Nile River Basin Commission Nears Establishment

Ethiopia’s President hails CFA, GERD as epic milestones at UNGA

The long-awaited Nile River Basin Commission is nearing establishment, President Taye Atske-Selassie told the 80^th United Nations General Assembly taking place in New York as part of an address that touched on pressing regional and global issues.

“To the entry into force of the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework, the Entebbe based Nile River Basin Commission is nearing establishment,” stated President Taye.

The Nile Basin Initiative previously disclosed that the Commission will be established by September 2025. Nonetheless, progress has been delayed as Egypt, Sudan, and DRC refrain from ratifying the Cooperative Framework.

The President described the entry into force of the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework and the inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam as “milestones of great significance” for the people of the Nile River Basin.

“With the entry into force of the agreement on the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework, the Entebbe-based (Uganda) Nile River Basin Commission is nearing establishment,” he said of the overdue Commission, an intergovernmental body that will manage utilization of the Nile at the level of heads of government.

Egypt has been vehemently objecting to the creation of the NRBC for apparent fear that it would end its hegemony on the Nile while riparian countries increasingly demand equitable and reasonable utilization of the Nile waters and resources within the basin.

The Ethiopian president also described as another milestone the commissioning on September 9 of the USD five billion hydroelectric dam on one of the main tributaries of the Nile, the GERD, which he said, “transforms Ethiopia’s renewable energy generation capacity.”

With an installed capacity of over 5,000 megawatts, Taye told the Grand Debate of the UNGA, the GERD signified “…our commitment to clean energy for all. If true meaning is found in the lives it transforms, the Renaissance dam brings light to 60 million Ethiopians who currently lack access to any form of clean energy.”

He cited that Ethiopia’s energy demand is growing by more than 20 percent annually, and said the dam would extricate Ethiopian women and girls from “backbreaking search for fuel wood,” help the country achieve development goals, increase access to clean water for people who suffer from chronic shortage, create employment to young people and enhance regional connectivity.

Ethiopia exports electricity to Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya and plans to expand connectivity to as far as Tanzania and beyond.

Meanwhile, the President also highlighted the debt burdens Ethiopia has been reeling under of late. Chief among the crises that “continue to impact Africa’s capabilities to deliver on development,” he said, is “the compounding debt crisis.”

A recent joint report by the IMF and World Bank warns that Ethiopia’s debt levels continue to be increasingly unsustainable as the Horn of Africa nation has been dubbed a defaulter.

Taye urged for “new global action for debt cancellation, restructuring and suspension.”

Meanwhile, addressing regional security, he said his country was committed to fighting against terrorism in the region.

Taye called on the international community to extend the required support to the African Union peace missions, in particular the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM).

“Now is not the time to retreat from global action in combating terrorism,” said the President.

Touching on Ethiopia’s quest for sea access, the President said “Ethiopia with its second largest population in Africa and significant maritime trade place high importance on the safety and security of maritime navigation in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.”

He called for fair and equal access to the high seas and added that “no state should be locked out of opportunities for growth finance and technology due to geographical circumstances.”

The Ethiopian president also joined in the voices of several other African heads of state in calling for a reform to the United Nations Security architecture arguing that it was high time Africa was sufficiently represented in the UN Security Council.

Earlier, Kenya’s President William Ruto told the annual UN’s Grand Debate: “You cannot claim to be the United Nations while disregarding the voice of 54 nations. It is not possible.”