Kenya: Minister Ngilu Takes Over as Nile-COM Chair
By Zachary Ochieng
NAIROBI---Kenya’s Minister for Water and Irrigation Charity Ngilu today took over as the chairperson of the Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-COM) as the country hosted the 19th Council Meeting at Nairobi’s Laico Regency Hotel. Mrs Ngilu took over from Ethiopia’s Minister for Water and Energy Alemayehu Tegenu, who has held the post for the last one year. Kenya’s Deputy Prime minister and Minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta, who officially opened the meeting, welcomed the delegation from the Republic of South Sudan, Africa’s newest state and a key riparian state in the Nile Basin.
Kenyatta commended the ministers for having launched the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) as an interim institutional mechanism for the pursuance of sustainable development and the management of the Nile basin waters and their support for the preparation of the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Programme (Nelsap) and Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Programme (Ensap).
“Indeed, we have collectively risen to the challenge of managing the valuable endowment of the river for poverty alleviation, resource protection and for mutually beneficial gains”, Kenyatta said in his opening remarks.
The Deputy Premier urged the delegates to acknowledge the Nile River as a natural resource which should bring cooperation rather than conflict to the Nile Basin countries.
“As it has been proven worldwide, shared water resources, more than anything else, are a critical catalyst for enhanced cooperation between countries. Shared water resources have brought states together on the negotiating table to find a common approach to the utilization of these waters which guarantees socio-economic development and thus the reduction of poverty in these countries”, Kenyatta stated.
The Nile Basin Initiative is an inter-governmental organization dedicated to equitable and sustainable management and development of the shared water resources of the Nile Basin. The ministers responsible for water affairs of each of the nine NBI member tates established the NBI in February 1999 in Dar-es-Salaam to assist them in driving forward their vision to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of and benefit from the common Nile Basin water resources.
Erastus Mwencha, Vice-Chairman, African Union Commission, warned the ministers that the volume of the Nile water would decrease if concerted efforts were not made to ensure more water flowed into the Nile. He urged the ministers to preach peace and security as these were prerequisites for regional cooperation and integration.
“The African Union follows keenly the developments within the Nile Basin and encourages members to cultivate mutual friendship and move towards regional integration. Both upstream and downstream states need to work jointly on common projects to promote socio-economic development and improve the livelihoods of their citizens”, Mwencha urged.
Ngilu said the meeting gave the ministers an opportunity to reflect on where they have come from since NBI’s inception in 1999 and the achievements over the period. She appealed to the three member states that have not signed the Cooperation Framework Agreement (CFA) for different reasons to do so.
“My hope is that sooner or later our differences in understanding the provisions of Article 14B in the CFA will be ironed out and the pending issue resolved”, Ngilu said.
The 19th Nile-COM meeting was held under the theme The Nile Basin: An Imperative for Cooperation. It brought together water ministers from the nine member countries, members of the diplomatic corps as well as representatives from the donor community.