The Middle East has been known for its wars over land, especially when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. With the growing scarcity of potable water in the world at large and in the Middle East in particular, the region is threatened with wars over water. Tensions that have emerged between Turkey and Syria in the recent past appear as a forerunner in this matter.

The two patterns of war do not coincide. The alliances, axes,  confrontations,  and polarization engendered by the two types of war are different. That is why we might be in need of a water map, side by side with the political map of the Middle East. The latter would highlight configurations brought about by the wars over land or over petroleum that is stored in the land. The types of wars we have witnessed so far, political, economic, social and ideological (Man versus Man) in essence; while the former would focus on the new types of war likely to occur with the growing scarcity of water, i.e., ecological (Man versus Nature) in essence. As water shortage becomes more and more critical, the former pattern will tend to overshadow the latter pattern; not to nullify it, but rather to make it more complicated and difficult to disentangle.

If awareness of this new pattern of conflict in the Middle East can be developed and if analysts can make it clear that we will now be dealing with two overlapping patterns that do not coincide but rather diverge, then the question we are faced with is:  could a concerted effort be made to ensure that the superposition of these two patterns create conditions which could contribute to the resolution of both conflicts instead of further exacerbating them both?

Politics, before dealing with facts, deal with the perceptions of facts. Objective reality is always perceived, gauged, assessed through a subject, an actor with a specific location, specific interests, in the political arena. That is why antagonists in a conflict will always approach the givens of the conflict differently. This is a complicating factor; but, through political confrontation and debate, it can also help find a solution.

This conceptual remark is of relevance when we compare the political map of the Middle East with its water map. No independent political authority decides how to deal with the configuration of the water map. The issues it raises are usually dealt with as technical, not political, issues. There is always a tendency to see water problems as functional and, therefore, as subordinate to the political problems. But this perception will have to change now that water shortage is becoming a central problem, a threat to the very survival of the peoples of the Middle East; that is, a political problem par excellence tending to supersede all other regional problems. This means that an Authority must be created to face the growing water scarcity. Whether we like it or not, the creation of such an Authority implies the politicization of water disputes, their upgrading from the technical to the political level, from problems subordinated to other problems into problems acquiring an independence of their own..

Politics in the Middle East will therefore acquire new different parameters. The river basin will tend to replace the Sovereign State as a basic frame of reference. We are now requested to move from a political map that is basically a land map, to a political map that will increasingly become a water map. How to proceed?

The central question here is whether we must live with water scarcity as a  fatality, an issue with no solution, to which we must adapt, or whether we are faced with the imperative of having to resist this growing threat of developing ecological engineering and seeking to discover means by which new reservoirs of potable water are invented. Of course this will, first and foremost, involve desalinating sea water on a very wide scale, that is, at economic prices, able to compete with less expensive sources of potable water.

We have been told at this seminar that 97.5% of available water on this planet is salty water, sea and ocean water; only 2.5% is sweet water. The non salty water frozen at the North and South poles represent more than one per cent of the above mentioned 2.5%. We are actually left with 5000 cubic kilometers of sweet water distributed between rivers, lakes, rain, underground water, ... to sustain life on the surface of our planet. Must we accept a  priori, that these ratios cannot be altered, that 97.5% of sea water cannot decrease and 2.5% of sweet water cannot increase?.
This reminds me of a debate I once had with Mr Ismail Serageldin, the vice-president of Special Programs at the World Bank, at a seminar organized on the occasion of the Paris Conference on Water Scarcity hosted by French President Chirac in March of this year. The key issue was over whether the human species had to adapt to water scarcity, or whether a means should be discovered to adapt water scarcity to the requirements of modern man, as we start the third millennium?

If we  'gave in' on the water front, will this not set a precedent for 'giving' in' on other fronts that are bound to emerge in not too far a future; on the clean air front, on the unpolluted land front,  , etc.? Actually, we will be proceeding from the premise that natural phenomena cannot be harnessed and controlled and that human civilization's ever growing needs cannot be accommodated to by nature. This is a fundamental philosophical problem touching upon the very essence of what civilization is all about.

