Executive summary
The future impact of climate change on rainfall and hence river flows in the Nile Basin is very unclear. Projections indicate a wide range of possible outcomes by mid-century: most show an increase in rainfall (although to very varying degrees) while a few suggest a slight decrease.
Temperature projections are much more consistent and indicate higher temperatures across the Basin. This will cause more evaporation from bodies of water and across the landscape, reducing water availability. There are direct implications for farming: crops will need more water per tonne of output.
All those who live in the Nile Basin will be affected in some way by climate change and especially by the extreme weather events which it will bring. Agricultural sectors, important in economic and social (employment) terms, are likely to be hard hit by climate impacts. Egypt faces an additional challenge: the effect of sea-level rise on the populous and productive Nile Delta.
Population growth will certainly mean less water per person. It will also mean increased dependence on imported food, even if climate change does bring more rain to the Basin.
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan share the waters of the Eastern Nile Basin. Ethiopia is by far the largest source of Nile water and Egypt by far the largest user – and the most heavily dependent on the river. Egypt and Sudan signed a treaty in 1959 which allocates the resource between them but provides no water quotas for the upstream users, who neither recognize nor are bound by it. Negotiations aimed at reaching a legal and institutional agreement covering the whole Nile Basin – the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) – stalled in 2010 over Egypt’s concerns about existing uses of the Nile waters. Technical cooperation among the Nile Basin countries has continued, primarily within the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), a partnership among 10 countries.
Since 2011, the focus of the disagreement has been on the filling of the reservoir impounded by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the future operation of the dam. Increased water storage in the Basin could help downstream countries better manage the risks of climate change. However, uncoordinated operations during, and particularly following, a multi-year drought could exacerbate already severe economic and social difficulties in both Egypt and Sudan. Furthermore, a lack of proper coordination during periods of exceptionally high flows could result in potentially disastrous downstream flooding in Sudan. Both issues are critical for the countries to address before such situations arise. However, the long-standing distrust between Egypt and Ethiopia and the continuing armed conflicts in Sudan and Ethiopia remain major obstacles to transboundary planning and coordination. Negotiations over the pressing issues raised by the GERD have come to a halt.
For the EU, the main consequences of a failure to resolve disagreements between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan in order to deal effectively with the impacts of climate change in the Nile Basin would be felt in the areas of regional instability, migration and lost opportunities for economic cooperation.
Summary of recommendations for EU policymakers
The EU could offer three forms of support to the Nile Basin: technical, financial and diplomatic.
- The EU could offer technical support to the NBI, as it has in the past, and should consider offering support to the Nile River Basin Commission (NRBC) which is expected to replace the NBI in the near future now that the CFA has been signed and ratified by six countries. The EU should also be ready to provide support for technical cooperation regarding the GERD, should the three Eastern Nile Basin countries request it.
- As well as technical support, the EU should extend financial assistance to the multilateral cooperation process within the NBI framework.
- Diplomatically, the EU should use its convening power to persuade Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to return to talks about how to advance transboundary cooperation. Rather than launching an independent initiative, the EU should do this in partnership with others such as the US and the Gulf countries.
- The EU could also offer its ‘good offices’ to both Sudan and Ethiopia in an attempt to mitigate their internal conflicts. By continuing to provide food aid to the two countries, the EU could help to reduce the humanitarian and political effects of the climate and conflict crises, thereby lessening collateral impacts on the dispute over the Nile waters.
When considering policy options regarding the Eastern Nile Basin, the unstable situations in Sudan and Ethiopia cannot be ignored. It may be a long time – probably several years and perhaps even longer – before there is a single, cohesive regime in Khartoum that controls the whole of the Nile Valley within Sudan. Some of the recommendations made above may have to wait until the conflict ends. Similar considerations apply to Ethiopia, although perhaps with somewhat less force.
A fuller elaboration of what the EU and its member states might do is set out in the final section of this paper.
