Stakeholders of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) Socio-economic Development and Benefit Sharing (SDBS) project recently expressed appreciation for the progress made by the project in developing the first phase of the Benefit Sharing Framework (BSF) for the Nile Basin countries and recommended that NBI puts in place dedicated staff to facilitate the development of the Stage2 and Stage3 of the BSF-Phase II, and its operationalisation.

This was at the end of a three-day (8-10 June 2009) workshop organized by SDBS at the Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala-Uganda, to disseminate to stakeholders the outputs of the project, review the linkage of SDBS with NBI and other institutions as well as identify actions to promote the sustainable utilization of the outputs.

H.E. José Endundo Bononge, Chairperson of the Nile Council of Ministers (NILE-COM) for Water Affairs, and Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism (DR Congo) will meet with his fellow Ministers of Water from the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) Member States on 22 May 2009 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The purpose of the meeting is to forge a way forward in finalizing the outstanding issue (Article 14b, Water Security) of the draft Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA).

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) yesterday officially launched a US$ 33.6 million Institutional Strengthening Project (ISP). The three-year project whose implementation took effect  in October 2008 provides the opportunity to consolidate gains so far made by NBI as well as strengthen the capacity of NBI’s investment programs in supporting Member States to design and implement more relevant and bankable investment projects.
The ISP will also enable NBI design ways and means to ensure sustainability, in addition to operating at the level of a World Class trans-boundary River Basin Organization.

The 6th Annual Nile Basin Trust Fund (NBTF) meeting, sponsored by the Worldbank, opened today in Entebbe, Uganda, with a call on Development Partners to continue to help the Nile Basin Initiative strengthen its institutional and management capacity to more effectively deliver NBI programs and projects.

At the opening ceremony, Mr. José Endundo Bononge, the chairperson of the Nile Council of Ministers in charge of Water Affairs, briefed the audience about the outcomes of the consultative meetings over the Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) he had undertaken in the eight countries of the Nile Basin.  “It becomes obvious to me that all the countries have unanimously expressed their interest in adopting and signing the Nile Cooperative Agreement,” Mr. Endundo said.