DEVELOPMENT AID IN AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT: USING MICROFINANCE TO PROMOTE EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE WATER USE IN THE NILE BASIN

Abstract:

Water resource management plays a critical character in everything from the viability of individual communities to regional political stability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Nile Basin. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a new effort to overcome historical clashes above use of the Nile's waters in order to achieve a basin-wide framework for transboundary cooperation. individual element of NBI focuses upon community-level action in furtherance of transboundary cooperation, and includes a microgrant program to help achieve its goals. Significantly, however, NBI does not include a microcredit program. This Note argues that, in light of the reaching far down connections between inadequate water resources and the marginalization of women and the poor, NBI should continuation its microgrant program with microcredit programs to further its goals. More broadly, this Note advocates for the use of microcredit programs-which are generally implemented solitary in the development aid arena-in an environmental connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts

INTRODUCTION

Thirty years ago, Egypt a lower riparian of the Nile, nevertheless a dominant regional power, issued military threats against its upstream neighbors to thwart them from interfering with the Nile's flow1 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stated in 1970 that "'[t]ampering with the rights of a nation to water is tampering with its life; and a decision to proceed to war on this score is indisputable in the international community.'"2 In 1988 Boutro Boutros-Ghali, Egypt's Minister of State Foreign Affairs, stated that the Nile would cause the nearest war in the Middle East.3 Tension above water rights continued into the large bay War in 1991, when media reports indicateed that Sudan was aiming missiles at the Aswan High Dam in Egypt4 Although a "water war" has not notwithstanding occurred, it is essential for futurity social and political stability in this region that the Nile's ten riparian states-Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zaire, Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt-achieve a cooperative scheme for use of the Nile's water.5 Leaders of these states have indicated a greater willingness to cooperate with regard to water rights to the Nile.6

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), launched in 1999 provides a comprehensive plan for transboundary cooperation above the Nile River.7 The plan uses a '"transitional arrangement'" to nourish information sharing and technical assistance as well as joint exhibition initiatives until a '"permanent legal framework'" is in place.8 Significantly, the plan incorporates basin-, subbasin-, and community-level approaches to promoting transboundary cooperation, and recognizes the connection between economic and environmental issues.9 For example, the community-level throws in NBI include a small-grant program.10 These grants, known as microgrants, are intended to be awarded to local communities to "support community-driven interventions to address transboundary environmental threats upon a local scale."11 Distinct from microgrants are microloans-small, unsecur loans ofttimes given on an individual basis and a tool generally seen as part of unravelling aid12-which are not an ultimate part of NBI. This Note argues that microcredit, when used in conjunction with existing strategies in international environmental law and policy, can make significant contributions to water resource management in the developing world.

Part I explores the geographical, historical, and hydropolitical settings for conflict in the Nile Basin. The historical failure of largescale cooperation above water resource management in the Nile Basin, combined with local and regional power labors have contributed to problems of water scarcity and water-related inequities. Part II examines the cooperative framework created by the agency of NBI and details its funding construction Part III describes problems arising from state ascendency over water management practices. Part III emphasizes the value of a human rights approach to environmental resource management, and considers the implications of addressing a human right to water. by dint of accepting the viability of a human rights approach to water resource management, single can begin to import unravelling aid tools, such as microgrants, into environmental resource management Part IV provides a closer gaze at funding structures available end the World Bank and other international organizations. Part V at hands ways in which microcredit may be used in the connection of water resource management. Although microcredit is typically viewed as unravelling aid for purposes of stimulating a local economy or reducing indigence microcredit programs can be implemented for broader policy objectives. This Note terminates that, in light of the sturdy correlation between poverty and environmental resources, microcredit can further the goals of international environmental casts in the developing world in general, and in the Nile Basin in particular.

I. THE NILE RIVER AND HYDROPOLITICS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

A. The Nile River

The Nile River is the world's longest river and the lifeblood of Eastern Africa, providing sustenance and power for centurys of thousands of people in this politically volatile region.13 The Nile has the largest number of riparian states in the developing world, and streams through some of the youngest sovereign states in the developing world.14