IWMI Nile Basin and East Africa Sub Regional Office

Figure 1: Nile Basin and East African Countries

• Establishment of IWMI Nile Basin and East Africa Office
• Background About the Region
• IWMI’s Strategic Importance in the Region and Priority Research Areas
• Research Focus

Establishment of IWMI Nile Basin and East Africa Office

IWMI has established its sub-regional office for Nile Basin and Eastern Africa (NBEA) towards the end of year 2003. Before the establishment of the sub-regional office, IWMI has been operating in the sub-region on a project basis such as in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia. IWMI has also history of working in the Sudan in late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Background about the Region

The Nile Basin and Eastern Africa (NBEA) sub-region comprises 13 countries – 10 countries that share the Nile waters (Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda) and Djibouti, Somalia and Madagascar (See Figure 1). Currently, IWMI is mainly active in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In addition, through some basin wide research projects IWMI is covering all the Nile Basin countries.

The Nile basin is home to an estimated 175 million people and more than 330 million people live in the NBEA sub-region. The Nile Basin and East Africa sub-region is far from being homogenous in terms of agro-ecology, socio-economic development, historical and political background. The Sub-region, despite having significant water and land resources, has the highest proportion of people living below the poverty line and is one of the most food insecure sub-regions in the world. Dependence on subsistence, rain-fed agriculture, coupled with high rainfall variability, is one of the main causes of food insecurity. Drought is a frequent and recurrent event throughout much of the sub-region, the impacts of which are made worse by HIV-AIDS, conflicts and war. The majority of the people, over 70%, depend on subsistence agriculture. It is possible to transform the sub-region to a better state through appropriate management and development of land and water resources among others.

The Nile Basin contains the longest river in the world, has an area of 3,030,000 sq. km. It is a source of ample opportunity for development of the socio-economy of the countries in the region. However, the Nile is not the only significant river in the sub-region; there are numerous other river basins that could be harnessed for beneficial uses through improved water and land management. Hence, although Nile is one of the bench mark basins of CWPF and focus basin of IWMI, we continue to work in other river basins of the sub-region.

Figure 2: Nile Basin (source: www.nilebasin.org )

IWMI’s Strategic Importance in the Region and Priority Research Areas

IWMI has been very influential in shaping the global debate on water, food and environment. IWMI’s mission is to improve the management of land and water resources while contributing to the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals of attaining food and livelihood security for poor communities and the sustainability of the environment. IWMI’s research agenda is therefore organized around four priority themes covering key issues relating to land, water, livelihoods, health and environment. IWMI’s vision is to be a world class knowledge center on water, food and environment by the year 2008. IWMI is moving towards this goal through the implementation of four roles of knowledge generation, sharing, application and brokering, and by building strategic research alliances with key partners in the North and South. IWMI also strive for excellence in research by building an organizational culture of impact, performance and service. The challenges in the NBEA sub-region are intrinsic and require a variety of actions – technical, institutional, policy and capacity-related - on the part of a number of stakeholders, on a number of fronts, and at different scales.

Research Focus in East Africa

The key directions for research in NBEA are derived from IWMI’s mission, conceptual framework and MTP seen together with the sub-regional challenges that are important in terms of poverty alleviation, and sustainable water management for food production, livelihood and nature.

Thus, research projects of IWMI would be designed based on relevance and effectivness (i.e. targeted, well organized and with crucial partners) in addressing the crucial needs. The projects would therefore have natures of:

• Global and continental (regional) oriented research programs – that contribute to the regional and to global public goods
• Sub-regional and basin wide programs and
• Country specific programs

The key priority areas that would be highly relevant and could be implemented by IWMI and its partners in NBEA are identified to be four. These include:

1. Nile Basin Water Resources Management
2. Small Scale Land and Water Management Interventions
3. Multiple Water Use and Development Systems
4. Improved Irrigation Management