In the Nile region, the so-called historical rights have become history with the Republic of South Sudan ratifying the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) ending the futile and vicious debate surrounding the Nile.
For centuries, downstream nations have been digging their feet in the colonial treaties to perpetuate their hegemonic grip on the Nile although Ethiopia and other upstream countries have been opposed to the rhetoric. Particularly, Egypt has been claiming the 1929 and 1959 treaties, which were signed under the auspices of the colonial powers. These treaties gave monopoly of the river to Egypt and Sudan while denying other upstream nations including the origin of the Blue Nile, Ethiopia to utilize the river.
The rather historical injustice came to a stunning end on July 8, 2024, as the world’s youngest nation catapulted the CFA into effect following its ratification. This development marks a critical milestone in what may be considered a startling breakthrough to a fair utilization of shared resources. This turning point ushers in a new era of resource sharing and collaboration. Natural resources found across international borders have occasionally sparked hostilities and clashes. Countries are becoming more and more dependent on one another due to the shortage of natural resources.
Cooperation has become the order of the day and countries are being forced to implement a variety of initiatives due to the ever-growing need for power, drinking water, and other development projects fueled by an ever-expanding population. One notable example is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, often known as the Abbay Dam in Ethiopia. However, the dam is more than just a project since it makes it abundantly evident to everyone that mutual growth can only be ensured via cooperation. Ethiopia has traditionally adhered to a concept about the use of the Nile, which includes the dam that causes no appreciable harm.
Ethiopia’s courageous and daring leadership has done a great deal to foster regional collaboration and establish the framework for fair and sensible resource sharing over the years.
The country was the first to set the standard for the just and equitable use of the world’s longest river with the ratification of the CFA and the signature of the Declaration of Principles.
Despite being a shared resource, Sudan and Egypt have traditionally been the only nations to profit from the Abbay River. Under the patronage of colonial powers, the two countries were designated the exclusive proprietors of the longest river in the world, while other riparian states, like Ethiopia, the river’s source and main contributor, have been living in darkness because of a shortage of energy.
In the Nile region, Ethiopia’s grand dam serves as a model of regional integration since it will link other countries to the electrical grid. After the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was established by the riparian countries of the Nile Basin, Addis Ababa was the first to ratify the CFA.
CFA also known as Entebbe agreement was signed in Uganda, in May 2010 by Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi. Kenya and Burundi, the other two nations, each signed the CFA in their own nation. In the years that followed, the legislatures of the majority of the signatory nations approved the agreement. The agreement setting the foundation for its enforcement was just ratified by South Sudan. That being said, the CFA will come into effect in sixty days as a result of the six countries that have joined.
It is clear that by enforcing the agreement, the basin countries will understand its significance and benefit from collaboration that is in line with their national interests in order to establish peaceful regional cooperation through a win-win scenario. Enforcing the CFA creates the fundamental idea that every state in the Nile Basin is entitled to use the waters of the Nile inside its borders.
In his recent article published at international water law project blog under the title finally the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement Enters into Force, Dr. Salman. M.A. Salman is an academic researcher and consultant on water law and policy and former water law advisor to the World Bank in his recent commentary stated that the CFA lays down some basic principles for the protection, sharing and management of the Nile Basin. It establishes the principle that each Nile Basin state has the right to use, within its territory, the waters of the Nile River Basin, and lays down a number of factors for determining equitable and reasonable utilization. The CFA is modeled largely on the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses.
He further stated that in addition to the factors enumerated in the Watercourses Convention, the CFA includes the contribution of each basin state to the waters of the Nile River System, and the extent and proportion of the drainage area in the territory of each basin state. The CFA will enter into force 60 days after six countries have ratified or acceded to the document and deposited their instrument with the African Union on 6 October 2024.
The process of ratification of the CFA started in June 2013, four years after its signature, by Ethiopia, followed in August of that year by Rwanda. Tanzania ratified the CFA in 2015, followed by Uganda in 2019. Burundi joined those four riparian’s and ratified the CFA in 2023, raising the number of ratifications critically to five.
Subsequently, all eyes were cast on the ratification by Kenya, the sixth country to sign the CFA, which would enable the CFA to enter into force. However, that did not take place. Instead, South Sudan did it, putting Kenya in the awkward position of being the only signatory not to ratify the CFA.
The Republic of South Sudan emerged as an independent state on 9 July 2011, and was admitted to the NBI on 5 July 2012. That decision clearly favored the Nile upper riparian’s, based on ethnicity, geography, history, culture and interests. When it joined the NBI, South Sudan could not sign the CFA because the signing process closed in 2000, long before its birth. But, it could accede to the instrument.
The pressures from each of the two sides to the CFA on South Sudan kept South Sudan wavering on accession and none-accession to the CFA for a long time. In fact, the proposed bill for the accession of South Sudan had been on the agenda of the TNLA since mid-2023, until its unanimous sudden approval was announced on 8 July 2024.
The entry into force of the CFA will create new momentous realities which Egypt and Sudan cannot, and indeed should not, overlook or underestimate. It will enable the establishment of the Nile Basin Commission replacing the NBI with a wider and more elaborate mandate, power, visibility and recognition by the world water and development aid communities. Entry into force of the CFA will also end the long academic and futile debate on the Nile colonial treaties. Thus, it is for Egypt and Sudan’s own interests to join the CFA, and to work in the spirit of cooperation with the other Nile riparian’s to manage, share, develop and protect the Nile River Basin. After all, and as mentioned above, the CFA is modeled on the UN Watercourses Convention that was endorsed by more than one hundred countries in 1997, and has been in force since 2014.
The implementation of the CFA would bring about significant changes that Egypt and Sudan cannot afford to ignore or undervalue. It is, therefore, in Egypt and Sudan’s best interests to join the CFA and collaborate with the other Nile riparian nations to manage, share, develop, and safeguard the Nile River Basin.
BY DESTA GEBREHIWOT
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 24 JULY 2024
