Recognizing that cooperation on the Nile is crucial to address the multiple development challenges and take advantage of opportunities offered by the Nile Basin for win-win outcomes, Nile Basin countries have been undertaking different attempts at cooperation for more than 45 years.
Formal Nile Cooperation in recent times can be benchmarked from the Hydromet project that was started in 1967, focusing on hydrometeorological surveying of the Great Lakes region. Members were Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda while Ethiopia and DR Congo were observers
Running parallel to Hydromet was ‘Undugu’ from 1983 to 1992 the focus of which was on the establishment of a Nile Basin Economic Community. Its members were Egypt, DR Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. Ethiopia and Kenya as observers
Undugu was followed by the Technical Cooperation Committee for the Promotion of Development and Environmental Protection of the Basin (TECCONILE) in 1993. TECCONILE focused on technical cooperation (environmental and water quality). Its membership was Egypt, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and DR Congo.
However, all the above initiatives were affected by a lack of inclusivity (with some riparian countries not represented in the effort) and lack of funding to implement the Nile Transboundary Action Plan under TECCONILE. Above all, these efforts did not anchor cooperation efforts in a comprehensive institutional setting and through a Shared Vision Objective.
On February 22, 1999, all Nile Basin countries came together and for the first time in the Basin‘s history, established the unprecedented Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) to work towards attaining their Shared Vision objective: ‘To achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin Water resources’.
Timeline abbreviations
- TECCONILE – Technical Co-operation Committee for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin
- Nile-COM – Nile Council of Ministers
- NRBAP – Nile River Basin Action Plan
- ICCON – International Consortium for Cooperation on the Nile
- ENTRO – Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office
- NELSAP-CU – Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program Coordination Unit
- CFA – Negotiation of the Cooperative Framework Agreement
- SVP – Shared Vision Program Project
- NBDF – Nile Basin Development Forum
- ISP – Institutional Strengthening Project
- CIWA – Cooperation in International Waters in Africa
- UNECE – Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes
- MDGs – Millennium Development Goals
- EAC – East African Community
- NBD – Nile Basin Discourse
- GWP-EA – Global Water Partnership Eastern Africa
- LVBC – Lake Victoria Basin Commission
- GERD – Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
- TNC – Tripartite National Committee
- UNWC – United Nations Water Convention
- DoP – Declaration of Principles
- SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals
ET – Ethiopia, RW – Rwanda, TZ – Tanzania, UG – Uganda, EG – Egypt,
SD – Sudan, KE – Kenya, BI – Burundi, SS – South Sudan, ER – Eritrea