were planned in a bid to reduce rural poverty.

Almost all the plans were made on camera without involving stakeholders. Four expensive dams that were constructed in the 1980s had to be abandoned, and several irrigation schemes became unusable due to poor planning and the regime’s authoritarian approach to policy formulation and implementation. Besides, the military government has always been more on a shopping spree for weapons than committing itself to the utilisation of the Nile waters.

As a result, the situation remained unchanged when the country was struck by the 1984 great famines, which has made our name synonymous with “famine”. Ever since then, the country has been suffering from structural as well as transitory food deficits, requiring substantial food aid both in drought and bumper years.
 

Ethiopia’s acclaimed historian, Bahiru Zewdie (Prof.), described, pithily, the military’s regime’s failure: “A regime that came to power on the crest of one famine began to go to its grave in the wake of another.”

I would argue that there is real determination and more attempts today than ever before to utilise the Nile waters. The EPRDF regime seems to take the Nile issues seriously for both its economic and strategic significance.

That is what I gathered when reviewing the strategic document on Ethiopia’s foreign affairs and national security policy; it clearly states that the Nile water is the governing factor of its relation with the lower riparian particularly to that of Egypt. It commits to take advantage of water resources on the Nile Basin is better reflected from the ongoing projects such hydropower on Tekeze River, Karadobi, Kessem-Tendaho, Humeral Arejo Dedesa and Lake Tana areas.
 

Gladly, these efforts are not against regional initiatives that began in the 1960s. There were some basin-wide attempts to form cooperation in a bid to utilise the waters through the establishment of institutions.

During the Emperor and the military regimes, a few regional attempts were formed: The Hydro-meteorological Survey of the Equatorial Lakes (Hydromet) was formed in 1967 and financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Following was the UNDUGU (brotherhood in Swahili) Group that was established in 1983, with the aim of achieving regional collaboration in the areas of environment, infrastructure and culture. Technical Cooperation Commission for the Promotion and Development of the Nile (TECCO-NILE) came into existence in the 1990s to deal with the environment, water quality and conduct hydrological modelling, monitoring, forecasting and simulation, and to organise a series of annual conferences.
 

Having lofty goals from the start, these regional initiatives all failed to achieve their objectives, which was to bring all the riparian countries onboard to a similar platform.

The latest in the regional cooperation menu is the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), established in February, 1999, in mutual pursuit of riparian countries to sustainable development and management of the Nile waters.

The NBI is a partnership initiated and led by the riparian countries of the Nile River through the Council of Ministers of water affairs of the Nile Basin states. It seeks to develop the river in a cooperative and sustainable manner, share substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security. It tries to achieve its objective through the successful coordination and implementation of many regional, national and mega-projects.

The NBI is trying to come up with a basin-wide agreement. There was high hope among the basin people, though nothing emerged from the negotiations that took a decade. Egypt still claims the reputation of emphasising breach of the 1929 colonial and 1959 exclusive agreements is as good as an attack on its sovereignty. Hence, ongoing Nile water negotiations are stuck despite recent gentle statements made by Egyptians, on different occasions, as opposed to the dramatic threats they used to make decades earlier.

However, there are times, even after the establishment of the NBI, when Egypt blatantly threatened the lower riparian states. For instance, as recently as 2005, Egypt labelled Kenya’s mere withdrawal from the NBI meeting as “an act of war”. This led some observers to conclude the shift on Egypt’s part was on emphasis than permanent change in policy toward the Nile issues, and its foreign relations with the downstream countries.
 

Currently, Egypt engages itself with the NBI and at the same time continues on its unilateral development such as the New Valley Project, which is planned to be completed in 25 years. It is yet another indication that Egypt is determined and continues to enhance its utilisation of every drop of Nile waters, even outside of what is known to be its natural drainage basin. It indeed stretched it beyond its limits.

According to the water balance study conducted by the Egyptian government, Egypt will have sufficient water supply at least up until 2017, by doing whatever necessary, even at the expense of upper riparian countries.
 

Another actor is around the bloc, and determined.
 

Prim Minster Meles Zenawi, in his interview with the BBC in June 2005, confirmed Ethiopia’s “new determination to utilise the Nile to lift itself out of poverty.” He asserted that he is increasingly angry at Egypt’s long running diplomatic clout and objection to any international funding of large irrigation projects on the Nile. He also said that though Egypt has no jungle, it has troops that are probably trained for a combat in Ethiopia and East African jungles.
 

He recalled how in the past Egyptian presidents used to threaten lower riparian countries with military action if they were to move to use the Nile River. However, he was not hesitant to reaffirm Ethiopia’s determination.
 

“While I do not completely discount the sabre-rattling, I do not think it is a feasible option,” Meles told the BBC. “If Egypt were to plan to stop Ethiopia from utilising the Nile waters, it would have to occupy Ethiopia and no country on earth has done that in the past.” 

Although the incumbent’s commitment is laudable, and it is in this regime that Ethiopia, for the first time, developed water policy and strategy, it still has limited itself in producing only the water resources management policy, water resource development program, and water sector strategy without engaging in actual program implementation. I believe that other development strategies have not been given as much attention when it comes to water sector development in general and the Nile River in particular.

I said this because I failed to find a single paragraph in the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Programme (SDPRP II) document that deals with the country’s water resource potential in alleviating poverty and achieving sustainable growth. Even the recently launched Plan for Accelerated Sustainable Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) does not give much emphasis to Nile water development. This clearly shows how much the government has little incentive to expand its water resources on development programmes and the marginalisation of the Nile in the poverty reduction strategy.

True to many development policy and poverty reduction strategies in our country, these documents are only strong on rhetoric and feeble during executions. As a result, not much has been accomplished on the ground considering our wealth in water resources.
 

On the contrary, one can hardly find a single development document in Egypt without reference to the Nile.

I am glad, though, to come to see that the issue is no longer whether Ethiopia could move ahead in its quest to use the Nile River. It is only a question of time and pace at which water management and development on the Nile proceed whether or not there exists regional cooperation.