Do we have to proceed from the assumption that all we can do is accept the supremacy of 'natural laws' over which we have no control, laws that are beyond our ability to affect them?  For instance, the laws of  a 'pure'' market economy, which  responds to the mechanism of supply and demand, and transcends  the will of all the parties trading in a given market? In other words, do we have no other choice other than to wait for some discovery is made, which will bring down the price of desalinating sea water in a way that will give it a competitive edge over other ways of providing us with potable water? Is it then, and only then, that desalination becomes a valid option?

This approach, based on a feeling of helplessness, of inability to deal with developments adverse to our most basic interests, seems strange at a time when we are searching for water on other planets, on the Moon, on Mars, and even in the Universe at large. In this age where we dare probe both the infinitely small and the infinitely big, the atom and, beyond it, the quark at one extreme, and constellations of galaxies, black holes and other cosmic phenomena at the other, is it so difficult to separate salt from sea water, in accordance with a technique that would ensure the recovery of the water rather than  the salt? Why should we believe that finding a remedy for AIDS is worth trying, however costly it may be, and with no guarantee that a solution exists, while abandoning a priori exercising any similar effort to desalinate sea water? In both cases, we are dealing with issues related to the survival of the human species.

A remark worth making is that the presently established price for the desalination of sea water might not be accurate. It is most probably affected by the nature of the parties who resort to desalination. Most countries that have resorted to desalinating sea water so far have been the Arab oil-rich Gulf states. In other words, desalination is being done by states that are rich but not sufficiently developed technologically to be able to judge whether they get the best deal for the price they pay. Because desalinating sea water still remains a field that has not been generalized to countries less rich and technologically more developed, no criterion exists to guarantee that desalination technologies are not, at the present time, overpriced.

Given these considerations, some relevant deductions could be drawn:

First, a distinction should be made between inter human confrontations which, per definition, are localized in space, eventually also in time and confrontations' that arise because of what we could describe as clashes' with our natural environment. In the past, before technology became as potent as it has now become, humankind could not  harm Nature beyond a certain point. Human intervention was within the limits of a domain commensurate with Man's size, of Man's knowledge of his environment within his specific size. We could demolish a house, but we could not smash an atom. Today, we can smash an atom. We can provoke a nuclear blast. And operating at the micro level, far below our size, has made it possible for us to operate at the cosmic level, far beyond our size. Conflict' with Nature, whether we want or not, has come to involve the Planet as a whole, to relate the Planet as a whole, make it totally interconnected, interdependent. We have entered the era of ecological engineering, with all the opportunities -and risks- it entails.

Second, with the present potency of technology, we cannot always be sure that what we plan in advance will be actually realized. What is created is the resultant of two sets of component elements: elements that we can plan in advance which respond to what we want to realize; and elements which cannot be planned in advance; notably, side effects that could not have been predicted, and which can be harmful and counter-productive. Such negative side effects are unavoidable, because we never master our environment absolutely.
Negative, non-predictable, side effects can sometimes supersede in criticality the desired effects. In such cases, technology will have inflicted harm instead of improving our well being.

Nevertheless, ecological engineering compels us to see big, to think big.  The more a project is big, the more it is big in absolute terms, but the smaller it becomes in relative terms. The bigger a project to desalinate sea water, the less the price of desalinating one cubic meter of sea water. The bigger a project of desalinating sea water in the Arab world, the wider the chunks of Arab desert we will be able to develop, and the more reduced the Arab land that could still be regarded as a vacuum, either physically or figuratively.

