Egypt is launching a number of projects to support the Nile Basin countries and maximize the exploitation of water resources.
The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced the final preparations to equip the weather early warning center in Kinshasa, ahead of its inauguration next month.
It also dispatched the equipment for the center, and several Egyptian experts will arrive in Congo to install the equipment and start a trial operation.
Egypt experts will train the Congolese staff at the center on dealing with rain and flood forecasts and aerial imagery systems.
Minister Mohamed Abdel Ati announced that the new center is equipped with the latest rain forecast systems and will be concerned with studying climate change in Congo.
The center will contribute to protecting Congolese citizens from probable sudden climate disasters, Abdel Ati said.
The minister pointed out that Egypt established the Kinshasa center to transfer its expertise in the field of the integrated management of water resources to the Nile Basin countries.
Egypt and Congo signed a protocol for technical cooperation in the water resources field, under which the “Integrated Management for Water Resources” project is implemented, said the minister, adding that the project is carried out via an Egyptian grant to maximize Congo’s use of water resources and boost its capability to manage these resources.
Over the past few years, Egypt implemented a number of bilateral projects with the Nile Basin countries in the fields of water and electricity linkage, including rainwater harvesting dam, underground drinking water treatment plants to provide clean drinking water to remote areas that are far from the sources of water, fish farms, and river marinas.
Egypt and Sudan have been negotiating with Ethiopia for almost ten years to conclude a legal agreement regulating the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Addis Ababa built on the main tributary of the Nile to generate electric power.
Egypt and Sudan are calling for a binding legal agreement, that Ethiopia rejects, which led to the suspension of negotiations.
