Our Opportunities and Challenges to win Nile,,,,,,,, I’d like - TopicsExpress

Our Opportunities and Challenges to win Nile,,,,,,,, I’d like to believe that there is an abundant fresh water supply on the planet. Tragically, this is false. The available fresh water on the planet is less than 3% of all water on the earth. The rest is sea water or is frozen in the polar ice. This means there is a high scarcity of fresh water for drinking, irrigation and other for human daily usage. Global water consumption is doubling every 20 years which is more than twice the rate of population growth. This means that the demand for water consumption intensifies as the pollution grow. As the communities currently lacks access to fresh water get access, the demand and quest for fresh water will to hike. For the two Nile Basin countries, Ethiopia and Egypt the pollution size of the countries has grown by more than twice than the population size of 40 years ago. From this we can drive that the quest for fresh water has quadrupled in both countries. As compare to Egypt, Ethiopia still lugs behind in providing adequate fresh water to its people, either in the area of irrigation or drinking water. There is a huge gap in Ethiopian side in fulfilling deficit gap between the demand and supply of fresh water. Specially, this is highly observable in the agricultural sector where the sector is highly dependent on seasonal fresh water comes from the rainfall. As the seasonal rainfall is not sufficient and is irregular to the support the agriculture sector, no time there were has the governments of Ethiopia passed without thinking about the alternate solution such as dam for irrigation. But now, I think the time is compelling us to do so and to get our rivers to quench our thirsty. The Population size of our country is beyond 80 Million. With support of seasonal rainfall we can no more feed 80 Million still staggering to get sufficient daily food. As most of things have dramatically changed from the time when we were before 20 or 40 years ago , I think Ethiopia has reached the point where it cannot feed its people with seasonal and irregular rainfall. The Egypt is continuously insisting that Ethiopian has seasonal abundant rainfall which is more than enough; however the reality is far from this. The distribution of rainfall is very sporadic and it is becoming unreliable to depend on it. Still we only produce or grow once a year with help of this seasonal rainfall and we have almst seen this it couldn’t liberate us from seeing donors’ hand. As the issue of food price and scarcity of water resource intensify across the world our national security is becoming under threat of food sand power shortage. Egypt is questing for more water share to quench its rapidly growing population size as upstream countries’ demand for water share is growing and becoming new phenomenon. As the result, this is creating conflicting of interest among the basin states which may lead to physical conflict, Water War. The dominance of Egypt on Nile water was and is at large. They are intensively using the almost 85% Nile water. The colonial era’s Nile treaty which gave Egypt the preferential right is a Playing card on which they are relying very much. What are the Opportunities? Egypt’s role in Middle East and Arab League For the past decades because of different facts Egypt was dominating the politics of the Middle East and Arab world. For the historic position it had played in establishing the Arab League and the diplomatic relationship it has accorded with the Israel, Egypt was the great player of the Arab world and in the politics of the Middle East. Using those positions, it was creating a favorable atmosphere to use the Nile water alone. By considering the Arab League stand and support it was giving to the then Eritrean’s insurgent was enough evidence how the Arab states were doing against the national interest of Ethiopia. This was one of the Egypt’s strategies used via the Arab League to Weaken Ethiopia. Form it is very hard to say that all Arab Muslim countries were against Ethiopia but Egypt was as focal point or played a lot top rally them against Ethiopia and was successful of it. However, currently this trend is being changed. The Egypt is not with its former influential power. Now a new powerful country like Qatar is emerging and is diminishing the dominance of the Egypt at Arab League and Turkey is also the other newcomer as regional ( in the Middle East) key player which toppled the Egypt. The marriage between the U.S and Egypt is at the brink of divorce. Hopefully, they will have their divorce certificate very soon. The U.S is not taking the Egypt seriously and as the only key player for the region peace and stability like before. Moreover U.S government dismayed with victory and policy of the Muslim Brother Hood after the revolution of Egypt which had toppled the Mubarak’s regime. This resulted in shift of U.S foreign policy on Egypt. The cumulative of all mentioned events and changes are hearting the Egypt position in the region and the world as whole. Now Egypt has understood that it is not easy to get support of the westerns with regard to Nile water disputes it is in with the Ethiopian. This is a major blow. Previously, Westerns were opposing officially any Ethiopian activities on Nile River by blocking any loan and aid to might go to the Nile water development. However, currently we are not facing this obstacle form this bloc at least they are not opposing it; rather they are encouraging both sides to engage in dialogue. The U.S Policy to CREATING BALANCE OF POWER The U.S doesn’t want to see a strong Egypt which is ruled by the Muslim Brother Hood party which follows religion ideology and against the liberal state hood. Surely they know that this will pose a great danger to Israel security and all other Arab countries moving towards liberal ideology. By one way or another they need a state that balance this by any means. They searched and found it. That is Ethiopia, from where the life line of Egyptians’ start. The U.S wants to create this balance of power, through waters flows to the death desert of Egypt and sustain the life there. At the end U.S might get the Egypt that lives in peace with best friend of U.S.A, Israel. So for U.S the GRD we are building on the Nile is considered as power balancer in the region, which the U.S supported and supporting, undercover. This means it is very hard for Egypt and Arab to go against us by force, war. Stand of the African Union Thanks to the Late Prime Minster, Meles Zenawi for the major role he palyed in building a strong relationship with the most of African countries. At the same time he was a great Spokes’ man of African which bought recognition for him and his country. He was very known for defending the interest of African on different international summits. This is a credit for us to rally most African countries behind our cause and right to use the Nile water. Recently we have witnessed the Uganda’s Leader Mouseveni for the support he has shown us towards our right to use the Nile water. Also other states, such as South Sudan and Sudan itself supported. Even ,her Excellency the A.U commissioner stated that the colonial era treaty is not acceptable and urge Egypt to accept the new treaty and come to negotiation. From this I can conclude that we have a full support most of African countries. So it is very difficult for Egypt to win and get support of most of Africans. CHALLENGES Ethiopia NEED TO OVERCOME Arab League I don’t expect and believe that Arab league members will turn off their face from the Egypt. This is one of the main challenge and obstacle to Ethiopia to win the heart and mind of the organization. The influence of the Arab League in the area of geopolitics, economy and diplomacy is considerable one. In this regard Ethiopia has a lot job to be done in convincing the member states that the interest of Egypt is not affected due to the Dam. The Egypt had a reason when it said that it would take the matter to the Arab League. It knows the economic strength of the institution to influence Ethiopia. We have a strong trade relationship with Arab League member states so it is hard to resist such influences in the shorter time. Fortunately we got the support of one of the Member state, Sudan. This should be our playing card in our dialogue with them and to earn League’s support. WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Managing the Nile water will be one of the toughest tasks for the basin countries. It seems very easy. But it is hard and challenging for every state in the basin to manage scarce resource in the face of ever changing climatic condition and population growth. Now we are getting into the spaceship where the 85 Million Egyptian aboard. We are getting one issue in common, Nile which will continue to puzzle both of us from now onward. The Egyptian has well experienced than the fellow Ethiopians with regard water resource management. Ethiopians need to build their capacity in the area of water resource management. This help to properly manage, conserve and use the water. Introducing the proper the water resource management at the upstream countries like Ethiopia will help the downstream countries like Egypt to get sufficient water at all time regularly. The failure to properly manage the Nile water resource form the Ethiopian side might be the possible source of future conflict and instability across the region. So all the basin countries together should a form a Board Of Management whose role is to Manage the water resource and resolve any dispute that might rise among the member state. This will help the water to be clean of Politics!!!