Council of Ministers of the Nile Basin Initiative decides long-term strategies for water resource protection

The Council of Ministers of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) agreed on long-term climate and wetland strategies and rules on environmental and social standards in June. Jointly with the GIZ in Uganda, adelphi supported the NBI Secretariat with the strategy development and moderated the consultations.

The Nile Basin Sustainability Framework (NBSF) constitutes the regulatory framework for the cooperation of Nile riparian states in terms of transboundary water protection. It provides for the development of sectoral policies and strategies. Two years ago, the Secretariat of the NBI initiated the development of strategies dealing with long-term climate risks, the protection of wetlands and environmental and social standards for investment projects and measures of the NBI.

Strategic objectives and concrete measures were developed in a multi-year consultation process involving decision-makers from the riparian states’ governments. The strategies give the Nile Basin countries the opportunity to implement measures for a sustainable development of the shared water resources in the context of the regional initiative. adelphi has revised the contents of the first drafts of the strategies and further developed them as political strategies. They were agreed upon in several consultations with the Secretariat of the NBI and the relevant decision-makers from the region.

In the early summer of 2013, the strategies were handed over to the Nile Technical Advisory Committee (Nile TAC) and adopted by the Council of Ministers of the NBI on 21 June.

The strategies are available for download on the website of the Nile Basin Initiative:

The NBI prioritized the adoption of these strategies as key steps to provide strategic direction for the achievement of sustainable development of the Nile Basin water resources. In this sense, the endorsement of a set of environmental and social standards for the activities of the Initiative aims to ensure protection of the Basin’s vast and rich environmental and societal resources. On the other hand, the endorsed strategies focus on two of the most challenging issues in the Nile Basin today: the significant threats posed by expected impacts of climate change in the region and the need to protect and harness the potential of the water resources contained in a complex system of wetlands, many of which are in a threatened state.

For further information, please visit the project website