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`Peace can`t be divorced from environment`
2007-02-28 10:04:01
By Emmanuel Kihaule, Kampala
Instability and conflict are bound to keep on recurring among countries in the Nile River Basin if efforts to bring peace, security and prosperity in the region will continue to be treated separately from environmental issues.
This was said at the weekend by Prof Oweyegha-Afunaduula of Makerere University during Uganda’s national Nile River Day Celebrations that were held in Kampala.
`Effective management of environment and its resources in the basin will ensure more stable peace, security, and prosperity to member states and their respective communities,` he said.
According to Prof. Afunaduula, who is also the chairman of a Nile River NGOs platform, Uganda Nile Basin Discourse Forum, the general tendency among the Nile Basin Initiative member states has been the treatment of environment as separate from peace, security and prosperity.
`We need to ask ourselves how environmentally peaceful, secure and prosperous are the countries and communities in the Nile Basin. Peace, security and prosperity should not be for a short time but for a longer period so as to realize the real benefits. This is only possible if we give the environment its due respect,` he emphasized.
Commenting on the recent reports of water shrinking in Lake Victoria which is the major source of the river, the Makerere University don wondered whether there could still be hope, if the river, which has been regarded as the ‘River of Hope’ is also shrinking as a consequence.
He cautioned that it was necessary for the initiative to see to it that all member states mutually benefited from the river and its resources.
`We must ask ourselves how the member countries are benefiting. The issue is not sharing but how much do they share the benefits,` he said
NBI comprises Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan.
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