Great Britain capitalized on its presence in Africa to come up with the 1929 Nile Water Agreement.
This agreement was signed between Egypt and Great Britain. At that time Britain had represented Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.
This first document gave Egypt the right to question on any development projects along the Nile which reduced the country’s water share from Nile River.
In 1959, another Agreement was signed between Sudan and Egypt building on the 1929 agreement. The new agreement allocated 55.5 billion cubic meters of water to Egypt and 18.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water to Sudan. Hence the two countries became beneficiaries of 74% of all water flowing through Nile River.
Later on the Nile Basin Initiative was formed by initially 9 countries (Kenya, Sudan, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Egypt, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.) Later on, South Sudan was added following its birth as the newest nation in Africa.
In 2010, the Upstream countries signed the Entebbe Agreement to allow all the other Nile Basin countries to construct projects and utilize the Nile Waters. Egypt was not happy and she accused the signatories of Entebbe Agreement of reallocating the water shares without her permission.
Now Egypt is seeking the help of the United States of America for a new Agreement to replace the Entebbe Agreement also called the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA).
