** د.سويلم يلتقي مراسلي وسائل الإعلام الأجنبية في جلسة
إحاطة موسعة نظمتها الهيئة العامة للاستعلامات
- وزير الري يستعرض بالأرقام حقيقة الوضع المائي في مصر وحوض
النيل، وجهود مصر لدعم التنمية والتعاون، وموقفها من السد الإثيوبي والتصرفات
الأحادية على النيل الشرقي
- وزير الري يستعرض الإمكانات المائية الضخمة لإثيوبيا
واستخداماتها الواسعة للمياه الخضراء والزرقاء مقارنة بالوضع المائي شديد الندرة
في مصر
استهل الدكتور سويلم العرض باستعراض خصوصية الوضع المائي المصري، موضحًا أن
أكثر من ٩٨% من الموارد المائية المتجددة لمصر ترتبط بمياه تأتي من خارج حدودها،
وأن الموارد المائية المتجددة لا تتجاوز نحو ٥٦.٨٠ مليار متر مكعب سنويًا، في
الوقت الذي تصل فيه الاحتياجات المائية إلى نحو ١٢٣ مليار متر مكعب سنويًا، بينما
يبلغ نصيب الفرد من الموارد المائية المتجددة نحو ٤٧٢ مترًا مكعبًا سنويًا، بما
يضع مصر تحت حد الندرة المائية المطلقة البالغ ٥٠٠ متر مكعب للفرد سنويًا.
انتقل الدكتور سويلم إلى التعاون مع دول حوض النيل، مؤكدًا أن دعم مصر
للتنمية في دول الحوض موقفا عمليا وليس شعارًا سياسيًا، واستعرض عددًا من
المشروعات المصرية التي تشمل حفر نحو ٣٦٥ بئرًا وإنشاء محطات مياه جوفية تعمل
بالطاقة الشمسية في عدد من دول الحوض، وخزانات لحصاد مياه الأمطار، ومراسي نهرية،
ومراكز للتنبؤ بالأمطار والفيضانات، ومعامل لتحليل نوعية المياه، ومشروعات للحماية
من الفيضانات ومقاومة الحشائش المائية، إلى جانب تدريب نحو ١٦٥٠ متدربًا من
الاشقاء بدول حوض النيل والدول الافريقية، بإجمالي مشروعات تعاون يتجاوز ١٢٠ مليون
دولار.
أوضح أن مصر لا تكتفي بدعم المشروعات المتفق عليها، بل تعمل أيضًا مع شركاء التنمية وجهات التمويل على حشد الموارد اللازمة لها، مؤكدًا أن المعيار المصري واحد تجاه جميع المشروعات على المجاري المائية المشتركة وهو تطبيق قواعد القانون الدولي على الجميع دون استثناء ورفض الإجراءات الأحادية.
في ختام الجلسة، أكد الدكتور سويلم أن الموقف المصري يقوم على معادلة واضحة لا تناقض فيها: تعاون كامل ودعم حقيقي لتنمية دول حوض النيل مع الالتزام بقواعد القانون الدولي، وحماية الأمن المائي المصري ورفض النهج الأحادي.
#وزارة_الموارد_المائية_والري
Dr. Soweilem Meets Foreign Media Correspondents in an Extended Briefing Session Organized by the State Information Service
- More than 80 correspondents
representing around 45 foreign media outlets participated.
- The Minister of Irrigation
reviews, with figures, the reality of the water situation in Egypt and the
Nile Basin, Egypt’s efforts to support development and cooperation, and
its position on the Ethiopian dam and unilateral actions on the Eastern
Nile.
- The Minister of Irrigation
reviews Ethiopia’s vast water resources and its extensive use of green
water and blue water compared with the severe water-scarcity situation in
Egypt.
The State Information Service organized an extended
briefing session for Professor Dr. Hani Soweilem, Minister of Water Resources
and Irrigation, with representatives of regional and international media and
foreign correspondents accredited in Cairo, in the presence of Ambassador Alaa
Youssef, Chairman of the State Information Service, and with the participation
of more than 80 correspondents representing around 45 foreign media outlets.
