Riparian states squeezing Egypt, with help from China
Egypt is coming under increasing pressure from its fellow riparian states over access to and use of the water in the Nile. Tensions have always been high between the nations dependent on the river, and now extra factors are putting an even greater strain on delicate relationships.
Egypt has always been the most powerful of the Nile countries, and has benefitted in the past from backing from the US and European countries. The change in government and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, however, has led to a decrease in this support. This has coincided with increased investment from China in some of the other riparian states, notably Sudan and Ethiopia, which threatens to create great difficulties for Egypt.
Nile water management has always been difficult. With a combined population of nearly 430 million spread over eleven countries (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda), the Nile is one of Africa’s, indeed the World’s, most complex cross-border river basins.
There has been much wrangling in recent years about access to the Nile resources. On 22 February 1999 the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was launched by the ministers responsible for water from the riparian states of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda (Eritrea has observer status) with the aim of “achiev[ing] sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of and benefit from the common Nile Basin water resources.” It has long been felt by the upstream states that the downstream countries, particularly Egypt, have too large a share of, and too much control over, the water. The main accords governing the Nile are the 1929 treaty between Egypt and Great Britain (then a colonial power in the region) which obliges the upstream countries to gain permission from Egypt before doing any development work that could affect the flow, and the 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, which provided for, among other things, the construction of the High Aswan Dam.
In 2010, unhappy that the NBI had failed to increase their rights over the resources, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania drew up the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which is ultimately intended to replace the NBI. Burundi signed in February 2011 and DRC is expected to ratify it soon. Egypt and Sudan, who will be the biggest losers under the new agreement, have objected to the new accord.
In the earlier decades of the Cold War period, Egypt had used Soviet connections very effectively to obtain financial and technical support to capture a large share of the Nile water. After the Camp David Accords in 1978, Egypt received strong American backing to maintain its hydro-hegemony in the region. However, since 2000 the arrival of Africa as a major source of funding on the continent has led to a dramatic shift in power. China’s funding has provided the possibility of securing alternative external support to the Upper Nile riparian countries for large water development projects. Sudan and Ethiopia in particular have begun to exploit this opportunity to its full extent, and this is contributing to the rise of their economic and political influence. Egypt is in a very difficult situation, partly of its own making. The support of the US and the EU is no longer sufficient to counter the influence of China in its neighbours.
China’s investment in Africa was just US$5 million annually in 1991, but by 2006 it had jumped up to US$1.25 billion. Africa’s bilateral trade with China has also been growing fast. In the 1980s, trade between China and Africa totalled only US$12 million per year; by 2000, it had reached US$10 billion, and by 2006 a staggering US$55 billion. Most of the African countries, particularly the Upper Nile riparian states, have abundant natural resources but lack the capacity to process and market those resources, providing a perfect opportunity for China. Chinese investment in African projects, particularly in Sudan and Ethiopia, to gain access to their petroleum, raw materials and markets, is significant.
China’s policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of its African collaborators fits well with the African ruling elites. They prefer to deal with Chinese companies compared to the European nations and the US, who insist on human rights and democratic reforms. China has provided African countries an opportunity to access levels of funding with the minimum of cost, economic, political or societal, that they cannot get anywhere else. That, in turn, has allowed China to expand its business in areas of Africa, such as Sudan and Ethiopia. Rwandan President Paul Kagame gave an interview to the German business daily Handelsblatt in October 2009 in which he generously praised China for investing in Africa, and stated his belief that this was better than support from the US and Europe. He said, “Huge Chinese investment in African companies and infrastructure is helping Africa develop. The Chinese bring what Africa needs: investment and money for governments and companies. European and American involvement has not brought Africa forward.”
China’s growing economy requires massive amounts of energy and minerals to sustain its growth, and Beijing is seeking to increase its oil imports from Africa. Though the reported figure on Chinese aid and investment in Sudan was already more than US$4 billion between 2002 and 2007, the real figure may be even much more than that. According to a Sudanese diplomat, who spoke to the Sudan Tribune in 2007, the total amount of the Chinese investments in Sudan in the past in the petroleum sector alone had reached more than US$6 billion. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) started its investment in Sudan’s oil sector in 1995 and currently it is the dominant actor in the country. But Chinese involvement in Sudan is not limited to the petroleum sector. Sudan receives Chinese support in three major project areas: oil refineries, highway construction and large dams.
