ASIs Botteron

{{ASI |First Contributor=Agustin Botteron |First Contributor Link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/agustinbotteron |Case Study=Creative Options and Value Creation to Address Water Security in the Eastern Nile Basin |Reflection Text Summary=Enabling conditions are tightly related to situational conditions. These are unique for the context under consideration. Water resources had not been a major concern in the region because political interests were laid on something else, the scientific community had been busy with other issues and because the most vulnerable communities and nations did not even have the chance nor the podium to raise their voices. Dynamics have changed during the last 15 years. Evidence of this are the creation and slowly empowerment of the Nile Basin Initiative and the uprisings in many countries known as the Arab Spring. I see, though, the initiation of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as a major trigger for a different type of recognition of interdependence, particularly for Egypt and Sudan. These two countries are still the only ones that did not fully accede to the Cooperative Agreement Framework of NBI, and thus their collaboration and commitments for worrying about and addressing upper riparian countries problems were limited. However, undermining to the status-quo hydro-hegemony reigning in the region, the decision by Ethiopia to build GERD was the origin to all kind of concerns, threats, discussions and research, which ended up with the Declaration of Principles signed between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in March 2015. Is the region now prepared to negotiate a contingent and adaptive agreement? BI might perfectly be the organization entitled to enforce and monitor the implementation of any agreement. It might also be the convener and leader in any additional joint fact-finding process needed to back up such agreement. However, the first enabling condition requires the designation of a neutral party or mediator to facilitate the process. The question that still remain is who is able and willing to take this role? Is the World Bank, the US or United Nations? Also, are the countries ready to commit for such a process?

• GERD site.jpg

  Construccion site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia (Source: Google Earth)