Nile Delta (Egypt)

The River Nile is the longest river in the world. It flows from Lake Victoria in East Central Africa through Uganda, Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean sea through a delta. While the river is 5,584 kilometres (ie, 3,470 miles) long, the delta has an area of about 3,349,000 square kilometres(ie,1,293,049 square miles).  At Khartoum in Sudan, the White Nile join the Blue Nile to bring down the black sediment to settle in the Nile delta in the months of June and October each year. This makes the delta very fertile for agriculture. Nevertheless, the Aswan High Dam constructed in the 1970s has controlled the flow of water to the point that it has reduced the sedimentation deposits.

b)      Development Paradigms

(i)      Structural, Institutional and Legal Frameworks: The Egyptian government has not paid adequate attention to establishing effective institutional and legal frameworks. It has always looked at it as a good source for agriculture. For this purpose, the government constructed Aswan dam in 1902 to boost power and agriculture-provision of storage water for cotton plantation. This was followed by Maker (now known as Senna) and Jabal Awliya dams across the Blue Nile and White Nile in the south of Khartoum in 1918 and 1937, respectively.  These dams have created their own problems by preventing the river from flooding and depositing renewed sediment at its mouth, thereby creating catastrophic superlatives. Thus, the delta is subsiding, sinking half centimetre every year.

(ii)     Human Capacity and Infrastructural Development: The dams have spurred commercial farming that has absorbed a large number of Egyptians, especially the youths and the vulnerable. Furthermore, the delta is fairly industrialised, with hydro-electric plants and shipping activities. The Nile Delta is the economic live-wire of Egypt even though most of the commercial establishments are owned and managed by Americans. This has consigned the host communities to low-level jobs, with limited opportunities for human capital development.

(iii)    Human Rights: In addition to the hazards caused by dams, the water is sullied by pesticides and fertilisers that leach from the soil. The heavy-duty plants have caused a high level of pollution. The water is polluted from toxic waste, causing liver diseases and renal failure. This is a result of the local farmer's inability to have access to clean water; they have to use the polluted water from the canals for bathing and washing of clothes.

(iv)    Resource Control and Management: The delta is rich in agricultural produce and cash crops.  Major occupations include animal husbandry and fishing.  The Egyptians rely heavily on their agricultural wealth, especially rice and cotton from the Nile River delta and it is one of the most cultivated wetlands in the world. The delta does not have crude oil. The study finds that as the principle of derivation is applied, it has motivated individual and corporate investments in farming.

(c)      Impact and Lessons for the Future: We noticed relative peace and security in the delta as the government has created the enabling environment to make every person feel that he/she is part and parcel of the development of the delta. There is the feeling of collective ownership. That has equally guided the environment-friendly attitude of the local communities, multinational companies, and government. Cases of environmental abuses that the study finds are the usual consequences of industrialisation. As the local communities are beginning to complain, the government is compelling the companies to implement globally accepted corporate social responsibilities.

We further noticed the absence of jointly coordinated plan among the three countries in harnessing the potentials of the delta. We wish that there should be a joint commission to save the delta from sinking.

The major policy implication is that, unlike the usual institutional frameworks found in other deltas, the Nile Delta is directly managed by the government as a parastatal. This partially accounts for its relative under-development.

Important results of this study are the appreciation of the enormous socio-economic contributions of the deltaic regions of the world, the heavy human (social) rights abuses in them, and the need for pan delta strategies for implementation. And for this purpose, we wish to call for a sweeping global mobilisation to save the deltas of the world from wanton destruction by those who profit at the expense of other people.