Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan meet on investing the Nile waters

Experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia started on Wednesday in Addis Ababa discussions on ways to exploit the waters of the Nile in preparations for a ministerial meeting due to be held in the Ethiopian capital ( Addis Ababa) on Friday.

One of the diplomats told the press that cooperation projects over the Nile will be discussed during this meeting to which were invited also experts from the World bank and international agencies concerned.

However, the main aim of these meetings is to define the final formula for the cooperation projects the three countries to be submitted to the donor states by the beginning of February in Geneva in the meeting of the International Consortium for cooperation over the Nile and to facilitate cooperation in investing water resources of the Nile with the aim of reaching during the year 2002 cooperation agreements.

In October 2000, each of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt decided to maintain co-operation in order to define means of investing the waters of the Nile. The three countries, in particular agreed projects of fair investment of the Nile's waters in irrigation, generating electricity and avoiding pollution.

Worthy mentioning that the countries overlooking the Nile are Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and Egypt.

Since 1993, these countries have been meeting annually in the framework of the Nile 2002 initiative.