Nile River Basin countries to meet in Uganda for a new legal framework

KAMPALA, May 30 (AFP) — Ten African countries sharing the River Nile will on Monday meet in Uganda to discuss a legal framework that would replace colonial laws that give Egypt a preferential treatment over other member states, a Ugandan minister said on Sunday.

“A team of negotiators will meet in Entebbe in a closed doors (from Monday) to debate proposals for a new legal regime that will bind all members using the river,” Water Minister Mary Mutagamba told AFP on the telephone.

Mutagambas did not give details whether the negotiations, under the auspices of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) – a 10-member country organization handling the management of the river – will end protracted negotiations over the increasingly sensitive issue in the region.

An official in the Kenyan water ministry said regional ministers would not attend the negotiations as earlier planned.

In 1929, Britain and Egypt signed a treaty that required Nile Basin countries to seek permission from Cairo, before embarking on large-scale projects that would affect the level and flow of river water.

But upstream countries have rubbished the treaty as a colonial relic and in 1999, together with Egypt, which had earlier tried to cling to the old treaty, launched the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and tasked it with finding a better mechanism of sharing the water.

On Saturday, Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir launched the Nile Trans-boundary Environmental Action Project that would provide a unified approach to managing transboundary water resources within the Nile Basin region.

Nile Basin countries include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.