The Nile Basin countries will this week meet in the Ugandan capital Kampala to deliberate on how they can harness the benefits of the Nile through trans-boundary power generation.

Betty Bigombe, Uganda’s minister of state for water, told reporters here on Wednesday that the 10 countries under the Nile Basin Initiative will meet on Feb. 21. The member states include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Bigombe said the meeting is part of the commemoration of the Nile Day whose theme this year is “Water and Energy: National Challenges, Trans-boundary Solutions”.

“If each Nile Riparian State was to pursue and implement its national hydro power infrastructure development plans on the River Nile without consideration of the larger river basin context, there is a risk that some of the national hydropower investment could be sub optimal and foreclose future development opportunities,” she said.

“Trans-boundary cooperation in power infrastructure development would provide significant reduction in project financing, promote regional power trade and markets and improve power reliability and affordability,” she added.

She said there are ongoing power interconnection projects which will facilitate power trade among the Nile Basin member states.

She cited the Regional Transmission Interconnection Project which will facilitate power trade among Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The project under implementation will construct an estimated 1,500 km of transmission lines and associated sub- stations at a total cost of 403 million U.S. dollars.

Besides the power interconnection projects there are other power investment projects which include the soon to be implemented 470 million dollars Regional Rusumo Falls Hydro-electric project, which will generate 80 MW that will benefit Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Source: KAMPALA, Feb 19, 2014 (Xinhua via COMTEX) —