The River Nile In The Post Colonial Age

The Nile Basin is a vast and varied area of 350 million people. Parts of the basin have become the very symbols of African misery, suffering drought, genocide, state failure and aid dependency. At its heart lies the Nile itself. Yet while the importance of the river is well documented for the colonial period there is no comprehensive account of its management after independence. The River Nile in the Post-Colonial Age details the modern development of the Nile Basin and of the efforts to manage its waters. With important new material by researchers from each of the countries through which the Nile passes, it provides an indispensable aid to understanding the complex history of the basin, the politics surrounding it and the efforts being made to jointly manage it.

Ana Cascao provides an original and critical account of the contemporary hydropolitics of the Nile River Basin, focussing in particular on the post-colonial era and taking into account the crucial changes in the regional and national political economies that have occured since the mid 1990s.

The book provides a comprehensive assessment of the law governing the use and management of the Nile and considers, more broadly, how international water law can guide the development of a legal and institutional framework for cooperation over shared freshwater resources. It defines the current state of international water law and discusses the content of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. On this basis, it assesses the Nile water treaties and the 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement for the Nile, and examines their compliance with international law, with a specific focus on the legal consequences of South Sudan's secession from Sudan. Moreover, the book recommends important amendments to the 2010 Agreement. Building on these recommendations, it addresses the implementation of the principle of equitable and reasonable use regarding the Nile, illustrating the extent to which the principle can provide a conceptual framework for regulating water use. The book is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners alike as it combines legal assessment with a discussion of how international water law principles can be implemented in practice.

“[A] vivid travelogue.” New Statesman “Has much to offer.” The Spectator "Sparks the imagination." BBC History Magazine "A fascinating study." BBC History Revealed Magazine “Essential reading." All About History "Valiant, valuable and entertaining." Times Literary Supplement The greatest river in the world has a long and fascinating history. Professor Terje Tvedt, one of the world's leading experts on the history of waterways, travels upstream along the river's mouth to its sources. The result is a travelogue through 5000 years and 11 countries, from the Mediterranean to Central Africa. This is the fascinating story of the immense economic, political and mythical significance of the river. Brimming with accounts of central characters in the struggle for the Nile – from Caesar and Cleopatra, to Churchill and Mussolini, and on to the political leaders of today, The Nile is also the story of water as it nourished a civilization.

The Nile today plays a crucial role in the economics, politics and cultural life of ten countries and their more than 300 million inhabitants. No other international river basin has a longer, more complex and eventful history than the Nile. In telling the detailed story of the hydropolitics of the Nile valley in a period during which the conceptualisation, use and planning of the waters were revolutionised, and many of the most famous politicians of the twentieth century – Churchill, Mussolini, Eisenhower, Eden, Nasser and Haile Selassie – played active parts in the Nile game, this work will stand as a case study of a much more general and acute question: the political ecology of trans-national river basins.

The Nile River Basin supports the livelihoods of millions of people in Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, principally as water for agriculture and hydropower. The resource is the focus of much contested development, not only between upstream and downstream neighbours, but also from countries outside the region. This book investigates the water, land and energy nexus in the Nile Basin. It explains how the current surge in land and energy investments, both by foreign actors as well as domestic investors, affects already strained transboundary relations in the region and how investments are intertwined within wider contexts of Nile Basin history, politics and economy. Overall, the book presents a range of perspectives, drawing on political science, international relations theory, sociology, history and political ecology.

This book presents the current conflict in the Middle East and North Africa over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the biggest in Africa. The project explains why economic, and to some extent political, survival is at the core of the conflict, specifically between Egypt and Ethiopia. Although the problem started with insistence of “no dam” by Egypt and subsequently narrowed down to a filling up period of the reservoir and technical operations of the dam, finding a solution agreeable to both nations has been elusive for the past eight years. Ensuring water for all members in the Basin is consistent with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, particularly given the looming effects of climate change, increasing population, urbanization, and rising consumptive water uses.

Competition over the Nile watercourse is becoming a global crisis. As population growth, economic development, and urbanization increase the demand for water in the Nile Basin while climate change threatens its supply, the region faces a looming water crisis. An effective resolution of this multifaceted issue, which impacts 11 African countries, requires detailed multidisciplinary research. Until now the academic discourse regarding the Nile watercourse has been primarily dominated by monodisciplinary studies. This book fills that gap, providing a retrospective and prospective look at the Nile through multidisciplinary lenses—commingling history, hydro-politics, climate change, and law. It scrutinizes the legal and hydro-political trajectories of the Nile Basin, from the 4th century A.D. to 2022.