NBI 10 years on:What priority has been given to agriculture?

Ana Elisa Cascão

Presentation to:Workshop of the Nile Basin Focal Project:

Improved Agricultural Water Management in the Nile Basin – keys for Poverty Reduction & Resilience

9 December 2009Peacock Hotel, Dar es Salaam

Agriculture/Livestock/Fisheries:

a NBI priority?

a core cooperation/development issue?

what about investment?

Institutional Analysis of the NBI

Institutional Analysis of the NBI

SVP: Efficient Water Use for Agriculture

Objectives Achievements Bottlenecks/Challenges

To provide a sound conceptual and practical basis for increasing water availability and promoting

efficient water use in agricultural production

•Reports completed and disseminated:

•1) Overview of Agricultural Water in the Nile Basin (baseline assessment)

•2) Best Practices in Water Harvesting and Community-managed Irrigation

•3) Large-scale Irrigation in the Nile Basin

•Training courses on small-scale farming and water harvesting

•Mainly consultative tasks, but few results on the ground

•Lack of clear guidelines for future irrigation/agriculture development and regional food trade

•Weak linkage between EWUA program and the SAP agriculture/ irrigation projects

•Irrigation upstream remains politically sensitive and not properly addressed

•The program has been downplayed

•Main challenge: to bring agriculture development back to the centre of the NBI/NBC agenda

ENSAP: Irrigation and Drainage

Objectives Achievements Bottlenecks/Challenges

To support the development and

expansion of irrigated agriculture and to

improve the productivity of small- and large-

scale agriculture through improved

agricultural water use

3 Fast-Track Projects supported/facilitated in order to develop 100,000ha in Ethiopia (irrigation in Lake Tana), Egypt (West Delta Irrigation Rehabilitation) and Sudan (irrigation in Upper Atbara). Projects in Ethiopia and Egypt under implementation

Cooperative Regional Assessment (CRA): joint assessment and analysis of opportunities for irrigation development (projects and polices) with multiple regional benefits (inception and analysis completed)

•Fast-track projects were nationally, rather than regionally, identified and implemented

•Projects are small scale (so far 20,000ha per country) in the context of the Basin’s potential for irrigated agriculture

•Irrigation development in Ethiopia is still one of the most controversial and sensitive issues in the EN Basin, because of possible impacts on the Nile flows

•Major challenge: to assess availability of water for irrigation projects in the EN Basins (including cooperative and unilateral projects), and identify/ prioritise/negotiate water allocations

Agriculture: Investment?

Future...

NBI [Agriculture] programs/projects:

How sustainable?

Institutionalisation/political commitment?

EMERGING SCENARIOS IN THE NILE BASINEMERGING SCENARIOS IN THE NILE BASIN

Institutional challenges

Possible scenarios

Key messages

• More priority should be given to agriculture development in the Nile cooperation process – it is a core issue in terms of socio-economic development, poverty reduction, regional trade and integration, ...

• NBI/NBC can capture/develop the Basin’s large agriculture potential opportunities based on IWRM perspective

• Development of significant basin-wide/regional projects (including agriculture) is pending the CFA adoption

• Sustainable cooperation can contribute to the depoliticisation of the agriculture development in the Nile Basin

Thanks for you attention!

ana.cascao@kcl.ac.uk