Ethiopia, Egypt lauded for new era in relations
Article
Comments (0)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
October 4, 2011 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Nile Basin Discourse, a civil
society network, on Wednesday hailed what it termed as a new chapter
in relations and cooperation between Egypt and Ethiopia to settle
their long-standing dispute over the Nile water.
Relations between Addis Ababa and Cairo were strained under the rule
of ousted president Hosni Mubarek. However, bilateral relations
recently experienced momentum and increasing cooperation between
Ethiopia and the interim government in Egypt towards mutual benefits
from the waters resources.
“NBD would like to extend its warmest congratulations to the Ethiopian
and Egyptian Prime Minister’s on the recent agreement to open a new
chapter of relations based on a win – win strategy and set up a
technical team to review the impacts of the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam” the group said in a congratulatory letter it sent to
the prime ministers of both countries.
“NBD applauds Ethiopia’s and Egypt’s commitment to developing an
integrated development plan that benefits all the Nile riparian
countries,” it added.
The horn of Africa’s country on April, 2011 officially launched a $
4.8 billion dam project on the Blue Nile River near the Sudanese
border. The move raised protests by upriver countries (Sudan and
Egypt) which have the lion share the water resources on basis of a
treaty signed during colonial era.
Ethiopia argues that the massive power project won’t harm upriver
countries but would instead benefit them in terms of water regulation
and power exports.
In a new sign of cooperation and better understanding, a tripartite
committee of members from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia has been
established to assess the possible impact of Ethiopia’s Grand
Millennium Dam.
NBD called on countries of the Nile basin to continue cooperation and
promote an understanding based on a win-win situation.
“This is the only way to ensure that development is sustainable,” NBD
underscored, reiterating its commitment and determination to work with
all the Nile riparian governments to strengthen Nile Cooperation and
add value to the Nile Basin’s programmes and processes.
Operating under the motto of “one Nile one family” the Nile Basin
Discourse is a network of civil society organisations in the Nile
Basin from 10 countries of the Nile Basin, namely Burundi, DRC, Egypt,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
This network seeks to exert a positive influence over the development
of projects and programmes under the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and
other Nile-related programmes.
Nile Basin Discourse in its website states that “the overarching
objective of the NBD is to promote sustainable and equitable
development, poverty reduction, and cooperation between all
stakeholders in the Nile Basin. Working at the level of civil society
engagement, the NBD seeks to maximise the social, economic and
environmental benefits available to poor people within Nile countries
and to ensure that there is a more equitable distribution of these
benefits across the Nile basin as a whole.
(ST)
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD
info" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