That is why we believe Netanyahu's policies are counter-productive in the long term. Netanyahu proceeds from the assumption that Israel is an island of development, progress and civilization  (also of negotiating power) in the midst of an Arab vacuum - an updated version of the famous Zionist motto of the Jews being `a people without a land in a land without a people'. The Arabs now face the challenge to prove that this assumption is totally wrong.

In the era of globalization, there is no room for vacuum. Whoever gives in and does not fulfill the requirements of his or her survival, whoever, in our ever shrinking world, does not prove up to undertaking the task will himself be responsible for leaving the door open for somebody else to step in and fill that vacuum. So their should exist an Arab counter-plan to Israel's plans of making the desert bloom. But contrary to Israel's very limited plan, the counter-Arab plan should aspire to make the deserts bloom from the Atlantic to the Gulf! One version of that plan would be to have the waters of the Mediterranean desalinated, say, through evaporation and thanks to solar energy, and, subsequently reinstalled on wide spaces of Arab desert.

Obviously, such a gigantic plan will have to be developed gradually, over a century or so. As water is removed from the sea, new water from the Ocean (the Atlantic through a widened Gibraltar, and the Indian through widening Bab-El-Mandeb) could be brought in to the Red Sea and Mediterranean basins to prevent the over salinity of the remaining water, which, if not replenished, could become a source of widespread pollution with critically adverse side-effects.

From the perspective of an Egyptian, a scenario that could be explored (or taken as a model, a reference, a prototype, whatever)is that of developing two simultaneous courses of action:

-On the one hand, to take advantage of France's concern with water scarcity on the global level and develop a Franco-Egyptian partnership on pooling world expertise in the field of promoting new technologies for desalinating sea water. Particularly technologies that would help reduce the price of desalination, and make it more commensurate with the price of other means of providing potable water

-On the other hand, to create some form of independent pan-Arab institution that would finance the scientific work needed to develop such technologies. Such an institution could take the form of an Arab Petroleum and Water Community, along the lines of the Coal and Steel Community which was, in the mid fifties,  the nucleus of the present-day European Union.

This proposal is based on a non zero sum game plus for all parties
Concerned.  France and Egypt are celebrating this year the bicentennial of their mutual 'historical'' relations. True, a number of intellectuals in Egypt have been critical of the celebrations. They argue that they are based on an ambivalence, because celebrating the bicentennial in 1998 is celebrating Bonaparte's expedition of 1798 - a very obvious colonial act, even if it was undertaken in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution and, to some extent, in its name. True, the expedition also brought about a number of developments that can be regarded as emancipatory in character, namely, the work achieved by the scientific teams that accompanied Bonaparte, the deciphering of the hieroglyphs, the discovery of Egypt's pharaonic history, constructing Egypt's first printing house; etc. Promoting an Egyptian-French venture on desalinating sea water with the objective of  `having the wide Arab deserts bloom' would dissipate such ambivalence and remove misunderstandings. It will also demonstrate that cooperation between the two countries can become, with the advent of the 21st century, unequivocally emancipatory in character.

It is also a win win game when it comes to the Egyptian-Arab part of the project. As previously mentioned, users of desalinated water in the Arab world have not had means so far to be sure that they are not overpriced; only a comprehensive project as the one I propose, which extends Arab cooperation to the scientific aspects of  desalination, and does not limit it only to importing the technology, is an obvious guarantee that the users will not be overcharged.

Of course, one key element in my proposal is not to include Israel in the project, irrespective of how developed it could be in the field of desalinating sea water. Any external help is welcome, provided Israel is kept out. Of course, Israel will not accept to remain excluded. It will accuse the initiators of the proposal of acting contrary to the spirit of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, of being discriminatory. It will furnish every possible effort to be party to the project.

Actually, our deliberate plan to keep Israel out is not contrary to the spirit of peace, but just the opposite. Israel cannot get the benefits of participating as long as it deals with its Arab environment as if it were nothing more than a desert, both materially and figuratively; as if Arabs personified nothing more than a vacuum, in terms of development, of ability to cope with present-day problems, of negotiating power, etc. .Arabs are called upon, beforehand, to demonstrate that the Israeli way of looking at the Arabs, at least as far as the previous mentioned issues are concerned, is false. Only then could Israel be dealt with otherwise and not only on the issue of desalination.

