Tanzania calls for Nile water agreement to be reviewed

Tanzania has called for the Comprehensive Framework Agreement signed by upstream Nile basin countries in 2010 and known as the Entebbe Agreement to be reviewed, the Anadolu news agency reported.

In a written document submitted to the Tanzanian parliament on Monday, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Bernard Kamillius Membe said that Tanzania feels that the chapter in the agreement that provides for equal and fair shares of the natural resources of the Nile for all states should be reviewed in favour of Egypt on the grounds that it is a desert country where the Nile constitutes the main lifeline.

In 2010, the upstream states of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania signed a framework agreement in the Ugandan capital Entebbe to seek more Nile water. In the following year, Burundi joined the Comprehensive Framework Agreement that aims to get rid of the older, colonial era agreement that offered Egypt and Sudan the lion’s share of the Nile’s water.