breaking waters: the birth of a new nile state

Breaking Waters: The Birth of a New Nile State

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STEPS Centre Water SeminarBrighton, 22 February 2011

Ana Elisa CascãoStockholm International Water Institute – SIWI (Sweden)

Center of African Studies – ISCTE (Portugal)

Nile River Basin

THE REGION10 riparian states160 million inhabitantsUnderdeveloped economiesConflict-stricken regionLow levels of regional integration

THE REGION10 riparian states160 million inhabitantsUnderdeveloped economiesConflict-stricken regionLow levels of regional integration

Nile Basin Hydropolitics

• Uneven distribution

• Inequitable utilisation

• Water = Politics• Water = National Security• Water = Sovereignty

• Power asymmetries• Hydro-Hegemony

• Problematic water agreements

• Past: conflicts• Water-Sharing:

political priority

SECURITISATION

HYDRO-SOVEREIGNTY COOPERATION

Nile Basin Political Economy pre-2011

Egypt:‘Hydraulic state’ still expandingMonopoly of the Nile watersStronger and more diversified economyMonolithic and stable political systemSupport of international community

Upstream:Agriculture-based economies (rainfed)Weaker but growing economiesShadow of conflicts still presentChanging geopolitics

Nile Basin Political Economy pre-2011

Changing realpolitik: new geopolitical actors, corridors, dynamics, ...

Changing realpolitik: new geopolitical actors, corridors, dynamics, ...

‘Land grabbing’: Growing economic interest for Nile natural resources

‘Land grabbing’: Growing economic interest for Nile natural resources

Regional integration:Towards economic

multilaterism

Regional integration:Towards economic

multilaterism

Unilateralism:Unilateral hydraulic

development

Unilateralism:Unilateral hydraulic

development

Hydropolitics pre-2011

Official ‘diad’

UpstreamBloc

2010: Cooperation and changing power relations

Trojan Horse of upstreamers

2011:‘Revolutions’ in the making in the Nile Basin

Velvet divorce in Sudan

Popular uprising in Egypt

Southern Sudan: the 11th Nile riparian

Border demarcation (as 1956)

...where the White Nile bends

Southern Sudan: the political process

the post-referendum negotiations

Nile Waters: What is in it for Southern Sudan?

A midstream or an upstream riparian?

Jonglei Canal

When Oil or Water politics mix

Meanwhile.... in northern Sudan• Windown of opportunity for the end of ‘Nile Valley Unit’• Back to the origins: irrigation!

Egypt, revolution and Nile

• No major changes in internal Nile politics, image, discourse• Possible positive change in foreign policy – ‘between equals’• Negative change also possible: a return to hydraulic nationalism

Egypt vs. Upstream: power is relational

• Egypt, the stable hegemon: is now past history

• Upstreamers and the Sudan(s) might take advantage of Egypt’s current weakness to promote a tipping point in the Nile hydropolitics

Crystal Ball

• Southern Sudan: might become the kingmaker in the upstream- downstream Nile hydropolitics

• Northern Sudan: a pure midstream riparian• Egypt: potential for new foreign policy in the long-term• Today: upstreamers might be already taking a shortcut and

speeding change in the Nile Basin

• What occurs when the counter-hegemonic riparians get stronger and the hegemon weaker: the transformation, decline or end of the hegemonic configuration?

Thank you!ana.cascao@siwi.org