The Arab parties will then have acquired the means to make Israel's participation part and parcel of a wider package deal that will include the redressing of all the manifest aspects of imbalance in Arab-Israeli relations, that is, a fair solution of the Jerusalem problem, the problem of a sovereign Palestinian State, the issue of Jewish settlements, of the Palestinian refugees, the nuclear dimension of the conflict, etc..

It is only then that we will have hit two birds with one stone. We will have made a concerted effort to ensure that the combination of the two conflicting situations in the Middle East, i.e., the Arab-Israeli conflict and the water scarcity problem, can eventually create conditions which could contribute to the resolution of both conflicts. Instead of exacerbating them both - possibly even, to become a model for overcoming deserts and making them obsolete in accordance with the ambitions of the 21st century, to the benefit of many other dessertic areas in the world at large.
 

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    I want to welcome all of you to this interesting panel, panel five.  I can hardly think of any experts more impressive than the group of scholars and government servants that we have here. Their experience and knowledge in this field is truly impressive.  I think that we're all eager to learn their thoughts from many perspectives. There's a traditional one or a contradiction between industrialized countries and countries in development. There are issues of resources, international responsibilities, exploitation of national resources, and so forth.  I'm sure that we're going to hear about the role that water plays in the situation of developing countries.
    I would also hope that we're going to hear some views about internal issues concerning or facing countries in development.  I recently was in Guatemala on a human rights investigation and I had an opportunity to be in the area of the Kiché which is a region bordering Mexico.   You probably know that Guatemala is a country where 70 percent of the citizens belong to indigenous population and the water issues affect the poor and the weak differently  than they affect those who have a strong economic position in society.  Maybe we will hear some thoughts about this kind of internal inequality in terms of water and the restoration of resources in countries like Guatemala.  As a matter of fact, an interesting statistic that you might know is in this region, for example, 20 percent of the population gets 63 percent of the national product.  In some countries, it's even worse, with the bottom end of the 20 percent of the population get 3.2 percent of the national product, and the gap is widening.  It's not becoming better.
    I  hope that we'll take a look at the way in which water affects the development of countries as well as issues of internal fairness within each society including the distribution of water to the poor, weak, and the elderly so that we avoid creating situations in which water and its distribution will be another symbol of inequality.

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The River Nile is one of the world's great assets. From ancient human civilizations until today, the flows of the river system have nourished livelihoods and played a central role in a rich diversity of cultures.  Evidence of enduring human endeavor is apparent throughout the basin.  While this endeavor has brought significant benefits, the task of developing and managing the River Nile sustainable for the Basin's peoples is not over.  Famine, extreme poverty, instability, rapid population growth and deteriorating natural resources are characteristic features of the Basin today.

This paper highlights the challenges and opportunities in the River Nile as one of the longest Rivers in the world with ten Riparian states, five of them are among the ten poorest countries in the world.  The Nile Basin was taken as a case study for the integrated development of shared water resources.

The main features of the Nile River

The Nile River Basin extends over more than 3.0 million Km2, one tenth of Africa's land mass and encompasses territory of ten countries, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Congo. More than 81500 km2 of the basin are lakes and about 70000 km2 are swamps.  The total length of the river and its tributaries are about to 37500 km.

More than 250 million inhabitants are living in the basin.  Among the Nile riparians are the poorest ones with a very low income.  The average GNP in 1994 is varying between 100-640 US $.  The population of the countries of the basin is expected to increase rapidly due to high rate of population growth.

Table No (1) shows the GNP and population growth in the Nile Basin.
 

