Inaugurating the Water and Irrigation Conference in Cairo

The meetings of the Ministerial Conference on Water and Irrigation in the Nile Valley countries started today in Cairo. The conference is organized by the World Bank and will continue for three days.

The conference aims to revise government plans in the Nile Valley countries (10 countries) and to set priorities for those plans according to a financial plan. The World Bank, the UN Development Program, and the Canadian Development Agency agreed to finance 22 water projects in the Nile Valley countries at a cost of $100 million.

The conference will tackle the problems of dividing the water among the countries of the Nile Valley and the effect of the dams which some countries intend to construct on the quotas of the other member countries.

An official source said that the conference is a starting point to set up the first joint project by the member countries which aims to increase the quotas of each country after utilizing the wasted water and after controlling the distribution of water.

The sources ruled out the eruption of substantial differences among the countries of the Nile Valley over setting the priorities of projects and ruled out the discussion of the quota of each country.