Nile-TAC - Partners Dialogue held in Kampala
NBI SWOT Workshop, 5th Nile-TAC/Development Partner’s Strategic Dialogue and NBI review meeting was held from 8th to 11th November in Kampala, Uganda. During the first meeting from 8th to 9th Nov, Nile-TAC members from Nile Basin Countries, with the exception of Egypt and Sudan, as well as representatives of NBI partners met to look into the progress made in the Institutional Design Studies (IDS) that started in February 2010. This is part of the Institutional Strengthening Project (ISP) undertaken with the objective of strengthening the NBI’s foundation for institutional stability, enhanced capacity, and harmonized corporate management to more effectively deliver programmes and projects. The project was launched with five components: strengthening and harmonizing the NBI’s corporate management and governance; enhancing the foundation for knowledge-based water resource management; enhancing the foundation for water-resource development; strengthening stakeholder participation and communication and management of Shared Vision Programme (SVP) projects.
A Consultant was thus hired to undertake an analysis of the current institutional arrangements of the NBI. The IDS Progress and the SWOT workshop was meant to provide the Consultant with the opportunity to present the progress made during the diagnosis stage, as well as to launch the design stage based on a constructive dialogue about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) for the NBI. The general objectives of the IDS progress and the SWOT workshop were to facilitate a constructive dialogue concerning the progress of the IDS and to implement a SWOT analysis of the NBI in its capacity to contribute to sustainable development of the Nile Resources, based on the Consultant’s institutional diagnosis of NBI. During the discussion the Consultant gave a detailed presentation of the progress so far made with participants engaging in a thorough discussion of the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the NBI. It was observed in the course of the discussion that there were still a lot of areas in which the Consultant would have to work more in order to undertake the next stage in this exercise - namely, the design stage at which the Consultant will come up with recommendations regarding the best institutional arrangement for NBI based on its diagnosis of its current arrangements. The meeting served as an opportunity to further develop the findings the Consultant had made so far. The meeting concluded by underscoring the need to give priority to the issue of sustainability and financial viability of the Nile-Sec and the two Subsidiary Action Programme (SAP) centres, namely – the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Programme (ENSAP) and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Programme (NELSAP) - beyond the closing of the Nile Basin Trust Fund (NBTF) in two years time.
The next meeting was held from 10th to 11th Nov, and unlike in the previous one, all Nile Basin countries including Egypt and Sudan were present. The meeting had the objective of strengthening the Nile-TAC-development partner engagement and to provide strategic guidance and technical direction on key issues to the NBI. More specifically, the meeting was meant to review and assess progress of the NBI and to identify actions; to review institutional sustainability of the NBI; and to identify key issues for ISP midterm review. It was hoped that the meeting would help create a common understanding between TAC and partners and to identify actions required to strengthen sustainability of institutions after the closing of NBTF funding. The meeting dealt at length with a number of issues in relation to the importance of Nile Basin Cooperation, basin development and basin management. It also raised some of the achievements and challenges faced. With regard to basin development, the meeting heard reports from representatives of the two Subsidiary Action Programs - ENSAP, & NELSAP. The participants reviewed the progress in the various projects being undertaken in Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt through ENTRO, as well as other similar projects being carried out by NELSAP. Flood defence and watershed management projects as well as power transmission between basin countries were pointed out as encouraging developments. The participants of the meeting commended the progress made by the SAPs as productive and called upon stakeholders to redouble their efforts to ensure more success. The potential for power transmission among basin countries was emphasized.
During the course of the discussion, participants also pointed to some of the challenges facing Nile Basin cooperation. The attempt by the Egyptian delegation to block the dialogue between Nile-TAC and partners on an untenable claim was a practical display of one such challenge. Although organizers of the workshop were particularly clear about the rather technical nature of the dialogue, the Egyptian delegation repeatedly made a totally untenable claim that the ‘political’ meeting must be stopped because “the signing by some five countries of the CFA” was “a unilateral” decision that rendered the NBI process legally dead. This was not only a specious claim but it was also symptomatic of the kind of diplomatic blitz the Egyptians have been actively engaged in to get partners of the NBI to deny funding to development projects in the upper Nile Basin countries unless the latter submitted to their diktats. Despite protestations by the World Bank representative that the meeting had no mandate over political issues related to the signing of the CFA, the Egyptian delegation insisted that the meeting was political. To the extent that there was anything political it was the attempt by the Egyptian delegation to use the forum to promote their agenda. This was obviously part of their usual campaign to scuttle the CFA through all kinds of diplomatic shenanigans. As the discussions throughout the workshops in Kampala made it abundantly clear, there is a lot of potential for mutual benefit that can accrue to the Nile Basin countries if they continue to work in a cooperative spirit and in a manner that allows for the equitable utilization of the Nile water by all riparian countries, without, of course, causing significant harm to other riparian countries. This is the only way a win-win solution can be achieved.