Egypt hands over chairmanship of Nile-COM to Ethiopia

Saturday, 26 June 2010 10:44
By Zekarias Sintayehu

Egypt will hand over chairmanship of the Nile Council of Ministries (Nile-COM) to Ethiopia at the 18th Ordinary meeting of the council which will be held for two days staring from today in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia will hold the rotating chairmanship of the Nile-COM for one year effective June 2010, Tefera Beyene, Director, Trans and Trans-boundary Rivers Administration Directorate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Reporter.

He disclosed that the agenda of the meeting is to review the activities and performance of NBI during the fiscal year 2009/2010 as well as to approve the work plan and budget for the fiscal year 2010/2011.”
The meeting will be held under the theme “Working together for a better future.”

Even though Burundi’s water minister will not attend the meeting, its technical team will participate on Nile Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC) meeting. According to Tefera, though all members of NBI are expected to participate on the meeting, some countries might not attend the meeting due to various reasons.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, which currently holds the position of Executive Director of the NBI Secretariat, will be replaced by Egypt effective September 2010.

It is a tradition within NBI to rotate the NILE-COM chair and Executive Director of NBI Secretariat among the member states in alphabetical order. The position of NILE-COM chair rotates on an annual basis whereas the Executive Director rotates every two years.

The 2010/2011 work plan and budget was earlier reviewed by NBI and the World Bank team.

The World Bank manages the NBI Trust Fund, which is a contribution from different development partners.

Source: The Reporter