Although the Nile River is almost 7000 km length, is the world's longest river, it's specific yield is very low due to the fact that the River passes through 10 countries, where Egypt and North of Sudan are arid countries.

The River serves as a home to world class environmental assets, such as Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water body (by area) in the world, and the vast wetlands of the Sudd.  The main tributaries of the Nile differ distinctly in their physical and hydrological characteristics.  The lakes and swamps of the White Nile serve as a unique natural buffer, while the highly variable seasonal flows of the Blue Nile provide the all important high flows of the flood season. These differences, which offer important development options, are illustrated in the water balance of the system shown in Figure 1.  While the equatorial lakes of the White Nile sub-basin are vital to the upstream riparian states, the upper white Nile flows are attenuated by the Sudd swamps.  The flows of the Sobat, Blue Nile and Atbara provide significant flows to Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.  As shown by the losses and gains of the river and its wetlands, high evaporation and other system losses are an important characteristic throughout the Basin.
 

II- Nile Basin Challenges

A significant feature of the Nile River is its transboundary nature.  The Basin is shared among 10 riparian states; only one river basin - the Danube - is shared by more countries (13).  This transboundary character of the Nile presents a great challenge: the imperative of achieving truly sustainable management of a river system whose development potential has created different aspirations and expectations among so many different peoples living both within and beyond the Basin.  At the heart of such a challenge is the imperative of poverty eradication.  The sustainable development of the River Nile can help alleviate poverty by providing enhanced food, power, and water security and associated employment creation.  This challenge grows with ever increasing populations, urbanization, and industrialization.

Most of the countries located in arid and semi-arid regions are facing a water crisis, though the intensity and extent of that crisis may vary from one country to another, and also with time.  For the   crisis, brought to the basin serious and severe problems and consequences.  Competing demands for water may exist among basin countries, and among different sectors within each basin country.  Complicated hydrology of the Nile Basin with the overlapping of natural resources planners.  Water resources planners and managers have recognized and effective water  management in the basin.  Nevertheless, there are many concerns for equitable and reasonable sharing for the river waters, also the concern appreciable harm for other riparian countries.
 

III- General Trends Pushing Toward Cooperation

There are general trends that are positive issues urging riparian states in many international rivers to cooperate, some of them are as follows:

1.  Technical information has and continues to play a crucial role in water resources decision making.  While often dividing us, the need for exchange of data, bonds water professionals across jurisdictions.
2.  There is growing realization that the prize for having some control over agreements is sharing ownership and cooperating in both the process and outcome of those agreements.
3.  The politics of water is moving from that of distributing benefits of an expanding pie to the perception of redistributing a decreasing pie now and in the future.
4.  There is a shift from deterministic prediction of the future to the concept of jointly creating the future and having a shared vision, and shareholders participation.
5.  Technologies which are accessible to ordinary people, which help rather than hinder dialogue.
6.  There is a growing and changing public awareness of water resources.
7.  There is evidence from divergent fields of science that cooperation is and has been the key to growth and evolution.

IV- Nile Basin Opportunities

The challenge can also become an opportunity - an opportunity to promote regional development in one of the poorest regions of the world.  The Nile above Aswan is one of the least developed rivers of the world.  There is an opportunity to transform the Nile, through collaborative and visible actions on the ground, into a unifying force that builds regional and international interdependencies and promotes economic activities which could enable co-basin states to participate as partners in emerging regional and global trade.  Effective water management, including water harvesting and conservation, can bring benefits to all involved riparian - which means that there is a real "win-win" potential.  Unilateral development of the river outside an agreed framework is likely to be unsustainable development, having the opposite effects in the long run, perpetuating poverty, promoting dispute, even conflict and leading to "lose-lose."
 
V- Evolution and Corporation in the Nile Basin

Cooperation among some of the Nile Basin countries started in the form of Bilateral agreements since the beginning of this century, but no regional cooperation started since the beginning of this century, but no regional cooperation started since 1967 by the formation of the Hydro- meteorological survey of the catchments of Lakes Victoria, Kyoga, and Albert (the Hydromet Project).

