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Institutional and legal arrangements in the Nile River basin: suggestions for improvement of the current situation
KHALID MOHAMED EL-HASSAN ABDALLA
Omdurman Ahlia University, Faculty of Environmental Science, PO Box 8130, 12217 Khartoum, Sudan
Abstract This study attempts to suggest improvements to the current situation of the Nile River Basin (NRB), regarding institutional and legal arrangements. To achieve this, a comparative study using information on the current situation in NRB and from other two similar river basins (Mekong and Incomati River basins) has been carried out to design a desired situation in the Nile using the IWRM approach. As a result, examining the current situation in the three river basins based on the general ideal criteria of IWRM indicated that the NRB lacks many of these criteria, which resulted in many environmental drawbacks. The following recommendations are suggested to form the desired situation in the NRB: creating a higher authority at the national level, and river commission(s) at regional level; signing multilateral, bilateral, or even trilateral treaties regarding water allocation and sustainable water utilization to reach a holistic convention(s) to cover the entire basin; creating a conflicts resolution mechanism and rooting the stakeholders’ participation, as well as adopting subsidiarity concept; and finally establishing financing institutions.
Key words bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral treaties; conflict resolution mechanism; current situation; higher authority; ideal situation; institutional arrangements; integrated water resources management; legal framework; subsidiarity; water allocation