CAIRO: Ministers from the 10 African countries on the Nile river began crucial discussions Monday over drafting a new water sharing agreement, which is hampered by Egypt s refusal to reduce its share of world s longest river. In an opening address to the Nile Basin Initiative, held in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, Egypt s Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif urged for a return of the cooperation and harmony among the group s members, describing the ongoing dispute as a misunderstanding. In the two-day meeting, participants are hoping to conclude the Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement, which establishes a permanent body to oversee water allocation along the Nile. During talks last month in Kinshasa, Congo, officials from the 10 countries of the Nile basin, failed to agree over a new system of water sharing desired by a majority of the members. A 1929 agreement between Egypt and Britain, acting on behalf of its then east African colonies, set up the original sharing framework and gave Cairo the right to veto upstream projects. In a 1959 agreement with Sudan, Egypt was awarded an annual 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water, the largest share of any country along the river. The remaining eight riparian states resent Egypt s quota and want to draft a new agreement. Egyptian Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mohammed Nasreddin Allam has repeatedly said that his country will not accept any change to its quota. Egypt s cabinet issued a report last week that the country needed 86.2 billion cubic meters of water in 2017 and only has resources of 71.4 billion cubic meters. A country of vast deserts, only around 6 percent of Egypt is arable, almost entirely due to the Nile. Egypt s water resources stood at 64 billion cubic meters in 2006, of which the River Nile provided or 86.7 percent, the report said. By 2017 the Nile is expected to supply only 80.5 percent of Egypt s resources. Due to the absence of any major dams or hydroelectric projects upstream of it, experts say Egypt can afford to be dismissive of the other states concerns since there is little they can do to impede the Nile s flow. Talks in Kinshasa ended with Egypt refusing to ratify the new pact without the other signatories explicitly agreeing to its original share of Nile water and a veto for Cairo over any future upstream projects. The other Nile basin countries are Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi.
