African Development Fund grant for irrigation and drainage study

The African Development Fund (ADF) has awarded Ethiopia and Sudan a grant of US $2.59 million towards launching a study on the irrigation and drainage of the eastern Nile, according to a statement the ADF issued on Wednesday. The aim of the study is "to enhance food security, reduce rural poverty and preserve the environment through sustainable natural resource management", and "enhance efforts towards an integrated approach to irrigation and drainage development in the eastern Nile sub-basin", it said. The study would cover an area of about 15,000 ha, "divided equally between Ethiopia and Sudan". It will have two components: an engineering sub-study "dealing with concrete investment projects in the two countries and joint action for equitable and sustainable use of the shared water resources", and "a Cooperative Regional Assessment sub-study, which will prepare guidelines for the identification and selection of investment projects of regional interest". According to the ADF, the study would adopt a comprehensive approach to rural development, using a "participatory approach that will involve farmers and institutions". During the first half of March, delegates from the 10 states sharing the River Nile waters were engaged in intense negotiations in Entebbe, Uganda, on the shores of Lake Victoria, which feeds the Nile, in an effort to flesh out a treaty regulating the use of the waters. The talks were organised by the Nile Basin Initiative, an intergovernmental organisation that seeks to achieve sustainable socioeconomic development and management of Nile Basin water resources. They were being held amid growing disagreement between countries in the south of the Nile basin, primarily Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, which want to use the Nile waters for large-scale projects that might affect water levels farther down the river, and countries to the north, mainly Egypt, which might be affected by such projects. [Also see: UGANDA: Negotiations on sharing Nile water tough but hopeful]