Beyond Drops Water: Four Imperatives to Cooperation in the Nile Basin : Claude Ake Memorial Lecture 2010

Abstract

The Nile basin is one of the oldest places on earth to which renowned civilizations, polities, kingdoms and empires are attributed. The Nile is the world’s longest river whose basin covers some 3.3 million sq. km and shared by ten countries. Whether in the upstream or downstream the countries and communities are permanently bound together, and their millions owe to it the present livelihood and future prosperity. On the contrary, the Nile Basin lacks a cooperative mechanism and perennially stuck in the lingering tension over apportionment of the waters. It is about time now for the Nile basin countries to work towards a viable cooperation beyond drops of water. A mutually acceptable cooperative engagement among the riparian nations is condition-sine-qua-non for enhancing development in each country and achieving the much desired peace and mutual security in the basin. The 2010 Claude Ake Memorial Lecture will, therefore, focus on the economic, environmental, security and institutional imperatives for cooperation and peace building in the Nile Basin. Dr. Yacob Arsano is Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations at Addis Ababa University.

Filmed lecture 15 December 2010 at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala, Sweden. 48 minutes.