Water and Politics in Africa: Hydropolitics of the River Nile

  Link from Sudan blog post and brief introduction about South Sudan to talk  We move into the final blog post of this series, and it is fitting that we have ended up at the most upstream riparian in the final post. This final post will cover not only the newest riparian of the Nile, but also (to date) the newest sovereign state: South Sudan, having achieved independence in January 2011 from Sudan.  In one regard, monitoring South Sudan's novel independent strategy of management the Nile's waters could be integral towards further progress into an equitable arena of shared water resources in a postcolonial Nile Basin ( F arah and Opanga 2017 ). South Sudan is the only riparian to have emerged into a scenario where, legislatively at least, hydro-hegemonies have been eradicated, unlike many other riparians who emerged in the midst of the 1959 Nile Water Agreement. While this does empower South Sudan in achieving its independent hydraulic objectives, it also allows more sustainable

Inarguably, 2011 was a continuum-shifting year in Nile Hydropolitics. While the wider Arab Spring contributed to revolution in Egypt in 2011, the division of Sudan in January of the same year to create South Sudan, the world's newest sovereign state, was arguably a greater dichotomic shift in the region. On a national level the coincident  alongside the global food crisis in 2008 greatly catalysed a continuum shift in Sudan, transforming the country from oil-orientation more towards agriculture, which naturally requires greater hydrological resources and hydraulic infrastructures ( Cascao and Nicol 2016 ). This is a significant shift as, like Egypt, Sudan has one of the largest natural water deficits, so a shift towards a more hydro-centric industry will only further strain water allocations between riparians ( Mielnik 2021 ). These factors can foreground an argument that Sudan is the Nile riparian that has experienced the greatest transformation, with the economic and political co

Instability to Insecurity? Egypt's Diminishing Influence over the Nile's Waters It has come to talk about Egypt: arguably the country that has shaped Nile hydropolitics the most, but at the same time, the country that itself has been shaped most by the Nile. It only takes a population density image, as the one in Figure 1, to indicate how the Nile is the cradle and lifeline of Egyptian civilisation.  Egypt was formally the most politically stable riparian country with the strongest economy, which upheld its hegemony by having a greater stronghold in negotiations, but political crisis and social unrest widely transformed this. In our analysis, i t is fundamental to assess the reduction in Egyptian influence over the Nile's waters between external factors (e.g., Ethiopian hegemony, more equitable sharing of water resources) against internal factors (instability in Egypt). (above) Source Point 1: Historical connotations of the Nile Water in Egypt The existence of Egypt from it

In the last blog post, we discovered how wider political contexts in a country has direct impacts not only on its domestic hydropolitics, but also affects the wider hydrological sphere. Moving on from this, it becomes crucial to look at how Ethiopia has managed to gain and sustain its new political hydropower by 'exploiting its bargaining power' to achieve its own goals, under the guise of mutual benefit across the Nile Basin. (above) A video to highlight the Ethiopia's hydraulic projects being both mutually beneficial for Ethiopia and Sudan, while also perpetuating disputes.   One integral case that we must look at in this context is to look at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam ( GERD ), the biggest hydrological infrastructural project in the Nile's recent history. It is common to analyse the GERD as a catalyst of change, as its construction is likely to pursue further economic growth for Ethiopia, and wider multilateral trade and economic activity between the ripar