Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has called on Nile Basin countries to engage in strategic level discussions on River Nile issues to benefit all the beneficiary countries.

“If you start from the parochial point of what Uganda alone stands to benefit without knowing that Uganda’s prosperity depends on others, then you will lose out,” Museveni said at the first Nile Basin Heads of State Summit on Thursday.

The summit held at Uganda’s State House in Entebbe seeks to find solutions to the issues surrounding the Entebbe Agreement signed in Uganda over the sharing and use of the Nile water.

In 2010, seven of the Nile Basin countries – Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Burundi and DR Congo – signed the Entebbe Agreement in Uganda except Egypt and Sudan who disagreed with the reallocation in favour of the historical water sharing quota.

All Nile Valley countries should be assisted to develop and become first world countries. It is why we called this strategic conference.

According to the historical treaties signed in 1959, Cairo has the right to a water share of 55.5 billion cubic metres a year out of the river’s total flow of around 84 billion cubic metres, while Sudan has the rest.

Egypt and Sudan subsequently withdrew from the bloc the same year, until 2012 when Sudan rejoined and later Egypt, in July 2016.

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