Tag Archives: Egypt

Boutros Boutros Ghali Predicts Regional Water Wars

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In an interview with the BBC, former United Nations Secretary Boutros Boutros Ghali predicted that conflicts would soon arise between countries in the Nile basin over rights to water that flows through the Nile.

Egypt has long been the largest user of water from the Nile, but countries upstream are coming closer to more intensively using that water, which Boutros Ghali predicts will lead to conflict between Egypt and countries such as Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Boutros Ghali noted that Egypt’s population has more than tripled over the last 50 years and is still growing, putting heavy demand on Nile water resources. Boutros Ghali told the BBC,

The security of Egypt is related to the relation between Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and other African countries. The real problem is that we need an additional quantity of water and we will not have an additional quantity of water unless we find an a agreement with the upstream countries which also need water and have not used Nile water until now.

But the BBC interview failed to mention a major overriding problem with water in the Middle East and Africa — it is almost universally mismanaged, since it relies on bureaucracies setting water targets and policies rather than letting markets dictate the true cost of water.

In Egypt, for example, 85 percent of water goes to agriculture, and agricultural water use is micromanaged to the point where government committees plan out a year in advanced which crops will be allowed to grow where and how water will be allocated among them. Not surprisingly the result is large-scale inefficiency and misallocation of water resources.

Mismanagement of water is almost universal, even in countries such as the United States which don’t yet have severe water problems. But places like the Middle East and Northern African simply cannot afford to protect industries or individuals from the true cost and scarcity of water. Unfortunately, doing so is likely to prove very politically unpopular, but one can always hope that developing countries might prefer transparent markets in water to conflicts between states that may lead to larger problems, while leaving the underlying problem uncorrected.

Source:

Ex-UN chief warns of water wars. Mike Thompson, The BBC, February 2, 2005.

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Egyptian President Blames Birth Rate for Poor Economic Performance

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The BBC reported in September that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said that the real problem facing Egypt is its high birth. According to the BBC,

Now, President Mubarak’s remarks have touched on one of the most fundamental problems facing Egypt, and which is often forgotten when discussing the country’s problems – rapid population growth.

The number of Egyptians born every year far outpaces projected growth rates for the economy.

According to official figures, the population increases at the rate of about 2% annually.

At that rate, Mr Mubarak said, Egypt’s 70 million people will have grown to 85 million in 10 years’ time.

According to the International Monetary Fund, economic growth in Egypt is forecast to be about 3% for the next year – way below what is needed to absorb the ever growing number of the unemployed.

Give me a break.

Yes, Egypt still has a relatively high total fertility rate. In 1965, its TFR was 7.0, which fell to 3.4 by 1998. Egypt is currently projected to achieve a TFR of 2.0 sometime between 2020-2025.

Due to the age structure of Egypt’s population, this means that the country will stabilize at a population of around 115 million, compared to its 1995 population of 62.3 million.

But there is nothing inherent in such population growth that would cause unemployment and the other problems afflicting Egypt. Rather, those are due primarily to the general global economic downturn combined with Egyptian policies that deter foreign investment and generally have retarded Egyptian economic growth. There’s only so much economic growth you can squeeze out of low-yield agriculture and tourism.

Source:

Birth rate ‘hurts Egypt’s economy’. The BBC, September 22, 2003.

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Polio Cases Increase Thanks Largely to Indian Outbreak

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in April that cases of polio worldwide increased four-fold in 2002 due largely to an outbreak of the disease in India.

In 2001 there were only 483 confirmed cases of polio which shot up to 1,920 confirmed cases in polio after an outbreak in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. That was the single worst outbreak of the disease since the World Health Organization began its campaign to eradicate polio in 1988. Cases from the Indian outbreak constituted 71 percent of all polio cases in 2002.

Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Somalia also reported cases of polio in 2002.

Source:

Polio cases on the increase. The BBC, April 25, 2003.

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