Egypt’s refusal to ratify a Nile water-sharing treaty continues to hold up the full launch of a permanent commission meant to govern the river basin, Ethiopian officials and regional experts said, deepening a long-running rift between the two countries.
The Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which envisions a permanent Nile River Basin Commission to replace the interim Nile Basin Initiative, took legal effect in October 2024 after securing ratification from six member states. Egypt, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo have not ratified the pact and say they are not bound by it.
Ethiopian officials say Cairo’s continued rejection of the framework, combined with its diplomatic outreach to other Nile Basin states, is intended to slow the new commission from gaining the institutional authority needed to challenge water-sharing arrangements rooted in decades-old treaties that favoured Egypt.
Talks aimed at bringing Egypt and other holdout states back into the framework collapsed earlier this year. Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea had pushed for downstream countries to have a greater role in decision-making, while a bloc led by Ethiopia rejected the proposed terms, leading to a deadlock that both sides blamed on the other.
Egyptian officials argue the reorganisation cannot succeed without Cairo and Khartoum as signatories and have called recent developments within the Nile Basin Initiative a diplomatic win for Egypt’s position.
Ethiopia maintains the commission is already operational among the states that have ratified the agreement and has repeatedly called on all basin countries to sign on, saying full participation is needed to advance joint management of the river’s resources.
The dispute is playing out against a backdrop of heightened tension over Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, which Cairo says threatens its water security. Egypt depends on the Nile for nearly all its freshwater and has repeatedly said it will not accept new upstream dam projects without a binding agreement, while Ethiopia insists it has the sovereign right to develop resources within its own territory.