1- The Hydromet project

The Hydrometeorological Survey of the Catchments of Lakes Victoria, Kyoga and Mobutu Sese Seko is a highly successful example of technical cooperation between eight different countries assisted by two United Nations agencies.

Since the potential control and regulation of the Nile has a direct bearing on the economic development of all the riparian countries, it was evident to these countries that a high priority must be placed on the collection of hydrometeorological data and the investigation of the meteorology, hydrology and hydraulics of the Upper Nile Basin.  Following an initial study by the World Meteorological organization and the Food and Agriculture organization in 1963, five of the riparian countries, Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda requested the co-operation of the United Nations Development Program in a hydrometeorolgical survey to study the water balance of lakes Victoria, Kyoga and Mobutu Sese Seko.  The plan of operation was signed by the five participating governments, the UNDP and UMO in May, 1967. And the project officially commenced work in August, 1967.

As work in the Upper Nile Basin progressed the participating countries and government of Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo requested further UN Cooperation to extend the project area to include the portion of the Lake Victoria Catchment within Rwanda and Burundi, and lake Albert in Congo.  By the end of 1971 the government of Ethiopia had joined the project in observer status.

Long Term Objectives

To assist the participating governments in the planning of conservation and development of water resources of the Upper Nile and to provide the groundwork for inter-governmental cooperation for storage, regulation and use of the Nile.

The project lasted for 25 years till 1992, where a considerable  amount of hydrometerological data were collected, with photography, ground survey and hydrographic survey took place.  Training of staff of participating governments also was a major activity of the project.
 

2- TECCONILE

Ministers responsible for water affairs in the Nile Basin countries met in Kapala, Uganda, in December 1992, and agreed that future co-operation on water resource matters should be pursued. They agreed that these matters should be pursued for a transitional period, under the name of "Technical Co-orientation for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental Protection of the Nile Basin" (TECCONILE).  An Agreement to this effect was signed by Ministers from six countries: Egypt, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire.

The other four countries Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea and Ethiopia have participated as observers.
A Council of Ministers of water affairs COM was formed with technical committee acting as a steering committee for this framework.  The long term objectives are as follows:

- To assist participating countries in the development, conservation, and use of the Nile Basin- wide cooperation for the benefit of all.
-To assist participating countries in the determination of equitable entitlement of each riparian country to the use of Nile waters.

In 1995 within this framework, the Nile River Basin Action Plan (NRBAP) was prepared. It included 22 technical assistance and capacity building projects, with estimated cost of U.S.$ 100 million.

  *The NRBAP has five main Categories as follow:
 1.  Integrated Water Resources Planing and Management.
 2.  Capacity Building.
 3.  Training.
 4.  Regional Cooperation.
 5.  Environmental Protection and Enhancement.

3- The Nile Technical Advisory committee (TAC)

It was proposed to the COM to form a new transitional institutional mechanism with all riparian states as equal members to succeed TECCONILE until the final institutional and legal framework of cooperation is formed, which is one of the NRBAP activities.

It was agreed that a shared vision could be legitimized by action on the ground, action that benefits the peoples of the Nile Basin.

The main activities proposed by the Basin as a strategic action program are as follows:

a- A shared vision program:

This program would articulate a shared vision and comprise a limited range of effective activities to create a coordination mechanism.
It is composed of different main activities as follows:

- Stakeholder involvement and awareness.
- Economic and sectorial analysis.
- Win-Win planning and scenario development.
- Applied Training.
- Institutional and legal cooperative framework.
- Capacity building and human resources development.

b- The subsidiary Action Programs:

International experience confirms that it is often visible development that provides the incentives for transboundary cooperation and sustain political commitment.
In the Nile Basin, there are strong indications that substantial Win-Win solution exist across the basin.  This action program would plan and implement action on the ground at the lowest appropriate level taking into account benefits and externalities of planned activities an other countries.