With Chinese financial and technical support Sudan has already constructed the Merowe Dam project on the Nile system. Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir inaugurated this large hydroelectric dam project in March 2009, the biggest water project on the Nile since the construction of the Aswan High Dam. The dam is primarily a hydropower project with potential capacity of 1250MW, but Sudan also intends to use the dam for irrigation. Since 2008 Sudan has also engaged two Chinese state-owned firms, Sinohydro Corp and CWE, to raise the height of the Roseires Dam in eastern Sudan by an additional 10m to increase its irrigation and power generation potential. These two projects are within the scope of the Sudanese share of water according to the 1959 Agreement allocation, but Egypt will be concerned about possible future construction plans that could increase Sudan’s water usage beyond levels set out in current agreements. Sudan’s official agency, the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) has been working closely with China since 2001, both on the Merowe Dam construction and on the modifications to the Roseires Dam, and also has plans to build the Kajbar and Dal dams on the Nile. Moreover, Sudan, through its state-owned agencies as well as private companies, is expanding its irrigated areas close to the banks of the Blue Nile and White Nile through pumping projects.
A new state
An added pressure for Egypt is that since the secession of South Sudan, there is an additional riparian state, with its own goals, claiming rights to build dams. As a part of establishing itself South Sudan has expressed a desire to engage with water policy, particularly to become a member of the NBI. The White Nile and many of its tributaries flow through South Sudan, and the new nation intends to look to these resources not only for water for drinking and agriculture, but also for hydroelectricity.
Ethiopia
Like Sudan, Ethiopia sees China as an alternative to the West. The African Development Bank, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, due to both open and clandestine lobbying by Egypt and Sudan, constantly refused to support several planned water projects in Ethiopia. However, China is now generously providing both financial and technological support to Ethiopia to undertake several of these projects, particularly large dams. China has become a major player in Ethiopia in infrastructure development and construction. With Chinese help, Ethiopia plans to increase its hydropower generation, both for its own use, and to export energy to neighbouring Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti.
With Chinese support, Ethiopia has already built the Tana Beles hydropower dam complex. This 460MW dam was inaugurated on 14 May 2010, the same day as the new CFA was signed in Entebbe. The Tana Beles project is primarily focused on hydropower production. However, the Ethiopian Ministry of Water Resources claims that it is designed to be an integrated Water Resources Development Project to provide irrigation to a total area of more than 100,000ha. The Ethiopian Government has already engaged several Chinese firms to develop the rich hydropower potential of the country. In November 2009, Ethiopia, in collaboration with China, completed the construction of a 188m-tall hydropower dam on the Tekeze River, a tributary of the Nile. The China Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Construction Company and the National China Gezhouba Construction Group Corporation for Water Resources and Hydropower were involved in the construction of this project. Ethiopia has an estimated hydropower potential of 45,000MW, which is more than enough to meet its own needs and provides a surplus for export. Besides hydropower, Ethiopia is seeking to improve its agricultural production, also with Chinese assistance. As the Ethiopian Foreign Minister explained in January 2008, “China is an important partner for us. It is involving in the area of our priorities such as agriculture, infrastructure including roads rural hospitals and schools.”
Chinese companies have also recently acquired a large amount of agricultural land in the Ethiopian part of the Nile basin for farming purposes. Besides Ethiopia and Sudan, China is also engaged in providing support for dam building in other Nile riparian countries, including Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Egypt’s difficulties
As the political and economic influence of the other riparian states grow, Egypt is going to find it harder and harder to prevent changes to the agreements that govern the use of water in the Nile. Egypt’s economy is weak, but it is widely predicted that the next catastrophe that the country will face will not be chiefly an economic one. Rather, it is likely to face a serious food crisis. If Egypt finds itself losing out to other Nile countries, and suffers a reduction in the amount of water it can access, this food crisis is all the more likely, and will hit even harder.