The session was organized within the framework of
strengthening direct communication with foreign media, providing official data
and information on water issues, explaining the Egyptian vision regarding the
management of water resources and cooperation in the Nile Basin, and the
efforts undertaken by the state to protect its water security and support
development in African countries.
The session included an explanatory presentation
delivered by Dr. Soweilem, followed by an open dialogue with the foreign
correspondents. The discussion addressed the water situation in Egypt, national
efforts to confront water scarcity, cooperation with the Nile Basin countries,
the Cooperative Framework Agreement, the ongoing consultative process among the
Basin countries, Africa’s Water Vision 2063, water resources and energy
potential in Ethiopia, as well as the Ethiopian dam and the rules governing
international rivers.
Egypt’s Water Situation and the State of Water in the
Nile Basin
Dr. Soweilem began the presentation by reviewing the
particularity of Egypt’s water situation, explaining that more than 98% of
Egypt’s renewable water resources are linked to water coming from outside its
borders, and that renewable water resources do not exceed approximately 56.80
billion cubic meters annually, while water needs reach approximately 123
billion cubic meters annually. Meanwhile, per-capita renewable water resources
amount to approximately 472 cubic meters annually, placing Egypt below the
absolute water-scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year.
Dr. Soweilem reviewed the enormous efforts undertaken
by the state to confront these challenges, explaining that Egypt reuses approximately
23.20 billion cubic meters of water annually, and that major national projects
for treating agricultural drainage water have added treatment capacity of
approximately 4.80 billion cubic meters annually, in addition to expanding
desalination, using groundwater, benefiting from virtual water through food
imports, and moving toward smart management using telemetry systems, satellite
images, artificial intelligence, mathematical models, and drones.
Dr. Soweilem stressed that desalination represents a
complementary resource within the Egyptian water-management system, but it will
not replace Nile River water. He reviewed the pillars of the second generation
of the Egyptian water system 2.0, which aims to move toward smarter, more
efficient, and more resilient management through expanding water treatment and
reuse, automated monitoring, telemetry, satellite images, and artificial
intelligence; developing infrastructure and water facilities; improving
forecasting of Nile inflows and linking it to the strategic operation of the
High Aswan Dam; in addition to adapting to climate change, implementing the
national project for regulating the Nile River and its two branches, and
strengthening governance, awareness, and regional and international work on
water issues.
Dr. Soweilem affirmed that the Egyptian citizen should
be reassured that the state continuously follows the water situation, possesses
advanced systems for monitoring, forecasting, planning, and managing different
scenarios, and that the citizen’s water security is a priority that cannot be
compromised.
He explained that the precise management of the High
Aswan Dam, the strategic reserve, and the water-distribution system contributed
to dealing with highly complex water conditions and preventing many
repercussions from reaching the citizen, while emphasizing that Egypt’s ability
to manage risks internally does not exempt any other country from its
obligations concerning the international river.
Dr. Soweilem then moved to present the complete picture
of water resources in the Nile Basin, explaining that the Basin receives
approximately 2,000 billion cubic meters of rainfall annually, while the
average amount that continues through the Nile River to Aswan is only about 84
billion cubic meters, representing approximately 4% to 5% of the Basin’s total
rainfall.
In response to what some claim, that Egypt receives the
lion’s share of the Nile waters, the minister explained that Egypt’s share of
55.50 billion cubic meters represents only about 2.70% when compared with the
nearly 2,000 billion cubic meters of rainfall falling over the Nile Basin. He
added that looking at the complete picture of resources and uses reveals that
portraying Egypt as the country that appropriates the largest portion of the
Basin’s resources does not correspond with the water facts on the ground. Egypt
is a highly arid country that relies almost entirely on the Nile. He explained
that Ethiopia, for example, received more than 1,000 billion cubic meters of
rainfall in 2023, of which approximately 467 billion cubic meters fell on the
Ethiopian part located within the Nile Basin, while its renewable water
resources are estimated at approximately 122 billion cubic meters annually.
He pointed out that estimates according to the latest
Ethiopian studies indicate that the amount of groundwater recharge in Ethiopia
ranges between 51 and 81 billion cubic meters annually. These quantities are
replenished in connection with rainfall, in a fundamental difference from the
situation of the deep groundwater on which Egypt relies, which represents a
non-renewable resource.
