Sudan to host Nile Day 2020 in Khartoum

On February 22, 2020 at least 500 Nile Basin citizens as well as friends of the Nile will come together in Khartoum, The Sudan to commemorate the establishment of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). Marked annually, Nile Day is an important event on the NBI calendar, as it marked a major milestone in the history of Nile Cooperation. It was the first time that all Nile Basin countries agreed to come together to collectively take care of and jointly use the shared Nile Basin water resources to ensure win-win benefits for the current and future generations. The theme for this year is Joint Investments on the Nile for Regional Transformation. Nile Day 2020 presents a great opportunity to show case some of the investment projects prepared by NBI and to lay emphasis on the need for Member States to include in their respective national development plans and funding windows, investment projects yet to be implemented. Some of the completed investment projects in the Eastern Nile region include the 200MW Ethiopia - Sudan Interconnector benefitting nearly 1.4 million households; the Eastern Nile Flood Preparedness and Early Warning project-Phase 1 which created a credible system that links multiple stakeholders to work together to reduce the risk of flood devastation. The event will also build on the call for continued Nile cooperation as reiterated by Nile-COM members during the 20th anniversary celebrations held in Kigali, Rwanda. The Ministers restated that Nile cooperation is the only means to meet the growing demand for water, energy and food as well as tackle the negative impacts of climate change. This is the second time the Republic of The Sudan will be hosting this annual event, the first being in 2015.