Kampala’s Nile Summit postponed to June

CAIRO – 15 Monday 2017:The Nile Council of Presidents summit, which Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had called for, was postponed to mid-June instead of being held as scheduled on May 25 in the Ugandan capital Kampala, according to Al-Shorouk Newspaper.

Ugandan President Museveni had called for the summit earlier this month in an attempt to reach agreements that would pave the way for Egypt’s return to the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI).

According to Al-Shorouk Newspaper the decision to postpone the summit was made to give Egypt a time limit to consider its position on the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), commonly known as the Entebbe agreement.

Egypt had withdrawn its membership in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 2010 to object to the Entebbe agreement terms that sought to renegotiate River Nile water quotas in order to increase the upstream countries’ share of water. The agreement also sought to pass resolutions based on the voting of members without Egypt or Sudan being consulted first. The agreement was heavily criticized by Egyptian authorities as being a prelude to more measures that would downgrade Egypt’s decisional powers.

Countries that signed the Entebbe agreement in 2011 included Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan. Both downstream countries Egypt and Sudan did not sign the agreement.