He added that Ethiopia possesses more than 18 million
hectares of agricultural land, compared with approximately 4.03 million
hectares in Egypt, and that wide areas of Ethiopian land depend directly on
rain-fed agriculture, alongside areas irrigated through direct abstraction from
water resources. Estimates indicate the use of approximately 148 billion cubic
meters annually of green water in Ethiopian rain-fed agriculture, in addition to
approximately 9.68 billion cubic meters of blue water used directly in
agriculture. Thus, the estimated agricultural use of these two resources alone
approaches 158 billion cubic meters annually. He added that the water footprint
associated with Ethiopia’s livestock sector is estimated at approximately 85.50
billion cubic meters annually.
Dr. Soweilem affirmed that these figures confirm that
Ethiopian development is not dependent on controlling the waters of the Blue
Nile and that Ethiopia benefits from its water resources, considering that
ignoring green water, rainfall, groundwater, agricultural uses, and livestock
uses presents an incomplete picture of the reality of the water situation.
Cooperation with the Brothers in the Nile Basin
Dr. Soweilem then moved to cooperation with the Nile
Basin countries, affirming that Egypt’s support for development in the Basin
countries is a practical position and not a political slogan. He reviewed a
number of Egyptian projects that include drilling approximately 365 wells and
establishing solar-powered groundwater stations in a number of Basin countries,
rainwater-harvesting reservoirs, river ports, rainfall and flood forecasting
centers, water-quality analysis laboratories, flood-protection and aquatic-weed
control projects, in addition to training approximately 1,650 participants from
the brothers in the Nile Basin countries and African countries, with total
cooperation projects exceeding USD 120 million.
He noted that Egypt has also launched a new financing
mechanism with initial funding of USD 100 million to study and implement
development projects in the Nile Basin countries according to the priorities of
those countries, including infrastructure projects and dams in the southern
Nile Basin countries.
The minister referred to the Julius Nyerere Dam in
Tanzania as a practical model of constructive cooperation in the Nile Basin
countries, affirming that Tanzanian-Egyptian cooperation and the result is a
shared gain, and that the project provides a model for providing energy to
Tanzania and the possibility of using it to support regional integration,
electricity interconnection, and electricity trade among Tanzania’s neighboring
countries.
Within the framework of Egyptian support for
development in the sister Nile Basin countries, Dr. Soweilem addressed the
Investment Program of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), explaining that it is a
regional framework for preparing priority projects and enhancing their
technical, environmental, and social readiness before moving to mobilizing
financing and implementation.
He explained that Egypt agreed to proceed with
mobilizing financing for a package comprising 36 projects in the southern Nile
Basin after studying them, exchanging information about them, assessing their
impacts, and consulting and reaching consensus on them. The projects include
hydropower projects, electricity interconnection, electricity transmission
lines, water supplies, multipurpose projects, and others.
The minister addressed the Grand Fula Dam project in
South Sudan, explaining that the project was discussed within the framework of
the institutions of the Nile Basin Initiative and the Investment Program and
through mechanisms for cooperation, information exchange, and consultation. He
affirmed Egypt’s support for sisterly South Sudan in achieving its development
objectives, including this project. He affirmed that this experience provides
practical evidence that applying the rules of international law, including
prior notification, consultation, information exchange, completion of impact
assessment studies, and consensus, achieves common benefit and sustainable
development; enhances project readiness and opens the way for international
financing.
He explained that Egypt does not limit itself to
supporting agreed projects, but also works with development partners and
financing institutions to mobilize the resources necessary for them, affirming
that Egypt’s criterion is the same toward all projects on shared waterways:
applying the rules of international law to everyone without exception and
rejecting unilateral actions.
In this context, he referred to the possibility of
returning to the records of the World Bank, which confirm that Egypt has never
previously objected to a water project financed by the Bank in the Nile Basin
countries, as long as this project was carried out in accordance with the
international rules applied by the Bank.
The minister then addressed the position of cooperation
within the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and the status of the Cooperative
Framework Agreement (CFA). He stressed that Egypt considers it important to
have a permanent regional institution for the Nile Basin operating in
accordance with international law and that this institution should include all
Basin countries without exception. He explained that the Nile Basin Initiative
currently represents the only institutional framework bringing together the ten
Basin countries.
