The Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO), the executive arm of the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP), signed two grant agreements totaling US$ 13.5 Million on September 9th 2009 with the Worldbank in its capacity as administrator of the Nile Basin Trust Fund (NBTF). Of the two grant agreements, one in the amount of US$ 6.5 Million has been earmarked by the Government of France from the NBTF for the implementation of the Eastern Nile Planning Model (ENPM).  The remaining US$ 7 Million has been allocated from the NBTF for the Joint Multipurpose Project-1(JMP-1) Identification phase. Signing on behalf of ENTRO was the Executive Director Dr. Ahmed Khalid Eldaw and present at the occasion were the Worldbank Country Director, Mr. Kenichi Ohashi, H.E the Ambassador of France to Ethiopia Mr. Jean-Christophe Belliard.

The Royal Norwegian and the Royal Netherlands Embassies were also represented in the occasion. The Eastern Nile Subsidiary Action Team (ENSAPT), staff from the Ministries of Water Resources of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan as well as the Worldbank and ENTRO were also present at the event.  

 The trans-boundary nature of the Eastern Nile (Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan) offers a unique opportunity for cooperative water resources development and management for the three sisterly countries of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. The Joint Multipurpose Program JMP1- one of the projects, whose funding grant agreement is being signed today, will result in the establishment of three-country, joint institutions and infrastructure. JMP is expected to make significant contribution to the three countries’ adaptive capacity and resilience to Climate Change, which is expected to impact the Eastern Nile significantly. JMP will have major forward linkages into regional relations and trade in the sub-region and provide transformational socio-economic benefits. Moreover, JMP will enable the joint management of risk of water-related impacts (in particular floods, droughts and climate change) and the joint development of productive opportunities. The Joint Multipurpose Project -1, the first project within the JMP, aims to contribute to transformational and sustainable socio-economic development, economic integration and stability in the EN region.  

The other grant agreement signed is for the Eastern Nile Planning Model (ENPM). Investments of the scale of the JMP require a shared knowledge base and appropriate analytical tools to effectively support cooperative regional decision making among multiple stakeholders.  Currently such knowledge base and analytical tools are not available. The ENPM is designed to rectify this situation. ENPM is a tool that would allow the Eastern Nile countries to adopt an improved decision support modeling framework to identify water-related investments and evaluate them in a regional context.  The project is intended to strengthen the knowledge, modeling, and stakeholder interaction capacity of regional and national institutions to plan for water resources investments in a regional context, with appropriate regard to economic, environmental and social aspects.
This momentous occasion marks one more step forward in cooperation amongst the three Eastern Nile Countries of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan with the cooperation of their development partners.