The following are the main activities:

- River regulation.
- Hydropower generation.
- Irrigated food production.
- Water shed management and soil erosion control.
- Reduction of evaporation losses from swamps.
- Fisheries development.
- Transport and navigation development.
- Eco-tourism development.
- Weed control.
- Waste water treatment, pollution control & water quality management.
- Water use efficiency improvement.

It should be noted the shared vision program and the subsidiary action program are two complementary programs supporting each other.
The proposal of these activities is still subject to the approval of the COM
 

VI- Egypt's Situation

Egypt's available water resources are limited in comparison with the current population and increasing growth rate in the future.  Most of these resources are originating far away from the political borders of the country, reaching it after passing several thousands of kilometers across several riparian countries sharing the River Nile Basin.

Regarding water resources, Egypt's geographical location is not considered privileged, but on the contrary it lies in the downstream of the River Nile.  It is negatively and positively affected by all events such as loss and waste of water resources without benefits.  However, the development and wise exploitation of these water resources will be of a great benefit for all countries sharing their uses.

Looking to the geographic map of Egypt, its total area is approximately one million square kilometers, the cultivated land area is estimated to 33 thousand square kilometers or 7.85 million Feddan (approximately 4% of the total area), represented in this narrow strip adjacent to the River Nile and Delta.  Thus, the present share from the cultivated land is only 0.126 (about 530 m2) Feddan/capita, which is a negligible share if compared with the same in many developing countries of the world.

According to the Nile Agreement between Egypt and Sudan in 1959, Egypt's share of the river Nile flow is 55.5 billion m3. Egypt consumes about 85% of its share for agricultural purposes, the rest for other purposes like water supply, industry and others.

The person's share from the Nile water flow including all utilization purposes is about 2.5 m3/day, as present population is now about 62 million capita.  Figure No.2 shows the water per capita from 1897 to 2025. To preserve the small quantity of person's share from water resources and agricultural land areas, the following actions are adopted simultaneously:

First:  Increasing the Productivity of the Current Cultivated Lands

Through developing the different irrigation methods, improving the efficiency of irrigation in fields and water conveyance in streams, applying efficient drainage systems and careful agricultural services and suitable fertilization, etc.

Second:  Imperative Horizontal Expansion and Increasing the Agricultural Lands

By reclaiming more desert lands to depart from the highly populated narrow valley.

Third:  Saving some of Renewable Water Resources

By non-conventional methods such as desalination of lakes brackish water and sea water, also recycling of sewage and agricultural drainage water to be reused in irrigation purposes, recycling ground water of the Nile valley to be used for different purposes.
 

VII- General Recommendations

As we previously mentioned in this paper famine, extreme poverty, instability, rapid population growth and deteriorating natural resources are characteristic features of the basin today specially in it's upper reaches.  There are several recommendations to be always kept in mind while developing this River in such circumstances:

- Cooperation among the Riparian States is the only way to develop an international river.
- The spirit of transparency and good will should prevail among countries sharing water courses to achieve the maximum benefit for the welfare of their peoples.
-  Riparian States should respect the existing treaties and conventions and rules and principles of international law.
-  Each country is entitled to an equitable share from the River without causing appreciable harm to other Riparian States and it should be done in a cooperative manner and with prior  consultations.
- The issue of the development of River should not be affected by any political crises.
- The River Nile still has a great potential which is not yet exploited and can be of great benefit to the peoples of the Nile Basin.
-  Cooperation among Nile Basin States, political stability and economic policy reforms will  attract the donors to help the Nile Basin States to develop their River.
-  An integrated plan for the development of the River Nile in a sustainable manner environmentally sound should always be our goal.
-  A cooperative framework should be established to develop the integrated plan and to supervise and manage the implementation of such plan.
 

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