Water Resources Management in Ethiopia: Implications for the Nile ...

of this is the 1987 Agreement on the Action Plan for Environmentally Sound Management of the Common Zambezi River System. The agreement focuses on coordinating environmental assessments, management plans, and legislation, and makes repeated mention of external actors such as the United Nations Environmental Program and World Bank. Similarly, two agreements signed in 1994 applying to Lake Victoria are heavily environmentally oriented in their outlooks, and Okaru-Bisant (1998) has outlined outside pressure as a factor in their creation and implementation. More recently, several agreements were signed in 2004 and 2005 among Volta Basin riparians to “create conditions necessary for the setting-up of an organization for the management of the water resources, ecosystems, and other related resources in the Volta basin with financial support from the European Union (Direction de l’Inventaire des Resources Hydrauliques, 2005).

In the area of water use, the North significantly influences water use in SSA through trade, as mentioned above, and the export of technology. International trade involves the production of large quantities of agricultural products in SSA countries for export to industrialized countries and food-deficient countries in the Near East, and the rapid expansion of disaster relief programs since the 1970s has resulted in the shipment of food to the South. While prolonged relief programs have become a disincentive for African farmers to increase food production and to carry out soil and water conservation activities (see chapter 8), the importation of foods has resulted in substantial water savings through “virtual water,” defined as “the volume of water required to produce a commodity or service” (Chapagain & Hoekstra, 2004, p. 12). Virtual water comprises about 16% of the global water use that is not used for domestic consumption but for export, mainly of agricultural products, and provides an alternative for river basin management (Chapagain & Hoekstra, 2004).

Many African countries have begun to develop alternative energy sources using technologies imported from the North in their effort to harness reliable and sustainable energy sources, reduce the use of biomass (fuel wood, charcoal, and animal waste), and restore watersheds.