IUCN Water Programme SHARE Toolkit: Case Studies An inclusive discourse – stakeholder engagement in the Nile Basin By Christina Leb 1. Origin and Background The Nile River, with an estimated length of about 6,800 kilometers, is generally regarded as the world’s longest river. The basin covers an area of over 3 million square kilometers. The 180 million people living in the basin are spread over ten riparian states: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. In terms of major water uses, agriculture is still the dominant sector in most Nile countries. Major development challenges are caused by the basin water resources or lack thereof, such as floods and droughts, food insecurity, water-borne diseases, invasive species, environmental degradation and erosion. There is a long and complex history of Nile Basin agreements and cooperative action among groups of basin states.1 Three earlier agreements continue to cause some tension among the Basin States. The three treaties – the 1929 Nile Waters Agreement concluded between the Egyptian prime minister and the British high commissioner acting on behalf of Sudan; the 1949 Owen Falls Dam Agreement concluded through exchange of notes between Egypt and the United Kingdom, which was the colonial power controlling most of the Lake Victoria Basin; and the 1959 Nile Water Agreement concluded between Egypt and Sudan - established a regime for allocation of the Nile waters between Egypt and Sudan. These treaties have not been recognized by all riparian states and questions regarding state succession to the treaty obligations by the states which subsequently became independent remain unsettled; this is one of the causes for uneasy relationships between the upstream and downstream riparian countries. It is expected that the basin-wide convention, currently under negotiation, would provide a framework for cooperation through which tensions over the earlier agreements might be overcome. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) 1999 manages current basin activities. The NBI Shared Vision is “to achieve sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources”. 2. Public Participation and Partnerships Public participation in the NBI programs occurs on two levels; on the regional level through the inclusion of a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups- from policy and decision makers, to small business men and women, to fishermen and farmers, to religious and youth groups - in the programmatic process; on the project level relevant stakeholders participate during the design and preparation phase by way of regular stakeholder consultations and public information processes. In addition to public participation activities implemented by the NBI, an independent network of civil society organizations in the Nile Basin, the Nile Basin Discourse2, has emerged as a counter-weight to the government-led Nile Basin Initiative. 1 The Nile Basin Discourse (NBD) promotes participation and dialogue towards poverty reduction and sustainable development in the Nile River Basin on the civil society level. On the national level, activities focus on civil society engagement in and awareness of NBI projects through dissemination of information and discussion forums. The NBD acts as umbrella organization for national civil society organizations in all basin countries. In each country a Country Coordinating Institution (CCI) oversees the activities of the National Discourse Forums (NDFs). The key governing organ of the NBD is its General Assembly, which meets annually to determine the strategic direction of activities. It is composed of three representatives from each country. More regular oversight and management of the basin wide activities is carried out by the Steering Committee, which meets quarterly and comprises one representative from each CCI plus one additional NDF representative per country. The Discourse Desk, which is located in Entebbe in close geographic proximity to the NBI Secretariat, acts as the secretariat for the NBD. It coordinates overall funding and administration, provides technical support to the NDFs, the Steering Committee and the General Assembly and acts as the key contact point with the Nile Basin Initiative. The Nile Basin Discourse and the Nile Basin Initiative are engaged in a regular dialogue. 3. Legal Frameworks for Trans-boundary Management The Nile Basin countries are in the process of negotiating a cooperative framework treaty for the management of the Nile, the “Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework”. The process, which commenced in 1997 and is supported by UNDP, was prepared through a Panel of Experts, a multi-disciplinary committee in which each country was represented with three members. UNDP funding supported regular meetings of the Panel of Experts, as well as national consultations and study tours to the Mekong and the Senegal River Commissions in order to draw applicable lessons of the Nile river basin through the review of other institutional frameworks. The Panel of Experts reported regularly to the Council of Ministers of Water Affairs on the progress of framework cooperation. Negotiations of the Cooperative Framework are currently ongoing through a Negotiating Committee, which was appointed in 2003. 4. Institutions for Trans-boundary Management The Nile Basin Initiative is a transitional mechanism until agreement on the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework is achieved. Its operational structure consists of the Nile Council of Ministers of Water Affairs (Nile-COM), a Technical Advisory Committee and a regional secretariat. The Council of Ministers serves as the decision making organ and provides policy guidance with respect to Nile management. Nile-COM is supported by a Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC), which consists of two representatives from the Ministries responsible for water resources management from each country. The chairmanship of both the Nile-COM and Nile-TAC rotates annually; their ordinary meeting takes place once a year. Continuous and effective administration of the NBI program is carried out by the NBI Secretariat, which is located in Entebbe. Initially, the NBI Secretariat was a one-man office, financed through a small development grant from international donors. Today, the Secretariat is headed by an Executive Director, who oversees an office of about 30 staff members3 who implement the coordination of the basin-wide programs, an NBI Resource Center, communication and public relations for the entire Nile Basin Initiative as well as the financial management and administration of the core programs. The Executive Director is appointed for a term of two years; the right to appointment rotates among the member countries in alphabetical order. A policy of regional balance is observed by the institution for the appointment of professional staff of the Secretariat and NBI projects in order to ensure equitable representation of all Basin States. 2 A mirror image of the overall NBI operational structure exists for the initiative’s two Subsidiary Action Programs (SAPs); the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP) and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP). In both programs, decision making, policy guidance and technical advice is carried out by a Council of Ministers and a technical advisory committee respectively. Each subsidiary action program is coordinated through a regional office; the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO), located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and the NELSAP Coordination Unit, located in Kigali, Rwanda. Rather than being politically appointed, the managers of these two regional offices are selected competitively, among applicants from the respective SAP member countries, based on technical and managerial skills. On the national level, the Ministries of Water Affairs in each NBI member country have established government-funded “national NBI offices”. These offices serve as national focal point institutions and facilitate in-country coordination of the Ministry of Water Affairs with other Ministries, and country-NBI facilitation through cooperation and information exchange with the NBI regional institutions, such as the NBI Secretariat, ENTRO and the NELSAP Coordination Unit. Furthermore, line-ministries other than the Ministry of Water Affairs are represented in the Regional Project Steering Committees for NBI projects relevant to their sector mandate; e.g. the Ministries of Agriculture are represented in the project steering committees for irrigation projects. 5. Trans-boundary Management Interventions Overarching management challenges in the Nile Basin are poverty, water scarcity and variability on the one hand, and weak relations between and political instability within many of the riparian 4 states on the other hand. The Strategic Action Program , designed and agreed on by the NBI member countries, seeks to address these two sets of challenges, those related directly to the shared resource and its management, and those related to history and the political economy of the region. The Strategic Action Program consists of two pillars; (1) a Shared Vision Program (SVP) and (2) Subsidiary Action Programs, which feed into each other’s objectives. The Shared Vision Program seeks to establish an enabling environment and cooperative spirit for the implementation of regional investment projects on the ground. The eight basin-wide grant- based projects of the Shared