Nile Basin states appeal to UN over failure to access climate funds

Walter Menya in the East African: Ten African countries have appealed to the United Nations, funding agencies and the developed nations to eliminate bottlenecks to access to climate change adaptation funds. Convening in Kigali, Rwanda for the 3rd Nile Basin Development Forum from October 26 to 28, ministers in charge of water resources from the Nile Basin countries underscored the need to remove the bureaucracy that has slowed down access to the billions of dollars in the Climate Change Fund for developing nations.

The forum, attended by ministers, lawmakers, researchers and water experts under the theme “Climate Change and its Implications for Sustainable Development and Cooperation in the Nile Basin” also called on the African governments to establish national policies and initiatives for climate change adaptation that would not rely on donor funds.

The 16th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico, last year established a yearly fund, potentially worth up to $100 billion to help countries adapt to climate change. However, the participants from the Nile riparian states of Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, complained about inability to access the funds...

Map of the White Nile and the Blue Nile by Roke, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License