Hussein held talks Oct. 25 with Egyptian Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Mohamed Abdel-Ati to discuss water cooperation between Egypt and Somalia including\u00a0Egyptian support for Somalia to build dams<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>and develop irrigation systems\u00a0<\/strong>in the Horn of Africa country, which is ravaged by\u00a0drought.<\/strong><\/p>\n Hussein said Somalia was looking forward to enrolling more Somalis in the training courses organized by Egypt\u2019s Regional Training Center for Water Resources and Irrigation<\/a> and the National Water Research Center.<\/p>\n Somalia is one of the worst affected<\/a>countries by climate change, with erratic rainfall, extreme temperature and prolonged droughts. The country\u2019s average temperatures are some of the hottest in the world, interrupted by brief rainy seasons. The Somali economy is predominantly agricultural.<\/p>\n Rainfall in Somalia is low, with the annual average ranging from 215 milimeters in the northeastern regions to approximately 550 milimeters in the southern and central regions.<\/p>\n Somali Ambassador to Egypt Elias Sheikh Omar said his country was looking for Arab and African support to deal with its drought crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cSomalia desires\u00a0stronger relations<\/a> with Egypt, particularly in the fields of agriculture\u00a0and fisheries to serve the interests of both the Egyptian and Somali peoples,\u201d the diplomat said on the sidelines of Cairo Water Week.<\/p>\n Abdirahman Ahmed Omar, a Somali researcher in water resources and urban planning, said all rivers and tributaries in Somalia originate in the Ethiopian Highlands. He explained Somalia has\u00a0two major rivers: the Juba and Shabelle, both of which originate in Ethiopia, but “Somalia has much less rainfall than its neighboring countries Ethiopia and Kenya,\u201d making Somalia highly dependent on the rivers for water.<\/p>\n Abbas Sharaki, a professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University, said water projects are a main field of cooperation between Egypt and Somalia.<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe two countries can cooperate on building dams for harvesting rainwater, building wells, establishing modern irrigation networks, establishing laboratories to analyze water quality and forecast rainfall and training Somali engineers in water management, especially modern irrigation methods with a view to developing Somali agriculture,\u201d he told Al-Monitor.<\/p>\n Sharaki said Somalia has a special importance to Egypt\u2019s national security<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSomalia is located in the Horn of Africa, where the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait is the gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal,\u201d he said. \u201cSomalia is also a next-door neighbor to Ethiopia, the main source of the Nile water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Egypt and Sudan are engaged in a decade-long dispute with Ethiopia over its controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam<\/a>\u00a0on the Blue Nile, a main tributary to the Nile River.While Ethiopia sees the GERD as key to economic development, Egypt fears that the hydroelectric dam project will drastically reduce its water share from the Nile River, the country\u2019s only source of fresh water.<\/p>\n Cairo and Khartoum have been pressing for a legally binding agreement on\u00a0the rules for filling and operating the GERD<\/a>, but Addis Ababa has resisted.<\/p>\n Egypt has carried out a series of projects in Africa as part of efforts to expand its influence in the continent and protect Egyptian interests there.<\/p>\n Egypt has carried out a series of projects in Africa as part of efforts to expand its influence in the continent and protect Egyptian interests there, such as a solar energy plant\u00a0\u00a0in Uganda’s Tororo district, a dam in Tanzania’s\u00a0Rufiji Riverand wells in South Sudan.\u00a0The two countries also signed a\u00a0cooperation protocol<\/a>\u00a0to manage flooding\u00a0in South Sudan.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery Egyptian cooperation effort in Africa serves to boost Egypt\u2019s influence on the continent,\u201d Gamal Bayoumi, a former assistant foreign minister, told Al-Monitor.<\/p>\n Source: Al-Monitor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Egypt is in talks with Somalia on water management aid for the drought-stricken country as Cairo builds up its influence in the Horn of Africa. Egypt hosted a Somali delegation led by Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Said Hussein at\u00a0Cairo Water Week, an annual event to discuss policies for\u00a0water-scarce nations on water management and strategic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":407440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-407439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407441,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407439\/revisions\/407441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}