Kenya backs AU role in resolving Nile dam dispute

Kenya on Thursday called on the African Union to continue leading discussions on the Nile dam operations in Ethiopia, even as Egypt warned that Ethiopia’s mega hydro power project was “an existential threat.”

At a session of the UN Security Council, Kenya warned against “inflammatory remarks” but said the UN must allow the continental bloc to continue seeking for a long-term solution.

“Kenya recognises the critical importance of the principle of subsidiarity in this matter and recommends it to the Security Council,” Dr Martin Kimani, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Council’s session.

He was referring to a practice in diplomacy where regional blocs take leading roles in resolving issues within their jurisdictions, with supplementary effort from the UN and other outside parties.

“We call on the parties to recommit to negotiating in good faith within the AU-led process in a spirit fired by our shared dream of building a more united and prosperous Africa by 2063.

“Kenya has every confidence that our Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese brothers will make the principle of ‘African solutions for African challenges’ a reality.”

‘Not a security threat’

Kenya, a non-permanent member of the Council, spoke during an open in-person debate on “Peace and Security in Africa.”

Dr Kimani told the Security Council that the UN should back the African Union to ensure Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, who are squabbling over the use of the Nile, reach an amicable solution.

It was a subtle rejection of the UN Security Council’s role to place on its agenda the issue of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Ethiopia has erected on the Blue Nile.

Normally, the Council discusses issues that are a threat to global peace and security, and Kenya argued that the dam’s controversy had not yet reached that level.

Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan and nine other countries in the Nile Basin have “legitimate rights” on the use of the Nile, Dr Kimani said, and their differences and desires to secure waters for their people are not yet a threat to international peace and security “because the legal principles underlying the initiative are protective of all its members.”

Dr Kimani referred to the Nile Basin Initiative where riparian countries had been discussing equitable usage of the Nile, the world’s longest river.

The session, the second over GERD since 2020, was called by Africa’s other member of the Council, Tunisia, as Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia had each written to the Council after Addis Ababa launched the second filling of the GERD reservoir.