He explained that the Council of Ministers of Water
Affairs of the Basin countries launched, in November 2024, a consultative
process led by Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan to address the concerns of the
four countries that are not parties to the Cooperative Framework Agreement.
Egypt participated in this process in support of restoring consensus and
inclusiveness.
He noted that the report of the consultative process,
which was submitted to the Ministerial Council of the Initiative in December
2025, affirmed the importance of completing the consultative process with the
aim of developing the framework agreement to take into account the concerns of
all countries and restore consensus.
Dr. Soweilem added that Egypt insists on continuing
this process to bring the ten countries back into the “Nile Basin family” under
one umbrella, noting that Ethiopia is the only country that refused to continue
the consultative process at the meetings of the Ministerial Council in February
2026.
Dr. Soweilem reviewed Africa’s Water Vision 2063 and
its policies, explaining that they represent a continental reference for the
future of water in Africa and place cooperation on transboundary waters,
regional integration, and the application of the rules of international water
law at the heart of African water policy.
The minister noted that Egypt adheres to this African
reference and that all brothers on the continent should work in accordance with
this vision to achieve the common interests of African countries.
The Unilateral and Illegal Ethiopian Dam
Turning to the unilateral and illegal Ethiopian dam,
Dr. Soweilem affirmed that Egypt is a state of peace that possesses strength,
upholds international law, and knows when and how the appropriate reaction
should be made to protect its interests. He affirmed that Egypt retains all
measures and procedures guaranteed to it under international law to protect its
water security and the rights and interests of its people, and that all
legitimate options remain available to the Egyptian state. He stressed that
Egypt will not turn a blind eye to its existential interests in the Nile River
and will not accept illusions of control and domination over water flows to the
two downstream countries.
Dr. Soweilem explained that this is a deliberately
chosen political characterization based on a clear legal position regarding the
approach through which the dam was unilaterally constructed, filled, and operated.
He stressed that completion of construction or the passage of time does not
mean Egypt’s acceptance of the reality that was imposed, nor does it invalidate
its position or rights, and that it gives Egypt the right to deal with the
matter in the manner it considers to be in its interest, in accordance with the
option appropriate to it.
The minister affirmed that unilateral and uncoordinated
operation has demonstrated the dam’s ability to cause sudden increases in flows
(“artificial flooding”), or reductions in flows that could lead to “artificial
drought,” thereby disrupting the operation of dams and water facilities in the
two downstream countries.
Dr. Soweilem addressed the recent Ethiopian statements
that included discussion of controlling water for the two downstream countries,
considering that this language exposes the contradiction in the discourse that
presented the dam throughout the past years as a project for electricity, and
confirms the reality of Ethiopian intentions in attempts at unilateral
domination and control over the waters of the Nile River, in violation of
international law, which does not grant an upstream state the right to
unilaterally dispose of the transboundary water resource.
Conclusion
At the conclusion of the session, Dr. Soweilem affirmed
that the Egyptian position is based on a clear equation with no contradiction:
full cooperation and genuine support for the development of the Nile Basin
countries, while adhering to the rules of international law, protecting Egypt’s
water security, and rejecting the unilateral approach.
He affirmed that there are two clear models before
everyone: a successful cooperative model in the southern Nile Basin, in which
countries prepare and study projects, notify the parties, consult and reach consensus
regarding them, and then move to financing and implementation, with Egypt
supporting this model and participating in mobilizing financing for it; and, in
contrast, the negative model of the unilateral Ethiopian dam on the Eastern
Nile, which violates international law and causes harm to the two downstream
countries.
Dr. Soweilem concluded by stressing that Egypt’s water
security is an existential issue, and that the Egyptian citizen should be
reassured that the state monitors the situation around the clock and manages
its resources through an advanced scientific and technical system. The state
will not allow the citizen to bear the consequences of unilateral decisions
taken outside the country’s borders, nor will it allow the imposition of a new
fait accompli on the Eastern Nile to be repeated, while Egypt retains all its
rights and all measures guaranteed by international law.
#Ministry_of_Water_Resources_and_Irrigation
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