Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The Nile River Basin—shared by eleven countries and supporting over 300 million people—exemplifies the complexity of managing shared waters amid asymmetrical power relations, historical legacies, and competing development priorities. To advance the understanding of transboundary water governance and guide future cooperative strategies in the Nile Basin, a synthesis linking historical governance regimes with current contemporary frameworks is essential, as the existing literature is largely episodic, and its scope rarely includes recent governance developments. This review traces over a century of governance evolution, from pre-colonial and colonial allocation treaties through post-independence bilateral agreements to current institutional innovations and basin-wide initiatives. Historical and contemporary arrangements are assessed against principles of equitable and reasonable utilization, revealing persistent gaps in fairness, enforceability, and adaptive capacity. The analysis concludes by exploring emerging cooperation mechanisms and opportunities to transform the Nile from a locus of geopolitical tension into a model of equity-driven, cooperative governance.
Source: Water
DOI: 10.3390/w18020157
Authors: Duncan Kikoyo, Smith Patricia
Institution: Texas A&M University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7118907135