Support to transboundary water cooperation in the Nile Basin

Context

The Nile Basin covers approximately a tenth of Africa’s surface and houses a significant portion of its population. Water demand in the region steadily rises with economic development and population growth. Being a water-scarce basin with intensively utilised resources, water availability is likely to further decline due to land use and climatic changes. The basin is therefore considered as highly prone to conflict, with no permanent intergovernmental agreement on water cooperation in place. To tackle these challenges, the riparian countries established the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999. The NBI, promotes a coordinated approach in river basin planning and development. This is based on the NBI’ vision of achieving sustainable socio-economic development through equitable use of the Nile Basin's shared water resources.

Objective

Nile riparian states effectively utilise NBI services to manage and develop their shared water resources collaboratively.

Approach

The project supports the following priority areas for transboundary cooperation in the Nile Basin:

• Operating the regional hydrological monitoring system and information exchange for water resources management.
• Developing competences for the coordinated and safe operation of dams.
• Conducting Strategic Water Resources Assessments (SWRA) on the water resources available today and in the future to enable common understanding of the development potential of the catchment area.
• Developing a regional Nile Basin Investment Program (BIP) to support the implementation of the Nile River Bain Management Plan and coordination of regional actors in basin development.

Last update: March 2025