Access to Water

Access to water
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Ethiopia and Egypt have a longstanding conflict over the Nile River which runs through North and Northeastern Africa and ending into the Mediterranean Sea. The White Nile and Blue Nile that start around Lake Victoria in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Lake Tana in Ethiopia respectively. The Nile River prominently contributes to Egyptian identity. It is the main source of the country’s fresh water contributing 96 percent of the water requirements. The Nile valley also supports 98 percent of Egyptian population. It supplies water for agricultural irrigation, industrial production and sewage treatment as the country receives the least rainfall in Africa. Egypt thus considers the Nile as a major component of its economic security (Kezar, 2014).
Ethiopia as one of the riparian states provides eighty five percent of river Nile’s water through Blue Nile and Atbara River that Egypt depends on (Abebe, 2014). Despite Ethiopia providing most of the waters to the Nile, it is constantly plagued with drought and even though it has 68 percent of the Nile basin fresh water at its disposal. Ethiopia embarked on a plan to further exploit its water resources by initiating a Dam project in 2011. The project is 20 percent ready to date, but it stirred significant concern from Egypt. Egypt is concerned that the project would divert Blue Nile waters that ordinarily flow into the Nile and increased evaporation of the water from the dam project. Egypt fears a severe reduction in the overall volume of water flowing to the Nile valley in Egypt. Egypt and Ethiopia are currently in conflict over the shares of the Nile water resources they are entitled to use. Ethiopia has suffered severe threats from Egypt and in 2010, Egypt and Sudan planned to initiate military action against it. In 2013, President Morsi explored the possibility of supporting rebels in Ethiopia and the two countries publicly disagreed about a report on the impact of the Dam project (Abebe, 2014).
Israel has maintained disproportionate exploitation of the water resources as compared to Palestine since 1967. It imposed serious obstacles for Palestinians to access water resources by assuming legal and executive control over production and distribution of water from occupied territories. Israel had monopoly over the issuance of military orders by water officers that granted power to drill wells and initiate water projects in the occupied Palestinian territories. In 1982, Israel transferred management of the water resources in the West bank to an Israeli parastatal. This gesture portrayed Palestinians as mere residents without legal rights to land and water in the territory (Elmusa, 1993). Israel has continued control over the water sector in many Palestinian towns especially in the West bank. Historically, Israel cut off water supply in Palestinian communities as a political weapon such as during the 1989 April i...