Nile River Basin

The Open Water Diplomacy Lab project focusses on media, science and transboundary cooperation in the Nile. The project aims at studying the role of the media and science in transboundary waters negotiations, as well as at developing journalists’ and researchers’ capacities on water science communication. Despite COVID the project managed to continue with a number of podcast series on water conflict and cooperation hosted by Fiona Broom (SciDev.net). Also, the EverydayNile initiative continued, in which photojournalists from different Nile countries attended a series of workshops to think about the stories they want to tell to re-picture the river. The aim is to reflect on how to communicate and build bridges over the Nile’s troubled waters. Rather than creating a new website, this project presents and shares information on pre-existing websites of project partners.

Take a media tour, walk through timelines and read stories on the interactive website of the Nile Water Lab (also supported by DUPC2), by clicking here

To access the project page on the Water Journalists Africa site, click here

To access the InfoNile website, click here

The NBCBN Foundation, which has been independent since 2020, is a strategic partner of IHE Delft. The NBCBN's work focuses on fostering cooperation among water professionals from the Nile reparian countries through technical networks. NBCBN network members have progressed their water scarcity case studies on irrigation in Egypt and Sudan and climate change impact on rainfed agriculture Lake Victoria, as well as being actively involved in dissemination activities and presenting their work during conferences and learning sessions. The Water and Development Partnership Programme financially supported the NBCBN Foundation throughout the development of strategy and activity plans. 

Learn more by visiting the NBCBN website

The main goal of this research project is to support improved management of the Tekeze-Atbara water resources system, through informed decision making according to evaluation of costs and benefits of different scenarios for coordinated versus non-coordinated operation of the reservoirs system. The research mainly aims to identify and recommend designs of institutional set-ups for regional cooperation for the operation of the T-A reservoir system, given the information on different operation scenarios. The ultimate goal is to maximize the benefit from water resources of the T-A sub-basin, both at national level (Ethiopia, and Sudan), as well as at sub-basin level. The project has attempted an active communication strategy with local stakeholders, for example with the policymakers from the ministries of water in Ethiopia and Sudan. This has improved the local ownership of the project and is expected to enhance the chances of buy-in of project outputs. 

Learn more by visiting the project website

This project aims to strengthen the capacity of the Sudanese water sector in four priority thematic fields selected by the MoIWR. The thematic fields comprise topics related to: hydrology, water resources management, river engineering, irrigation and drainage, water harvesting, drinking water supply, as well as water governance. The project will invests in a dedicated group of staff and local experts who will become the change agents on these selected priority themes upon completion of the project. The training will target different levels of water experts. 

The rationale behind the project was that the groundwater in local communities in the South Darfur region (Ottash and Kass) had been shown to be contaminated as a result of extensive use of pit latrines in densely populated areas. Moreover, local sanitation services were not up to the needed quality, especially in public sanitation (low accountability regarding maintenance of the facility). The project aimed to support the local community developing their own safe sanitation practices. To achieve this, the production of educational material (manuals, posters, information cards) was foreseen, as well as its promotion. Material development was based on consultations with stakeholders; CBOs, technicians, and WASH experts. The internally displaced people’s (IDP) community was informed on safe sanitation practices with respect to construction, operation and maintenance, and financing. Finally, the project helped increase the ability of the municipalities and the WASH staff of Ministry of Health to adopt productive sanitation and locate health hazards associated with faecal sludge and solid waste.

A key output was a training manual which serves as a comprehensive guide on sanitation and recycling, designed for aid workers, community-based organizations (CBOs), and NGOs in Darfur. Find the training manual (in Arabic) here.

The sanitation Darfur project was funded by the DUPC2 programme (project 107797). The project was implemented from January 2016 until 2018.